Oral Answers to Questions

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

My hon. Friend will be aware that the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), and the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), keep telling farmers that they are not in it for the money. We know that they are. They are businesses that need to make a profit, and our new deal for farmers, which includes increasing supply chain fairness, is intended to make farms profitable and successful for the future in the way they were not under the previous Government.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Dr Neil Hudson (Epping Forest) (Con)]

The autumn Budget put family farms in jeopardy. Those farms also need biosecurity to protect their futures. With avian influenza spreading, bluetongue still with us and African swine fever at our doorstep in Europe, biosecurity is national security. Central to that is the Animal and Plant Health Agency, whose headquarters in Weybridge needs a £2.8 billion redevelopment to protect farming and animal, plant and public health. The Conservative Government rightly started that work with £1.2 billion committed in 2020. I note that Labour has committed £200 million to support that transformation, but that will not touch the sides. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the Government will complete the project in full, as the Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs called for in opposition, and commit the remaining £1.4 billion to protect our nation’s biosecurity and prevent an animal disease outbreak catastrophe?

[Steve Reed]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who raises an important point. However, I find it a little ironic that Conservative Members are calling for this Government to commit to spending that their Government never committed to. The Weybridge biosecurity facility is so dilapidated that it faces obsolescence by the early 2030s—that is the legacy that the Conservatives left. The £208 million that we have committed will start the process of improving those facilities, and through the spending review phase coming forward, we will consider how we can commit further funding to ensure biosecurity for farmers, which the Conservatives absolutely failed to do.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Merry Christmas to you, Mr Speaker, and to all here and beyond.

Farmers in my communities and across the country are genuinely devastated by the Government’s family farm tax, which will affect many in my patch who are on less than the minimum wage, and by the 76% cut in the basic payment next year. Perhaps what dismays farmers across our country and in Westmorland even more is that the overall agricultural policy of this Government and their Conservative predecessors is to actively disincentivise farmers from producing food, despite the fact that this country produces only 55% of the food we need. That is a dereliction of duty by both main parties, and a threat to national security. What plans does the Secretary of State have to change his policy and back our farmers to produce food?

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[Steve Reed]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising such an important issue, and I recognise that over 40% of pollution in our waterways comes from agricultural run-off. Sir Jon Cunliffe and the commission he is leading will look at all sources of pollution into our water. The budgets for more sustainable forms of agriculture that we have committed to will seek to reduce the use of fertiliser, so that there is less run-off into our water. The farming road map that we are working on with the farming community is also intended to reduce the amount of run-off from agriculture into our waterways, and we are looking at moving to a whole catchment-based model. We are looking at all sources of pollution into water so that we can clean up all of our rivers, lakes and seas, from whatever source the pollution comes.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I take this opportunity to wish you and all in the House a very merry Christmas.

Many customers are rightly concerned about Thames Water and the situation that company finds itself in. For the third time of asking the Secretary of State in this Chamber, will he confirm that he will not issue any regulatory easement to Thames Water in his discussions with that company, so that its environmental obligations and service commitments to its customers will not be reduced?

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[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

I wish a merry Christmas to everyone in the House, and also to everyone in our farming, food, hospitality and water sectors. But not everyone will be able to celebrate Christmas. In recent weeks, a farmer took himself off to a remote part of his farm and killed himself. The message he left his family, who wish to remain anonymous, is that he did this because he feared becoming a financial burden to his family because of changes to inheritance tax. This is the human cost of the figures that the Secretary of State provides so casually. What does the Secretary of State say to that grieving family?

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[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

T2. A farmer in my constituency tells me that even in a good year he is lucky to see much beyond £20,000 in profit. With margins as wafer thin as that, regular farming barely qualifies as investable at all. The risk of losing a huge slice of that farm to inheritance tax at random intervals would not only go to putting this generation out of business, but go a long way towards ensuring that they can never be replaced. Does the Minister agree that this measure—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We need to get our act together. This is the shortest set of topical questions and I will not be able to get many Members in. We have to remember what topicals are always about. I hope you have got the gist of the question, Minister.

[The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Daniel Zeichner)]

The point that farmers need to get a better return from their business is well made, and that is exactly what this Government will be addressing.

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[Daniel Zeichner]

We are absolutely determined to ensure that we see more British produce bought across our public sector. We will come to the House with our plans in due course.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

It would be helpful if the Secretary of State encouraged Sir Jon to engage with parliamentarians across the House. The necessary changes that he has outlined will take time, however. The truth of the matter is that if those who currently have responsibility were to change their culture and focus on outcomes for customers, rather than their own internal processes, we might see earlier improvements.

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[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Presumably it is related to the questions.

[Tim Farron]

It is related to the questions we just had. Thank you for granting the point of order, Mr Speaker. At 7 o’clock this morning, entirely foreseeably, Ofwat announced bill rises of 36% for water bill payers around the country, which is an increase 14 times larger than current inflation. We know that a large proportion of that rise will be spent on paying off the debt of water companies: a debt incurred simply by paying dividends that were unearned and bonuses that were undeserved. Is it in order for the Government to have known that was coming but not to have come to the House to make a statement, which would have allowed us to hold them to account for their failure to ensure that Ofwat has the teeth it needs to hold the water companies to account?

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Member for his point of order. I have received no notification from the Government of such a statement, but he has certainly put his point on the record and I am sure that it will have been heard by those on the Treasury Bench.

The Solicitor General was asked—

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[The Solicitor General (Lucy Rigby)]

Mr Speaker, I will start by taking this opportunity to wish you, your team and Members across the House a very merry Christmas.

Every single victim of knife crime is one too many, and this Christmas there will be some constituents, including my own, facing the heartbreaking reality of a loved one who is no longer with them due to knife crime. That is why, as part of our plan for change, the Government are 100% committed to tackling knife crime.

[Mr Speaker]

I welcome the Solicitor General to the Front Bench.

[David Taylor]

Merry Christmas, Mr Speaker.

I have had reports of people carrying machetes in Livingstone Walk, an area in Grovehill, Hemel Hempstead, with the Dacorum local crime unit investigating one incident of alleged robbery at knifepoint. Knife crime is not our only issue in Hemel; we have the highest rate of antisocial behaviour in the county, and we are the most dangerous town in Hertfordshire. That is a direct result of Conservative Governments taking 20,000 police off our streets nationwide, removing 60p out of every pound from local authority budgets and failing to act on antisocial behaviour. What further steps is the Solicitor General taking to ensure that violent thugs are not allowed to run riot and are brought to justice?

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[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Mr Speaker, I wish you and your team a merry Christmas and a happy new year. I thank you for all your kindness to everyone in this House in the past year. I wish the Solicitor General all the best in her new role.

I share hon. Members’ concerns about knife crime, which is truly horrific. The impact it has on families is great. I have a specific question, so I am happy to receive a written answer. How many under-18s across the United Kingdom in the past 12 months have been: (a) cautioned; (b) charged; and (c) convicted of knife crime offences?

[Mr Speaker]

Good luck with that one!

[The Solicitor General]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for his question. He will appreciate that I do not have those statistics to hand, but I am more than happy to write to him.

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[The Solicitor General]

I can give that assurance. The hon. Gentleman calls this kind of crime low level. I know from experiences in my constituency that these issues can affect daily life and really blight communities, so yes he has my assurance.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

I wish you and your team, Mr Speaker, and everyone in the House a very merry Christmas, and I welcome the Solicitor General to her place. However, I am afraid that it will not be a merry Christmas for all my constituents. Rural crime in North Cornwall is on the rise, from rural theft to increased drug trafficking. County lines drug gangs are grooming and recruiting children as young as nine to traffic drugs, while elderly and vulnerable constituents have been cuckooed in their own homes by the gangs. What steps is the Solicitor General taking to work with the police to increase the number of prosecutions of the ringleaders of these ruthless gangs that blight our communities and expose our young people to violence and crime?

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[The Solicitor General]

I am very sorry to hear of the incident in the right hon. Member’s constituency; that is indeed appalling. It is vital for this type of conduct to be taken seriously, and policing is key to that. We need more police officers and police community support officers, which is why, as part of our plan for change, we have promised to put 13,000 more police officers and PCSOs back on the beat with a named officer for every neighbourhood. We also need to improve the experiences of victims within our criminal justice system, and that includes better communication between victims and the CPS.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)]

Merry Christmas, Mr Speaker. I welcome my hon. Friend to the Front Bench, and congratulate the former Solicitor General, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Sarah Sackman), on her promotion to Minister of State in the Ministry of Justice. It is sometimes difficult to keep up with this Government’s pace.

Given that the Crown court backlog stands at over 73,000 and trials are being listed for 2027, victims are awaiting justice for an unacceptably long time, with the consequence that many no longer feel able to support the process. How is the Solicitor General working, through the CPS, to ensure that victims facing a wait of between two and three years for trials stay the course?

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[The Solicitor General]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. We are strengthening the law and the criminal justice system to improve prosecutions for violence against women and girls, and to better support victims.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister—welcome.

[Helen Grant (Maidstone and Malling) (Con)]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I wish you and the team a very happy Christmas indeed. I congratulate the Solicitor General on her position and welcome her to her place. I hope to work constructively and effectively with her on this challenging and very important part of Government.

As the Solicitor General knows, rape victims need action now, urgently, given that many rape cases take more than two years to come to trial. There has been much talk from Ministers about opening specialist fast-track rape courts, but disappointingly there has been very little detail to date. How will the Government achieve that fast-tracking if they do not use all potential court sitting days, as requested by the Lady Chief Justice but refused by the Lord Chancellor?