Oral Answers to Questions

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I am sorry that the hon. Lady fails to understand the terms that she obviously fed to her Back Benchers to ask me about. Food security is a well understood concept. We are talking about feeding the world. We are not talking about food prices in the UK, but food prices in the UK are a very serious issue and not, I think, a matter on which to try to score political points. I am grateful to the various charities which help those who find themselves in difficulties. It is important that we support that in every way we can. I notice that the hon. Lady, with some fanfare, issued a policy review last night, “Feeding the Nation”, which supports virtually all our policies. I give her just one word of advice. If you are going to mention one of our great British cheeses, get the name right: it is single Gloucester, not single Gloucestershire.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

6. What recent progress has been made on reform of the common agricultural policy.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

At the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on 26 June political agreement was reached on the CAP reform regulations. Overall the CAP package does not represent a significant reform, but we substantially improved the Commission’s original proposals and fended off attempts by others to introduce a number of regressive measures. By agreeing to the regulations now, we are able to provide certainty to farmers and paying agencies.

[Mr Robertson]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer and congratulate him on his work at the council. Will he enlighten the House on what those regressive measures were, because my farmers remain very concerned that they will be worse off as a result of some of the changes compared with their continental competitors?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to enlighten the House. It was extraordinary that at a very late stage in negotiations the European Parliament made moves to penalise the most efficient dairy processors and reward the least efficient. There were extraordinary moves as late as last Monday night to introduce coupled payments for tobacco, pigs, poultry and cotton. I think the UK played a part, working closely with our allies, and we saw off a number of other regressive measures, such as double funding. I hope that when the detail is worked out with the representatives of the farming unions, they will see that we stood by British farming and stopped a lot of really bad things coming through this reform.

Flood Insurance

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this very important subject. Does he agree that another factor to consider is the level of excesses that insurance companies charge? If they set the excess at £20,000, the family affected are, in effect, not insured.

[Mr Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend for his timely intervention and I think that he is on point. We need a comprehensive deal covering all aspects of the insurance premium.

Horsemeat (Food Fraud)

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

Unlike the last Government, we have set up a groceries adjudicator, which answers the hon. Gentleman’s first question. On the second one, he will be pleased to hear that at Saturday’s meeting we agreed that retailers would carry out this testing, which will have meaningful results by the end of the week. Further to that, however, I want these results published on a regular basis—every three months.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

May I express my entire confidence in how my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has dealt with this issue? Does it not raise a further point, however, which is that British farmers are handicapped when trying to compete with food producers from countries that not only do not carry out the appropriate checks, but have much lower animal welfare standards than we do?

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend is right. It is a scandal that, despite our egg producers last year conforming to the enriched cages directive, and despite the fact that again this year we were 100% up because we were the first out of the traps to end tethering, some major European countries have still not conformed. I raised that point with Commissioner Borg at our last Council meeting and wrote to him about it last week.

Flooding

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. We want a solution to this conundrum, which is why we have been meeting the ABI regularly and why we are determined to get a good solution. There is no point in rushing into a scheme that will not work. Getting a balance is a difficult conundrum and we are determined to get it right.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. He is well aware of the effects flooding has on my constituency. Is it not time to develop a national strategy to ensure that the culverts, ditches, drains and waterways are regularly maintained and cleared? Is it not also very important to stop building houses in flood risk areas? Will he assure me that no inspector appointed by this Government will force councils such as Tewkesbury to build houses where it is inappropriate to do so?

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right—making sure all those channels are kept clear is part of the management of them. In recent days, we have seen complete and total saturation of the land and no matter how clear some of the channels have been kept, there has been nowhere for the water to go. He is quite right to mention the channels—several Members have raised that point with me—and I will talk to the Environment Agency about it.

Badger Cull

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. In order to do so, I go back to what I said just before the hon. Gentleman intervened, which is that Lord Krebs himself is saying that people are cherry-picking certain aspects to try to get the result they want. If the hon. Gentleman looked at the full set of recommendations from the document instead of those that he cherry-picked, he would see that in fact the vast majority of the evidence is that culling does not make a significant contribution.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

rose—

[Caroline Lucas]

I will not give way; I want to follow what Mr Speaker said and make some progress.

The case against culling on the grounds of efficiency and effectiveness is overwhelming. That approach is also potentially entirely counter-productive. The independent scientific group initially found a decrease in the disease of approximately 23% in the centre of the culled area but an increase of approximately 29% on neighbouring land outside the culled area. Those results can be explained partly by what has been termed the perturbation effect. That has been studied by Professor Rosie Woodroffe of the Zoological Society of London, who has also found that repeated badger culling in the same area is associated with increasing prevalence of the BTB infection in badgers.

The objective of the Government and the NFU is healthy cattle and healthy badgers. I agree with that, but how does culling improve badger health? Professor Woodroffe states unequivocally that it does exactly the opposite and that

“all the evidence shows that culling badgers increases the proportion of badgers that have TB”.

Yet the Government’s approach ignores that evidence. As with the ISG trials, conditions have been imposed to try to limit the effects of perturbation, such as identifying natural barriers to badger movement, but these have generally been less rigorous than those recommended, with farmers essentially being encouraged to develop a “not in my back yard” approach to cattle TB without any real thought for the long-term impact on rates of the disease elsewhere.

Earlier this week, the Secretary of State warned that the cost to the taxpayer of tackling bovine TB will rise to £1 billion over the next decade if the disease is left unchecked. I agree that that is a very alarming prospect. That is why it is crucial that on this, as well as on the scientific evidence, he listens to the experts who, let me remind him, have concluded:

“The financial costs of culling an idealized 150 km² area would exceed the savings achieved through reduced cattle TB, by factors of 2 to 3.5.”

DEFRA has tried to keep the costs down by allowing licensed farmers to do the culling in its planned pilots and allowing for the licences to permit shooting, but by cutting corners in that way it undermines the very effectiveness that it claims for a culling strategy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

Let me make some further progress.

DEFRA cites the EU prohibition on the vaccination of cattle against TB as the reason why studies to date

“cannot provide a definite figure for vaccine efficacy when administered to cattle under field conditions in the UK”.

Vaccinated cows can test positive for TB when using the current tuberculin skin test and the gamma interferon blood test, making it impossible to differentiate an animal that has been vaccinated from one that has the disease. However, a complementary test called the DIVA—differentiate between infected and vaccinated animals— has been developed, which confirms whether a skin test positive result is caused by vaccination or by TB infection. That is what should be validated and certified by the end of the year, according to the DEFRA website. It has the potential to open the door to a change in EU regulation. This Government should go to Europe now—they should have done so years ago—and prepare the policy framework to allow us to use the DIVA test; yet there are precious few signs that DEFRA or, indeed, the Government are pressing aggressively for the legal framework in which a cattle vaccine could be widely deployed. I echo the sentiments of those many Members who earlier this week urged DEFRA to stop hiding behind the excuse of EU law and to step up its efforts to change it.

A 2008 DEFRA paper on options for vaccinating cattle against bovine TB was endorsed by the NFU and concludes that

“BCG based vaccines will need to be used in conjunction with a DIVA test and that such a programme of vaccination could be cost-effective.”

It identifies the most significant barriers to use as legal and resultant trade implications. That was three years ago and we really should have made more progress than we have to date.

As the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) has said, biosecurity is a very important issue. Vaccination needs to go hand in hand with excellent biosecurity. According to Professor John Bourne, former chairman of the ISG:

“Despite some improvements, the government is still going nowhere near far enough with biosecurity”.

He went on to say:

“It is not badgers that spread the disease throughout the country; it is cattle”.

The most recent European Commission inspection of England’s biosecurity in September 2011 uncovered a catalogue of failures, including missed targets in the rapid removal of cattle infected with TB and

“weaknesses in disinfection at farm, vehicle, market and slaughterhouse levels”.

A belated crackdown has resulted in a slight improvement, but we need to go much further.

The hon. Gentleman also mentioned Steve Jones, a farmer who is deeply concerned about biosecurity. He says:

“Water troughs are a reservoir for TB because they are rarely cleaned out. It’s not uncommon for trough water to be left stagnating through the winter, collecting dead birds, rodents and various bacteria, only to be drunk by cattle in the spring. Badgers also use these troughs but it’s unfair to isolate badgers when the culprit is the bacteria soup itself. Making troughs badger-proof is not rocket science, but more fundamental is the adoption of better hygiene standards by the agricultural industry.”

Recent DEFRA data indicate that improving biosecurity would cost famers an average of £4,000, compared with £27,000 to deal with the TB herd breakdown. That is why the motion has a very strong focus, alongside its other measures, on comprehensive national biosecurity policy.

[Mr Laurence Robertson]

It is important to recognise the wider context in Gloucestershire. One of the trials was going to take place in my constituency and farmers are very disappointed that it cannot go ahead for the moment. One of the first ministerial meetings that I had in this House 15 years ago was with the then Agriculture Minister, Jeff Rooker, and nothing has happened since. Does the hon. Lady not understand the frustration of farmers, including those in Gloucestershire? Does she not accept that, as the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) has said, the British Veterinary Association says that the disease is being spread by badgers and that a trial cull is necessary?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Adrian Sanders (Torbay) (LD)]

In some ways it is disappointing that we have got to this point without finding a proper solution to TB. Successive Governments prevaricated over policy, and we are left in a tragic situation, where cattle and badgers continue to suffer and where farmers continue to have their livelihoods threatened by this disease. No one should be under any illusions whatever about what a nasty disease TB is, for both cattle and badgers, or how devastating it is to farmers and farming communities.

I thought that governmental prevarication had ended in 2008, with the recognition that culling was not the solution and that vaccination would provide a much surer way forward in the long term. The coalition agreement originally provided some comfort that TB control would be based on science-led policy. The apparent willingness of Ministers to take a rather curious interpretation of the scientific evidence is far more worrying. The independent scientific group, the bovine TB eradication group and the majority of scientific opinion conclude that culling is not the way forward. Lord Krebs has described the Government’s policy as “mindless”, so it is even more curious that the Secretary of State maintains that his decisions wholly conform to the science. They might conform to someone’s science; they do not conform to the majority of scientific opinion.

[Mr Laurence Robertson]

Would the hon. Gentleman like to refer to the British Veterinary Association’s opinion as well?

[Mr Sanders]

There is scientific opinion on both sides; the nub of the debate is that the majority of scientific opinion is against the cull.

Although Ministers and the National Farmers Union are clear that what has been announced is a postponement and not a U-turn on policy, the delay gives us an opportunity to scrutinise the evidence properly and to hold a wider public debate. I hope that that is beginning today. It is important to highlight the fact that opponents of the cull are not opposed to bearing down on TB. The ultimate goal for us all is to have better animal welfare—both of cattle and badgers—so it is essential that we find the most effective policy that eradicates the disease. I want to discuss the three main issues that demonstrate why the cull of badgers is the wrong way to deal with the spread of bovine TB: the scientific evidence, value for money and, of course, the overwhelming public opinion that a cull is an inhumane and unnecessary option.

Flood and Water Management

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) on securing the debate. I also congratulate her and her Committee on producing such a comprehensive report. As Chairman of a Select Committee myself, I know how much work goes into reports.

My hon. Friend spoke about the devastation that the floods caused in 2007. In June that year, my Tewkesbury constituency was badly flooded, but that was nothing compared with what came a month later, in July, when the area was absolutely devastated—although, paradoxically, many thousands of people lost their water supplies. Tragically, three people lost their lives and many people lived for well over a year in caravans as a result of the flooding. Some have struggled to get any insurance at all, even when flooding was excluded from the policy. That is how bad things have got. This is an extremely important issue.

As time is limited, I will touch on just one issue, which links in with the DCLG. The Department obviously has a big role to play in the new planning proposals, particularly in areas affected by flooding. The report mentions this in paragraphs 47, 48 and 49, under the heading, “Planning to Mitigate Flood Risk.” We cannot completely remove flood risk. If it rains as heavily as it did on 20 July 2007, we will have flooding. My constituents who live where two main rivers meet and several other rivers run understand that. The point is that where possible, we should not make matters worse—indeed, as the report says, we should do whatever we can to mitigate flooding.

Looking at the proposals that are emerging—I accept that they are from another Department, but I am sure that DEFRA has had its say in them—we see welcome recognition of the problems caused by water displacement. In other words, it is recognised that not only could new houses flood, but their being built could cause other houses to flood. That seems to be a new development. I have struggled to get that message across to Parliament, the Government, the Environment Agency and anybody else: the problem is not only new buildings, but the trouble that they may cause for other people.

The big word in the new planning proposals is “sustainable”. As far as I can read, that means that this generation should not make matters worse for the next. We could take that further and say that, within this generation, somebody who lives in village X should not make life worse for somebody who lives in village Y. Basically, it is about thinking about other people, which I am very pleased about. If we adhere to that then surely we should not have too much development in flood-risk areas.

In the new planning proposals, I am pleased to see recognition of the problem of building in flood-risk areas. Paragraph 149 says that we should

“avoid inappropriate development in areas at risk of flooding by directing development away from areas at highest risk… or where development is necessary, making it safe without increasing flood risk elsewhere”.

That prompts the question: what is necessary? Although that comes down to business assessments, housing projection assessments and site-specific assessments, it worries me that we have a sequential test and an exceptional test. That is nothing new—it was in planning policy statement 25, and it has probably been strengthened in the new planning proposals. None the less, I am still worried about who is making the assessments. It certainly is not the people who have to live in the houses who might be flooded or those who might be flooded as a consequence of new houses being built.

The Environment Agency will play a big role in that, which is a cause of concern. I have been a critic of the agency for many years, and with good reason, although I will not go into that now. Over the years, the Environment Agency has improved—I do not doubt that at all—but more work needs to be done to define its role more closely and more accurately, to enable us to assess whether it actually has the powers that it needs, to assess the work that it does and to see how effective that work is. I know of a planning application in my area where the land flooded but the Environment Agency said that that land was okay to build on. It has also said that where water rests perhaps just below the surface, that land is okay to build on. I do not accept that—I do not accept that analysis at all.

We have a bit of work to do in relation to the Environment Agency and I urge the Minister to speak to his colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government to ascertain what we are talking about when we say that building in flood-risk areas is “necessary”; I am sure that he does so already regularly. We must examine what is “necessary” much more carefully. I recognise that the draft national planning framework is, to an extent, strengthening flood defences, but we need to go a lot further than that. I want to stress that—it is the central point that I wanted to make.

When I say how important it is to build in the right places, I remind Members of the iconic picture of Tewkesbury abbey surrounded by water. I have even spoken to people in Australia who saw that picture; everybody who has seen it remembers it. The words “surrounded by water” are very important because Tewkesbury abbey, which was built at the end of the 11th century, did not actually flood. Deerhurst priory, which is just down the road from Tewkesbury abbey, was built in about the 7th century. Although it is located in a village that flooded, Deerhurst priory itself did not flood. The point that I am making is that in those days people knew how to build and where to build. That is an extremely important point. Everybody recognises that we need growth in the economy, new jobs, new businesses and new houses, but the question is, “Where do they go?” That is the central point that I am making today.

I want to mention a couple of other issues. As has been mentioned already, we need to ensure that all the ditches, drains, culverts and sewers are properly maintained and repaired. We had an incident in my area where two culverts were never joined up and further down the road there was also a broken culvert. Houses flooded on that road for the first time ever, to my knowledge, in June 2007, but then flooded again in July 2007. That is an example of what happens when maintenance is not carried out. Another estate was built up a hill—the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) referred to building at the top of a hill and how it is obvious that the water will run down the hill. The same thing happened in the village in my area where the estate was built, yet we now face the possibility in that very village of more houses being built, which could cause even more problems. The village that I am referring to is Prestbury, which I am working very hard to try to protect.

We must ensure that all the waterways are cleared and maintained. That work will not prevent flooding if we get the kind of rainfall that we had on that day in July 2007, but it will help. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) mentioned, we also need to ensure that any flood prevention schemes that are implemented—we are getting some in my area and they are very welcome—are well designed and actually work.

If we do all those things, if we are sensible about those things and if we apply common sense, we will not prevent all the flooding—I have already said that—but we will certainly convince our constituents that we are taking sensible decisions and that we are doing everything we can to mitigate the worst effects of flooding.

Oral Answers to Questions

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

I can tell the hon. Lady that we have of course read very carefully all the Pitt review recommendations, including that one. I should like to acknowledge the very important role that fire and rescue service authorities play in the face of any flooding incident. In fact, those authorities have not told us of a single case of their being constrained in their response by a lack of powers. The question of the need for a statutory responsibility will be tested in an exercise next year. The option of a statutory duty has certainly not been ruled out.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

Sir Michael Pitt himself, however, admitted that his advice with regard to building in flood-risk areas was compromised by the fact that the previous Government had a very high national house building target. Now that that target, and indeed regional targets, has been removed, is it not time to revisit the planning guidance on building in flood risk areas, so that constituencies such as mine will be better protected in future than they were in the past?

[Mrs Spelman]

The Department for Communities and Local Government has started a review of the building regulations regime, and my Department will work with it to consider how that review can support Pitt recommendation 11, being mindful of the Government’s aim to reduce the overall regulatory burden.