Water Companies
Lee Barron Excerpts(3 days ago)
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Emma Hardy
The hon. Lady is right to point out the record fine that was handed out for not having drinking water at an adequate standard, and I pay tribute to the Drinking Water Inspectorate and the work it has done—it does an incredible job of making sure our drinking water quality is among the best in the world. On ownership, the hon. Lady will have heard me say that we are looking at setting out a transparent process in the White Paper for water companies that wish to transition to a different model.
Lee Barron (Corby and East Northamptonshire) (Lab)
I commend the Minister for coming to the House today to outline the various measures that have been taken, but what this says to me is that the model is fundamentally broken. We need a new model, one that puts people before profits, because people should no longer accept that the public always pay the bills and the shareholder always takes the profit. The issue with water is that we have privatised the profit and nationalised the debt. Bearing that in mind, does the Minister agree that the change people want is a Government who take the right and radical approach and bring our water back into public ownership so that it serves the people, and to stop shareholders being paid a dividend for failure on what is a natural monopoly and a basic human right?
Emma Hardy
My hon. Friend is right to be angry at the service that many customers have faced for years, and at the broken model we have had for a very long time. We need a fundamental reset—we have already made a huge number of changes since coming into government, and we as the Labour party should be proud of all those changes. As I have mentioned, we are looking at a transparent process for whether requests to move to a new model should go ahead, but that is for models such as not-for-profit.
Waste Incinerators
Lee Barron Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Lee Barron (Corby and East Northamptonshire) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell.
I want to raise the issue of an incinerator that has received planning permission on Shelton Road in Corby. I believe that, at best, the planning system is being exploited —without a shadow of a doubt, it is being played.
Corby is a growing new town. The site I will refer to is on an ex-ironside site with a sludge lagoon. The planning permission for the Corby incinerator was applied for in 2013 and granted on 7 February 2014—more than a decade ago. The only public consultation lasted for 20 days, and one single notice was placed in the Northamptonshire Telegraph, so most residents had no idea about the incinerator.
DEFRA’s temporary pause on issuing permits ended on 24 May 2024, and the Environment Agency permit for the incinerator was granted just 11 days later. No community funds—section 106 money—have ever been raised from the project. Planning permission has not expired, despite the fact that it is more than a decade old, because work has started on the site—basically, a pathway has been built, but the site itself has not yet been built out. That leaves residents uncertain about the future.
The planning permission was initially granted because the site was on the outskirts of Corby, but there has been expansion ever since, which has not been taken into consideration. The site is no longer on the outskirts of Corby; it is in the heart of a community, right next to local businesses and thousands of houses. It is 750 metres away from the houses and 1 km away from Priors Hall school and nursery, all of which did not exist when the planning permission was granted.
The traffic impact assessments carried out 10 years ago have not been updated, and even then they estimated that there would be 175 lorries a day carrying waste through Corby. Do Members not think that, after seeing “Toxic Town”, the people of Corby have had enough of lorries with waste being driven up and down its streets? They do not need it anymore.
Ministers have informed us that the Government’s crackdown on incinerators will not apply to proposals with existing planning permission, although the fact remains that waste incineration is the dirtiest form of power generation, so councils must now reconsider. That shows that the waste incineration system is broken. The incinerator in Corby must be reconsidered, and we must have a full review of the planning permission that was given for that site more than a decade ago, given that not one brick has been laid and the local circumstances have changed beyond all recognition. That is the least we can do for the people of Corby.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lee Barron Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. This is sub judice, and the hon. Member should not go into the actual detail of the application before the Court at the moment. Can the Minister say anything? If not, we will have to move on.
Lee Barron (Corby and East Northamptonshire) (Lab)
Mary Creagh
It is not appropriate for me to comment on a specific planning permission case, but I do encourage those developing energy-from-waste facilities, including those that already have permission, to consider the evidence that DEFRA published over the recess, the new standards that we have introduced and the Government’s circular economy opportunities when determining whether their facility is still required.