Oral Answers to Questions
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(1 week ago)
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Daniel Zeichner
I talk regularly to the National Farmers Union of Scotland. I respect it fully, but I genuinely say, as I have said on many occasions, that we need to look closely at the figures and look at the detail. We will find that the vast majority of farmers in this country will be fine.
Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)
The Minister’s response to my hon. Friend’s question highlights his arrogance on this issue. He constantly keeps saying that we need to look at the detail, yet his Department and the Treasury disagree on how many farms will be impacted by as much as 40%. In fact, as he knows, the figures being repeatedly regurgitated by the Government consider only past claims for agricultural property relief, not those combined with business property relief, which is just as important. Why? Because the Treasury does not have the data. We need comprehensive detail on this policy to properly understand the impacts of his family farm tax. I ask this for a third time in this House: will he release a full impact assessment—yes or no?
Daniel Zeichner
We seem to be discussing this endlessly. The figures on agricultural property relief are absolutely clear. I have kept asking people to look at the detail, because what they will find—listen to the tax experts and the people who have actually looked at the policy in detail—is that fewer than 500 farms will be affected. That is the reassuring message that the Conservatives should be conveying to British farmers.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
Britain’s farmers, who feed us and care for our environment, deserve better than the betrayal they received under the last Conservative Government, and better than the attacks in this Government’s recent Budget. In Cumbria alone some 1,400 family farmers, many of whom live on less than the minimum wage, will be hit by this tax, but the more immediate threat to farming is the Government’s rash decision to cut the basic payment by 76% next year. That will hit livestock farmers, upland farmers and dairy farmers, and destabilise the whole industry. Will the Minister think again?
Daniel Zeichner
We have always been very clear that we will do nothing in trade deals that would undermine this country’s important standards.
Dr Neil Hudson (Epping Forest) (Con)
Food security is national security, and underpinning it are farmers and farmland. Labour’s ill-judged and heartless family farm tax will put all of that in jeopardy: family farms lost; tenant farmers unable to continue farming; communities hollowed out; rural mental health damaged; and precious food-producing land lost to developers or investors. No farms, no food. No farmers, no food. Will the Government please now admit that they have got this catastrophically wrong? Will they do the right thing by reversing this farm tax to protect our country’s food security?
Steve Reed
Vessels are, of course, already required to report marine mammal bycatch. We are looking at implementing remote electronic monitoring on larger vessels to gather better data about fishing activities. We are also working to improve our marine environment by ratifying the biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction agreement, enforcing fishing restrictions in marine protected areas, and ensuring that all catch limits are set sustainably.
Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
I wish His Majesty the King a very happy birthday.
The Chancellor, the Secretary of State and the Food Minister claim that their family farm tax will affect only a quarter of farms, yet after informed questioning by the National Farmers Union, the Country Land and Business Association, the Tenant Farmers Association and Conservative Members, the Minister has now admitted that the Government need to check their figures. Should the cost of the family farm tax to farming families not have been checked before the Budget?
Emma Hardy
It is always a pleasure to work with my hon. Friend, and I know how passionately and well he campaigned for his community during the last floods, and how deeply the situation moved him. Of course I would be more than happy to continue to work with him.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I congratulate the Secretary of State, and indeed the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the achievement of the Budget: in 23 years in this House, I have never seen such a degree of unity among farming organisations in their response to it. One point on which there seems to be no disagreement is that the removal of the ringfence around agricultural payments to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is a bad move. Nobody asked for it. Why did the Government do it, and what do they expect to achieve with it?
The Solicitor General
I thank the hon. Member for his question, and I am sorry to hear about that specific case. I am of course happy to make contact directly with any local chief Crown prosecutors to address that case. More generally, victim transformation work is taking place across both police and CPS, such as investment in victim liaison officers to make sure that there is a single point of contact so that victims are supported right the way through the criminal justice process.
Helen Grant (Maidstone and Malling) (Con)
Thank you very much indeed, Mr Speaker. It is an honour to stand at the Dispatch Box again, albeit on the other side of this great Chamber. I hope to work constructively with the hon. and learned Lady on this challenging and very intricate part of Government.
Violence against women and children is abhorrent and inexcusable. It crushes self-confidence and self-esteem in victims, wrecks families and ruins lives. As someone who was a family lawyer for 23 years before coming to this place, I welcome the Government’s mission to halve violence against women and girls within the next decade. To achieve that important goal, what action are the Government taking on prevention and early intervention, and when will the specialist rape courts be introduced?
Jack Abbott
In 2021, the previous Health Secretary said in relation to covid-19 contracts that
“where a contract is not delivered against, we do not intend to pay taxpayers’ money”.—[Official Report, 23 February 2021; Vol. 689, c. 758.]
Judging from the figures that highlight the enormous scale of covid-19-related fraud, that was little more than a promise made and a promise broken by the previous Government. I am pleased that our Government have made it a priority to recoup as much of that money as possible from scammers who profited at taxpayers’ expense. However, four and a half years on from the first lockdown, my constituents in Ipswich, many of whom sacrificed so much during the pandemic, will be wondering why it has taken this long, and a change of Government, to take the issue as seriously as it deserves. Can the Solicitor General tell the House whether that is down to the previous Government’s incompetence or lack of effort, or whether it is symptomatic of their more general recklessness?
Mr Speaker
Order. One of us has to sit down, and it is not going to be me. That was a very long question; the hon. Gentleman could have shortened it. He might want to apply for an Adjournment debate on the subject, which is obviously very important.
The Solicitor General
My hon. Friend raises an important point. In contrast to the previous Government, this Government are taking action on covid-related fraud. We have heard from the Chancellor that she will be appointing a covid corruption commissioner, who will review and assess all the PPE contracts that were entered into before any are written off. I think I speak on behalf of all our constituents in saying that where money was fraudulently obtained, we want our money back.
The Solicitor General
I cannot comment on any specific cases, but I know from my discussions with the director of the SFO that it is alive to those cross-jurisdictional issues. That is part of the purpose of the additional investment that the Government have provided to the SFO to ensure that its processes, investigations, and case management are as effective and nimble as they can be, including in tackling those cross-jurisdictional issues.
Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)
I welcome the Solicitor General to her place, and I very much look forward to working with her. I echo the comments of others welcoming the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Maidstone and Malling (Helen Grant), to her place. The Solicitors Regulation Authority recently labelled the Legal Services Board’s damning report into the handling of the Axiom Ince fraud as merely an opinion. Can the Solicitor General clarify what mechanisms are in place to ensure that the regulator is properly regulated? What actions are being taken by her Department to prevent similar economic crimes to ensure that all constituents, including mine in North Cornwall—one of whom is in the Gallery today—can have confidence in our legal system?
Budget: Implications for Farming Communities
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(2 weeks, 3 days ago)
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The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Daniel Zeichner)
I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his place—he will make an excellent Chair of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—and thank him for the opportunity to talk about this important issue.
As the Minister for Food Security, I can assure the House that food security is national security. The Government’s commitment to supporting farmers and rural communities is unwavering. We have committed £5 billion in the agricultural budget over the next two years—the biggest ever budget for sustainable food production and nature recovery in our country’s history. We are also releasing £60 million to support farmers whose farms have been devastated by severe flooding, and investing £208 million to protect the nation from potential disease outbreaks that threaten our farming industry, food security and human health.
However, as we are all only too aware, the Conservatives left behind a £22 billion black hole in our nation’s finances—[Interruption.] Yes, you did. And this Government have had to take tough decisions on tax, welfare and spending to fix the foundations and deliver change, including a series of decisions on tax to protect the payslips of working people. That is possible only by making changes to other taxes, such as agricultural property relief, which was previously available to all agricultural property at a rate of 100%. Currently, small farms can find themselves facing the same levels of tax bills as much larger farms, despite having a much smaller asset. Twenty per cent of agricultural property relief is claimed by the top 2%; 40% is claimed by the top 7%. That is not fair, it is not sustainable, and sadly, it has been used in some cases by wealthy landowners to avoid inheritance tax. That is why the Government have announced plans to reform agricultural property relief.
The Secretary of State met National Farmers Union president Tom Bradshaw this morning. We absolutely understand—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Dr Mullan, I heard you before, and I am certainly not putting up with it this time. If you want to leave, do so now, because I want to be able to hear others. Do we understand each other?
Daniel Zeichner
The Secretary of State met Tom Bradshaw this morning. We completely understand farmers’ anxieties about the changes, but rural communities need a better NHS, affordable housing and public transport, and we can provide that if we make the system fairer. The reforms to agricultural property relief mean that farmers can access 100% relief for the first £1 million and 50% relief thereafter—an effective 20% tax rate. That means that an individual can pass up to £2 million, and a couple up to £3 million between them, to a direct descendant, inheritance tax-free. Currently, 73% of agricultural property relief claims—
Mr Speaker
Order. I do not know whether you are aware, Minister, but you only have three minutes. How long will you be now? Are you coming to the end at this minute?
Daniel Zeichner
Seventy-three per cent of agricultural property relief claims are for less than £1 million. The vast majority of farmers will not be affected. They will be able to pass the family farm down to their children just as previous generations have always done. It is a fair and balanced approach that protects family farms while also fixing the public services that those same families rely on. It is part of a Budget that will restore economic stability and begin a decade of national renewal.
Mr Carmichael
I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing this urgent question. I also thank the Minister for his statement, but I fear that it illustrates rather well some of the lack of understanding that has brought us to this point. More than any other industry, farming relies on stability and long-term planning. That is why many people in the industry relied on undertakings given by the Secretary of State when in opposition that the Labour party in government would not change inheritance tax reliefs for farming.
Every farming business is capital-rich but revenue-poor. Those businesses also trade in a market that has been more heavily influenced by government intervention than any other. Agricultural property relief is not a loophole; it has been a deliberate policy of successive Governments for the past 40 years, designed to avoid the sale and break-up of family farms. Is that still a goal to which this Government adhere? As the NFU put it, the Government have seemingly failed to grasp
“that family farms are not just small farms, and that just because a farm is a valuable asset it doesn’t mean those who work it are wealthy.”
As the Minister will be aware, some of the figures he has just given the House have been vigorously challenged over the past few days, particularly the assertion that only one in four British farms will be affected. Will the Minister and his Treasury colleagues publish the data behind those figures? In particular, does the figure that 73% of farms will not be affected rely on the inclusion of very small holdings?
These changes will have a ripple effect across the whole rural community. Will the Government publish their impact assessment for other rural businesses? Can the Minister also explain why the Treasury has removed the ringfence around farm support to be spent in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? That ringfence was introduced after the Bew review. If it needed a review to introduce it, how can it just be abolished now out of the blue?
The Prime Minister has said in the past, and the Minister has repeated today, that food security is national security. Can the Minister point to one measure in this Budget that makes achieving that aim easier, rather than harder?
Daniel Zeichner
I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution. Can I say how much I enjoyed visiting Wales, with the Welsh Minister, very early in my tenure? It was an important sign from this Government that we take farming seriously across the entire United Kingdom.
I share my hon. Friend’s very strong points about the importance of the family farm. What we are doing here is protecting the family farm. I have visited right around the country over the past five years, and on almost every visit, people have told me that they are concerned about people coming from outside—they often say “up London” or “down London”—with a lot of money and buying up local farmland over the heads of local people, not because they care about farming but to use that farmland for tax evasion purposes. This policy can be helpful to family farms and protect them against—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman on the Opposition Front Bench says from a sedentary position that it will not, but it is people from his area who have been telling me about these problems. They repeated them constantly when we were in opposition, and here are a Labour Government doing something about it.
Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)
Mr Speaker,
“losing a farm is not like losing any other business—it can’t come back.”
Those are not my words, but the words of our Prime Minister at the National Farmers Union conference just last year. Over the weekend, we have heard gut-wrenching stories from farmers up and down the nation who feel completely and utterly betrayed by the measures in this Budget. I ask the Minister: why does the Secretary of State continue to say that he is proud of his family farm tax? Does the Minister realise that the vast majority of farming families are not multimillionaires? Most are cash poor and many are struggling to break even. How does the Secretary of State expect farmers, in his words, to do—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Can I just say to the hon. Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington) that I do not need any chuntering? Do we understand?
Robbie Moore
How does the Secretary of State expect farmers to do more with less? Why is he happy to hand our next generation of farmers an impossible tax bill?
Next, the Government claim that small family farmers will be protected, yet the Country Land and Business Association and the NFU have today disputed the Government’s figures. Will the Minister commit to releasing a full assessment of his policy, including an impact on national food security?
While the changes to inheritance tax relief have been gaining the national headlines, there are many other negative impacts on farming businesses from the Budget. Increased national insurance contributions, coupled with a lower national threshold; an accelerated reduction in de-linked payment rates; higher taxes on double-cab pick-up vehicles; new taxes on fertilisers—I could go on, but this all begs the question: does the right hon. Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed) actually know anything about farming at all? More importantly, after the Secretary of State looked British farmers in the eye and specifically promised them that there would be no changes to agricultural property relief, how on earth can farmers believe a single word that his Minister is about to say?
Daniel Zeichner
I am grateful to my hon. Friend because she makes some important points. Ahead of the Budget, there were lots of predictions about what would happen. Of course, what happened is that this Government have protected the farming budget—indeed, raised it—and we are absolutely committed to paying out to farmers the £60 million that they deserve for flooding. That is £60 million, of course, that was not really budgeted for by the Conservatives, as part of their £22 billion black hole. The difference between us and them is that we are taking a responsible approach, which means that farmers can look forward to a stable future, as opposed to the chaos of the last decade.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
Farmers across the United Kingdom are coping with the lingering legacy of betrayal—betrayal from the trade deals that happened under the last Government, which threw them under a bus; and betrayal from the transition from the old payment scheme to the new one, which saw many of them going bust or forced into making business decisions that they would never, ever have chosen. That legacy of betrayal is one that hangs heavy, and it is why farmers in my constituency and elsewhere feel so utterly disappointed by this Government’s Budget last week.
Let us look first at the agricultural property relief changes. There are 1,500 farms in Cumbria and 440 in my constituency affected by this. Has the Minister done an investigation into the number of farmers who are living on less than the minimum wage each year in terms of income, but who have a property that will be affected by these changes, particularly given the 41% decrease in farm incomes under the Conservative Government over the last five years? Will he also assess the impact on tenant farmers? Some 50% of my farmers are tenants and will be affected by the disruption that this change will create. Would it not be wise for him to implement the Rock review of tenant protections before introducing something like this? Will he also look again at the £2.4 billion budget and increase it by £1 billion, just as the Liberal Democrats suggest? If we do not feed ourselves, we are a failing country.
Daniel Zeichner
I see the hon. Gentleman nodding. He is well versed in that; he knows.
Mr Speaker
Order. Can I just say that brevity will be helpful? I believe that everybody has a constituency interest, so I really want to get everyone in. If we can have shorter answers, that would be better. Also, if the Minister looked at me now and again, that would help me hear what is being said.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (North Cotswolds) (Con)
I declare my interests as a farmer.
A 75-year-old farmer emailed me last week and said
“we work long hours, usually alone.”
He said that agriculture
“has one of the highest suicide rates of any industry. There is a great deal of talk these days about mental health and the need to alleviate stress in the workplace, yet”
last week the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for agriculture
“destroyed everything I have ever worked for.”
How would the Minister answer that?
Ashley Dalton (West Lancashire) (Lab)
I spent about 14 months in this place asking the former Government about water management, but I was always on a hiding to nothing. Does my hon. Friend recognise that the farmers in my constituency have a lot of expertise in water management and land management? Will he tell us how the Budget supports farmers to bring that expertise to the fore and work in partnership with us to manage that land and water?
Daniel Zeichner
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The schemes we have in place will help us to work with farmers on those issues—alongside, of course, the payment of the £60 million that the previous Government promised.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
Are the Minister, the Secretary of State and the Chancellor aware that so serious are the consequences of this policy that the heads of farming families in their 80s and 90s are seriously considering committing suicide before it comes into place? [Hon. Members: “Shame!”] Shame on you! [Interruption.]
Daniel Zeichner
I find it hard to respond to a question like that. I spoke earlier about using language carefully, and I would just reiterate that point.
Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)
I have 1,600 farmers in my constituency. Some 432 farms will be affected by this silly idea, not to mention the families, their employees and the shopkeepers who rely on our rural economy. This policy is insensible, irrational and plain wrong in its interpretation of real life in our rural communities. It will be like the highland clearances. Hundreds of years of tradition will be lost to the taxman. Before I ask the Minister to think again, I can say with absolute certainty that the policies of the Conservative and Labour parties have reaffirmed the fact that the Liberal Democrats are the only true champions of farmers and the countryside—
Mr Speaker
Order. Sit down, please. The question was long enough. We do not need to start playing politics around the Chamber.
Daniel Zeichner
I do not recognise those figures. When I look at the figures that the Treasury gave for the number of claims in the last year available, that is very close to the number in the hon. Lady’s own constituency, which seems unlikely to me.
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
South Devon has some of the most expensive land in the country, which makes every farm, regardless of its size, worth a lot of money on paper. One farmer in my constituency said over the weekend:
“We may be land rich but we are cash poor and our children will more than likely have to sell the land and maybe buildings to cover the tax. Without the land, the farm is simply no longer a farm, taking valuable land out of food production.”
The Minister says he values food security, and agricultural property relief gave us that food security. He says—
Daniel Zeichner
I understand the point but, first, much of this can be avoided through proper planning. Secondly, Devon is one of the counties where we most often hear it said that people are coming in and buying up land for the wrong reasons.
Independent Water Commission
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(4 weeks, 1 day ago)
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The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Steve Reed)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to update the House on the action that this Government are taking to fundamentally transform our water industry and clean up our waterways for good.
Fourteen years of Conservative failure have left our water sector in disrepair. The rivers, lakes and seas that we all love have record levels of pollution. Severe droughts are set to leave parts of the country facing significant water shortages by 2050, particularly in the south-east, and water companies forecast that England will need to find an extra 5 billion litres of water a day to fill the gap between supply and demand by that same year. A rising population and the increasing impacts of climate change are putting strain on the water system. Firmer action should have been taken by the previous Government to ensure that money was invested to fix the water and sewerage system. Instead, they allowed that money to be siphoned off for bonuses while our water infrastructure crumbled.
A secure water supply is essential for every home and business throughout the country. It is the foundation of our economy, our communities and our global security. It is essential to life itself. We use water to cool power stations, and it is vital to our electricity supply. We use water to grow the crops that provide the food on our plate, and we use it to supply our leisure industries. Without a resilient water supply, we cannot build the new homes and critical infrastructure that we need to grow the economy.
Concerns about pollution, water shortages, bill increases and the sector’s financial resilience all point to the need for profound change. The water sector needs a complete reset, with a reformed water sector working in partnership with Government to bring in the investment we need. We need a clear long-term plan to ensure that the sector puts customers and the environment first and can attract investment to upgrade our infrastructure. We need a water system fit for the future. We cannot clean up our rivers, lakes and seas overnight, but we have a plan, and the work of change has started.
On 11 July, I made a statement to the House on the agreement that I reached with water companies and Ofwat to ringfence money earmarked for investment in water infrastructure so that it can no longer be diverted for shareholder payouts and undeserved bonus payments. On 9 September, we introduced the Water (Special Measures) Bill, which sets out new measures, including measures strengthening regulation to ensure that water bosses face personal criminal liability for serious and repeated lawbreaking; giving the water regulator new powers to ban the payment of bonuses if environmental standards are not met; and boosting accountability for water executives through a new code of conduct. Today, I am pleased to announce the third stage of our plan.
Together with the Welsh Government, we are launching an independent commission that will lead the biggest review of the water industry since privatisation 35 years ago. The commission will ensure that we have the robust regulatory framework that we need to attract the significant investment that is required to clean up our waterways, build new infrastructure to address water scarcity, and restore public confidence in the sector. I am delighted that it will be led by the former deputy governor of the Bank of England, Sir Jon Cunliffe, who has decades of economic and regulatory experience. Sir Jon will be supported by an advisory group of experts covering areas such as the environment, public health, engineering, customers, investors and economics. He will seek advice from wider groups of stakeholders including environmental campaigners, consumer champions, water companies, regulators and the public at large.
The commission will conduct a root-and-branch review of the water sector’s regulatory system. It will cover the water industry in England and Wales and the strategic planning framework under the water framework directive and river basin management plans to ensure that strategic water planning across sectors is effective at catchment, regional and national scales. Where housing, planning, agriculture and drainage interlink with strategic planning across the water system, they are also in scope.
The commission will set a new framework for the future. It will not make recommendations that affect the current price review ’24 process, in order to ensure that there is a stable climate for investment as that process concludes. It will be pragmatic and will focus on reforms that improve the privatised regulatory model. Nationalisation of the water sector will not be in scope, because of the high costs of buying out the current owners, lack of evidence that it would lead to improvements, and the long delays that it would cause in the process of cleaning up polluted water and serving customers better.
The commission will make recommendations in the first half of 2025, reporting to me as Environment Secretary and to the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs in Wales. Once it has made its recommendations, the UK and Welsh Governments will respond and consult on proposals, including subsequent legislation. Further details of the commission’s scope, delivery, approach and timelines are set out in its terms of reference, which will be available on gov.uk today.
This Government will deliver an ambitious, long-term and collaborative approach to reforming the water sector, creating a strong new partnership between Government, water companies, customers, investors and all those who work to protect our precious environment. The commission will set the groundwork for the reformed water sector that we want to see. I thank Sir Jon for leading this important work.
This is our opportunity to ensure that our children, and their children, have the chance to create memories that will last a lifetime—to splash about at the seaside, row on our rivers or enjoy a picnic on the lake shore. This is our opportunity to inject billions of pounds into the economy and to power UK growth by attracting global investment into a transformed water sector. This is our opportunity to clean up our water once and for all.
Steve Reed
I thank my hon. Friend for her comments. Unfortunately, customers have been left to pay the price of 14 years of Conservative failure to secure investment in our water infrastructure, so it has collapsed to such an extent that Ofwat now recommends eye-watering bill increases. Every penny of that is down to the failure of the Conservative party. Our reset will ensure that that kind of catastrophic failure can never happen again.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. To a large degree, I welcome it—or at least the intention behind it—but water companies dumped 54% more sewage into our lakes, rivers and coastal areas in 2023 than in the previous year. That amounts to 464,000 spills, including many in the lakes and rivers of Westmorland. My constituency is the most beautiful part of England and also the wettest, so water is deeply personal to us.
Does the Secretary of State understand my worry that we might have gone from having a Conservative Government who would not face up to this outrage or tackle it, to having a new Labour Administration who have acknowledged this outrage and decisively resolved to have a jolly good think about it? While Thames Water crumbles as we speak and water companies seek bill increases of 40%, despite such poor performance across the country, does he really think that having a commission is necessary, given the urgent need for action? We have a fragmented, under-resourced and under-powered regulatory system, which allows powerful water companies to play regulators off against each other while our constituents pay the price. Is the solution not obvious? As the Liberal Democrats propose, we should create a new, unified and far more powerful clean water authority.
Does the Secretary of State share my deep concern that the current regulator has to give 25 years’ notice in order to strip a water company of its licence for environmental failure? Will he ensure that this ludicrous protection for failing companies should be replaced by a six-month period of notice instead? We are already more than 5% of the way through this Parliament, and this issue is one of our constituents’ most pressing concerns. Do we have to drag our heels like this?
Steve Reed
My hon. Friend alludes to an important point. Rivers and water catchments are no respecters of boundaries, and it is important that we have a model that works within catchments, including where they cross boundaries, as they do in some cases between England and Wales. The review has been jointly commissioned by the UK and Welsh Governments, and it will jointly report to both Governments. It will seek a better model for structuring and supporting our water sector, so that we can ensure that we clean up all our rivers, all our lakes and all our seas; so that the public can get back to enjoying them; and so that we can bring in the investment to support the infrastructure, which will be delivered at pace, to drive economic growth in every single part of the United Kingdom.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The Secretary of State is quite right to point to the role of the payment of bonuses and dividends in bringing us to this point, but he must surely acknowledge that that is far from being the whole story. There are a number of business and accounting practices in companies such as Thames Water that have brought us to the stage we are at today. If he is serious about having a water system that is fit for the future, he has to understand properly what has gone on before. Will he therefore confirm that the commission will be properly resourced with the necessary forensic accounting resource, so that those who have been responsible for the most egregious practices in the past and who now seem to be appearing in other water companies around the country will not be allowed to do the same thing there?
Steve Reed
My hon. Friend is a powerful campaigner for cleaner water. In fact, it is hard to think of anybody who has campaigned harder on the issue. The commission will seek to engage the public at large, as well as a wider group of stakeholders who will be represented on an advisory group, which will include a customer voice. Once the commission has reported, the Government will consult on those findings and that will inform the subsequent legislation that will reset this sector once and for all.
Mr Speaker
Order. I say gently to the Secretary of State that I am here and he should be speaking through the Chair, not to the Member, as he has done for the last two questions. We can work together to get everybody looking the right way. I call Sir Gavin Williamson to set a good example.
Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)
In my constituency we have beautiful rivers, including the great and mighty River Trent and the River Penk. Over the last few years, as more transparent data has become available, we have been able to see the number of sewage discharges going into those rivers. Will the Secretary of State promise the House that looking at how we can reduce sewage discharges into the Trent and the Penk will be at the heart of what the commission does?
Oral Answers to Questions
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Mary Creagh
I believe a cow was very interested in the hon. Lady’s coat on one of her recent visits—I hope both the cow and the coat have recovered.
We encourage all farmers to apply for the sustainable farm initiative, and we are actively looking at how we can achieve stability going forward.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to see my hon. and right hon. Friends in their places on the Front Bench.
The environmental land management scheme approach was a really innovative idea from the previous Government, but its implementation has been a shambles and it is leaving far too many farmers desperately worried about their future. Can my hon. Friend tell me any more about what the Government have inherited and the urgent steps that they will take to support Britain’s farmers to farm in a more natural way in the future?
Mary Creagh
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his election to Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee—obviously the finest Committee in Parliament, of which I have very fond memories. He is right, and he will know that this Labour Government are addressing the £22 billion hole in the public finances. No decisions on the farming budget have been taken. Spending on the Department’s priorities will be confirmed as part of the spending review, but we will not be overturning the apple cart and we are fully committed to environmental land management schemes.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Arguably, and in the view of some of us, ours is the finest Select Committee in the House.
The problems with the uptake of ELMS have been at the heart of a significant departmental underspend. No fair-minded individual would blame the current Government for that, but if that money disappears back into the Treasury, never to be seen again on farms, that blame will be attached to the current Government. In opposition, they said that any underspend should be rolled over into future years. Is that still their position in government, and how will they do it?
Emma Hardy
Those sound like wonderful farms to visit—I might even be tempted to pop in and see them myself. Our farming Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), has done an incredible job, going up and down the country visiting many farmers and talking to stakeholders. As I am sure the hon. Lady will understand, anything involving the Budget is part of the spending review process, and answers will be given in due course.
Steve Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Both in that answer and in the earlier answer from the environment Minister, the hon. Member for Coventry East (Mary Creagh), the House has heard Government Front Benchers say that no decision has been taken on the farming budget. However, media reports say that the Chancellor has decided to cut the farming budget by £100 million, as she prioritises her trade union paymasters over farmers. In these first DEFRA questions of the new Parliament will the Minister rule out cuts to the farming budget? Farmers are watching these questions, and need to be able to plan their business and have confidence that the budget will be maintained.
Steve Reed
I congratulate the hon. Member on winning her seat in the general election and taking her place. I will certainly make sure that the relevant Minister is able to meet her to discuss that issue in more detail. I am very pleased that the first meeting of our new flood resilience taskforce will be later today. The intention of that organisation is to ensure much better co-ordination between Whitehall at the centre, where the resources are held, and the agencies on the frontline that need to be taking appropriate action as quickly as possible to protect communities, businesses, farms and all of the rest of the people who can be affected by flooding, particularly given that we are seeing more frequent severe weather incidents because of climate change.
Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)
Sound management of water companies is of course vital if customers are to receive the high level of service they expect and environmental performance obligations are to be strictly adhered to. Some water companies are better managed than others, so will the Secretary of State guarantee that in his efforts to hold water companies to account, no offer of a regulatory easement will be provided—in other words, no permission to lower standards, relax environmental permits or reduce agreed levels of investment will be provided to any water company, no matter their financial circumstances, by the Government or the regulator?
Steve Reed
I will be announcing later this autumn—in just a few weeks’ time—a review of the entire water sector, including regulation. In particular, I want to make sure that regulation is as tough as possible to ensure that the practices and, frankly, the abuses that were going on can no longer happen. Part of that will be complete transparency about what is going on—on the part of the water companies, and also, I have to say, on the part of Government. It was very disappointing that, when he was a Minister, the hon. Gentleman tried to cover up the extent of sewage spills before the election, telling Environment Agency officials not to put the key figures on the front page of its environmental portal.
Mr Speaker
Order. Saying that the hon. Member “tried to cover up” is suggesting that a Member is lying, and I do not—
Steve Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker
The right hon. Member cannot raise a point of order now. He has been here long enough to know that they come at the end of questions. [Interruption.] Order. I am dealing with this. We really have to reflect on what we say about other Members in this House, and I would like the Secretary of State to withdraw what he has suggested.
Steve Reed
I withdraw that comment. Perhaps I should have said that the shadow Minister could have been more open and transparent. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I am not going to open up that question. We will now have the second question from Robbie Moore.
Robbie Moore
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
So there we have it: the Secretary of State’s first outing at the Dispatch Box, and he was not able to clearly answer the question I asked. Will the Secretary of State confirm that, in fulfilling his obligation to hold water companies to account, he will not issue regulatory easements, no matter their financial circumstances? Will he answer that question clearly right now from the Dispatch Box?
Steve Reed
My hon. Friend raises an important point. Opposition Members are asking me today about budget decisions that they know cannot be announced before the Budget, when presumably they are aware—because the statement has been laid—that they underspent the previous budget to the tune of £130 million. It is not that they were not warned about this either, because while we were in opposition we were making points, as were farmers, about underspends and the desperate need to get that money back out to the farmers who needed access to it. We will review the situation, find out exactly what went wrong and publish that information as soon as it is available.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
Somerset is home to 8,500 farmers and food producers, which is more than any other county in the UK. They are worried that the £130 million of support will be stripped from them because the previous Government replaced the basic payment scheme with systems that were too complicated for many farmers to access. Notwithstanding the previous comments, will the Secretary of State confirm that he will not be slashing their funding, and give farmers the confidence that they need to be able to invest in the future and secure the nation’s food security?
Emma Hardy
I thank the hon. Lady—dare I say, my hon. Friend—for her question. Yes, it is good to remind ourselves that this is the time of harvest, when we should all be grateful and give thanks. In answer to her question, as a previous Chair of the Treasury Committee she knows that we cannot make comments on the Budget before it comes through. Like the Secretary of State, I do not wish to be in trouble with the Chancellor either.
Mike Amesbury (Runcorn and Helsby) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Last week, I met farmers in the Frodsham part of my constituency who were asking for support to curtail the industrial thefts of GPS systems. Will the Minister meet me to discuss that, with representatives of the National Farmers Union?
Steve Reed
Many of those issues are devolved to the Scottish Government. I have already held meetings with the Scottish Agriculture Minister and we are due to meet again next week, and I will be making sure that we have a strong working relationship.
Where the UK Government have a role in particular is with trade deals. Many British producers were upset that because the previous Government erected barriers to trade when they were told that they would continue to get open access to the European markets, they could no longer continue to sell their great British produce into those markets, damaging them economically and financially. We will be seeking a new veterinary deal with the European Union to get those exports moving again.
Mr Speaker
I remind those on the Front Bench that it is topical questions, so questions and answers have to be short and punchy. The thing is, I have to try to get in as many as I can. Let us see a good example of that with the shadow Secretary of State.
Steve Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State has repeatedly talked tough with the water companies, yet the Water (Special Measures) Bill that he announced actually weakens a number of measures, such as the automatic fines for category 1 and 2 prosecutions, and removes the unlimited penalties that would apply. He said that the review of water regulation would strengthen requirements on water firms; will he therefore confirm to the House that there will be no regulatory easements as part of that review?
The Solicitor General
Decisions to prosecute, convict and sentence are rightly made independently of Government by the Crown Prosecution Service, juries and judges respectively. As I have already said, if someone wants to appeal an unduly excessive sentence, they can do so and our courts are there to handle that matter.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
The Government have pledged to undertake a review of sentencing generally. I wonder whether I can tempt the Solicitor General to support a wider review of aspects of the criminal justice system that do not seem to be working, in particular the role of the Criminal Cases Review Commission and the CPS in dealing with potential miscarriages of justice. This week, Oliver Campbell’s conviction for murder was quashed by the Court of Appeal as unsafe. The Criminal Cases Review Commission was asked to look at the case in 2005. The CPS resisted the appeal and asked for a retrial after 33 years.
The Solicitor General
First, I welcome my hon. Friend and congratulate him on his election as Chair of the Justice Committee. He is right that we will be undertaking a review of sentencing. On miscarriages of justice, we will want to work with him to look into that further. I am happy to meet him to discuss such matters.
Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
May I first warmly welcome the Solicitor General to her place, and the Attorney General to his place in the other place, in what the Solicitor General will already know is one of the most interesting and challenging parts of government? While I am at it, I should of course also welcome the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) as the new Chair of the Justice Committee. May I also take the opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa), the shadow Solicitor General, on the responsibilities he will shortly take up on behalf of the whole House, which he will do brilliantly after an all-too-short career on the Opposition Front Bench?
I do not know for how long the Solicitor General and I will have these exchanges over the Dispatch Boxes, but I am glad to be able to start on a note of consensus. I agree with her that it would not be appropriate to extend the unduly lenient sentence scheme to cover unduly severe sentences, for which, as she says, appeal is already available, but she will agree that the scheme is always capable of improvement. It is currently wholly reactive, responding to requests from others for sentences to be reviewed. May I ask the Solicitor General to consider the merits of her Department, and indeed the Ministry of Justice—I see that the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the hon. Member for Swindon South (Heidi Alexander), is sitting beside her—monitoring sentencing more proactively, in particular for newly created offences, so that we can all have confidence that, particularly in relation to those offences, sentences are being passed within anticipated ranges?
The Solicitor General
It is vital that we place victims at the centre of our justice system, which is why this Government are looking to strengthen the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner. As we announced in the King’s Speech, the victims, courts and public protection Bill will strengthen those powers to improve accountability and ensure that victims’ voices are centred and heard from start to finish throughout the criminal justice process.
Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)
May I, too, welcome the Solicitor General not just to the House, but to her place? I thank the shadow Attorney General for his warm words and for the good nature of yesterday’s election.
Only a few weeks ago, the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing issued a joint national policing statement on violence against women and girls, which said:
“We are transforming the way police officers investigate rape and serious sexual offences and over the last year we have trained over 4,500 new officers in investigating this complex crime.”
The Solicitor General does not have direct responsibility for policing services, but she did say that she would be working with her Home Office and Ministry of Justice colleagues, so can she confirm that those 4,500 newly trained officers, who were trained under the previous Conservative Government, will dedicate the majority of their policing activities to working on cases exclusively involving violence against women and girls?
The Solicitor General
I echo other hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Gentleman. As we have said, the mission to halve violence against women and girls within the next decade is a central priority for the Government. One aspect of that will be cross-departmental working between the Attorney General’s office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, as well as with other departmental colleagues. It is an absolute priority and at the moment—in the earliest stages—we are looking at exactly how we will do that. It is right that those priorities are communicated to every branch of the criminal justice system, including policing, the Crown Prosecution Service and other agencies involved.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
Just one in 83 rape offences recorded by Avon and Somerset Police last year resulted in a charge or court summons. Compared with other police forces in the south-west, that represents a significant increase in 2023-24 for rape and sexual offence crimes. Does the Solicitor General agree that more needs to be done to strengthen the justice system as a whole to properly deal with sexual violence and domestic abuse, not just in Avon and Somerset but across England and Wales?
South West Water: Brixham Contamination
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(6 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
We now come to the urgent question. I will run this short: the question for the water company is about those who are affected, not other parts of the UK—so just for clarification, it is a tight UQ.
Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to make a statement on South West Water and Brixham’s contamination.
Steve Barclay
My hon. Friend is quite right to express the huge local concerns. He and I have spoken multiple times a day since this issue arose, and he has been extremely effective in raising the concerns of those he represents.
There is recognition that the initial comms, the mishap with some of the leaflets and the comms about compensation are all areas that South West Water will address moving forward, having sought to take his feedback. He is right about the urgency in addressing the Hillhead reservoir for the remaining 15% of the population. That is certainly uppermost in my conversations with the relevant stakeholders.
With regard to an investigation, issues with drinking water are treated with the utmost seriousness within Government, so I can assure my hon. Friend that these issues will be looked at extremely closely. I spoke with the chief executive of the Drinking Water Inspectorate at the weekend, and I had a meeting with one of its senior leaders just before this UQ. I can assure my hon. Friend that there will be a thorough investigation, as there always is with these kinds of issues, and I urge all parties, including South West Water, to co-operate fully and in a timely fashion.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Another day, another example of the depths of failure to which this Government have taken us. I cannot believe that I am about to say this, but after 14 long years of Conservative rule, in 21st-century Britain, our water is no longer safe to drink. Of course, the Government will be flailing around, desperate to clasp on to somebody else to blame, but this crisis is theirs, and it is this Government who must show some leadership and take responsibility for it. They were the ones who weakened regulation, leaving our Victorian-era sewerage system starved of investment. They turned a blind eye and left water companies to illegally pump a tidal wave of raw sewage into our rivers, lakes and seas. Only last month, the Labour party warned that our nation’s health is at risk because hospital admissions for waterborne diseases have skyrocketed by two thirds since 2020. Is this an example of the Government’s plan working? Is this what they think success looks like?
And now this, as the icing on the cake of failure: a parasite outbreak in Brixham with South West Water. Some 16,000 homes and businesses have been advised to boil water before drinking it; over 46 cases of cryptosporidiosis have been reported; more than 100 people have reported symptoms; and a 13-year-old boy has been admitted to hospital. That is appalling.
Enough is enough, so today we are calling on the Government to urgently adopt Labour’s plan to put the water companies into special measures in order to clean up their water. As a matter of utmost urgency, the Government must strengthen regulations so that law-breaking bosses face criminal charges, and go further by giving the regulator new powers to block the payment of bonuses until water bosses have cleaned up their filth. With Labour, the polluter will pay, not the public.
I have one question for the Secretary of State. With contaminated water hospitalising children and record levels of toxic filth in our water systems, how much worse does the situation have to get before the Government adopt Labour’s plan to put the water industry into special measures?
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
In 2022, the Drinking Water Inspectorate found South West Water guilty, saying that the company
“did not follow best practice”
to avoid and shorten events where customers report problems about the taste and quality of their drinking water. It was fined a quarter of a million pounds. It was found guilty the year after for a six-year period of illegal discharges of sewage. The CEO awarded themselves almost £2 million in bonuses and awarded £112 million in dividends. Is it not time that all bonuses, all dividends and all bill rises are suspended until our water companies sort themselves out? If they do not, they need special administration.
Mr Speaker
May I remind Members that when they are asking a question or speaking, they are meant to look at the Chair, not at somebody down at the bottom of the Chamber, because we might be unable to hear what is being said?
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
It is because of the good work of the hon. Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) that I was able to ask that question.
Mr Speaker
In the end, the good work of the hon. Member for Totnes was only allowed by the Chair—think that way first!
Steve Barclay
I will take that steer, Mr Speaker, and direct my remarks your way. First, there is agreement on bonuses that where there is criminal wrongdoing, they should not be paid. On dividends, there is a debate with Treasury colleagues on the balance between attracting investment into the sector and taking further measures. I have also touched on the largest ever criminal prosecution currently under way with the Environment Agency. It is important that we do not pre-empt the investigation. We need to get to the bottom of exactly what has happened and who is at fault, where there is fault. I am sure that as part of that, the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) and Members of the House will look at what monitoring was in place, what different parties did and whether any lessons from previous incidents were sufficiently learned. Those are issues that should rightly be explored through the investigation, and that is what the DWI is doing.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Steve Barclay
The hon. Member makes a valid point in terms of both the quality and the desirability of the products to which he refers. The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries is engaging actively with the EU on that specific point, and I am sure that he will update the hon. Member on it.
Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
One has only to look over the hedges of eastern England to agree with those who are predicting the worst harvest in living memory. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the impact that will have on the wider rural economy—in particular, the availability and price of straw, which is vital for the livestock sector, and important commodities such as potatoes, which are likely to be under great pressure in terms of supply and price this autumn?
Steve Barclay
As the MP for North East Cambridgeshire, I feel I should extend north-east a little wider, given that we are a big food-producing area. To the hon. Lady’s specific point, the Minister for Farming is engaging with that issue and is travelling up to the north-east this evening as part of that engagement. Our colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), is conducting a review of public sector food procurement, so that within our public sector we can better procure domestic produce. We also have a review of labelling so that we can more clearly label that fantastic produce from the north-east, to ensure that purchasers can buy it more easily.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
What are the Government doing to support farmers? Quite a few people are asking that. When one looks at the evidence of what is going on, the survey this week from the National Farmers Union into farmer confidence revealed that a staggering 65% of farmers are facing declining profits, or their business will not survive at all. Their prospects are worse than most Tory MPs, it suddenly seems. Why is it that farmers do so badly under the Conservatives?
Steve Barclay
The hon. Gentleman seems to have written that question before listening to the various examples that I have just given, but let me give him one. The most successful scheme the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has ever run is the current sustainable farming incentive scheme, with over 20,000 applications—more than any other scheme the Department has run. We have also been flexible in looking at how those schemes are delivered, given the challenges of the wet weather, and I will have more to say on that very shortly.
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
I listened carefully to that answer. While Brexit has been deeply damaging to farmers all across the United Kingdom, the actions taken by the Scottish Government mean that farmers in Scotland have far greater protection than those elsewhere on these islands. The SNP Government have guaranteed Scottish farmers the level of funding that was available pre-Brexit, unlike the Tories here in England or indeed the Labour party in Wales. That is the SNP standing up for farmers in words and deeds, unlike the Westminster parties. Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to apologise to farmers in England for his Government’s betrayal of them?
Rebecca Pow
I highlight again the low-sensitivity map, which points out exactly the same things as the map the hon. Gentleman refers to. We have many funds focused in particular on urban areas—some come from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities —to encourage urban tree planting, because it is so important for our health and wellbeing. We have a whole list of funds available, and I urge people to look at them and plant trees.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
I have to say that the Minister’s response suggests that the Government are completely in denial. The Office for Environmental Protection report exposed that the Government are way off target on their legally binding tree-planting target. There has been no trend of improvement on tree planting between 2018 and 2023. It would be bad enough if the problem were lack of money, but her Department is even failing to spend the money that it has been allocated. The environmental land management scheme is underspent by hundreds of millions, and the nature for climate fund that she spoke about has returned £77 million to the Treasury unspent. Is not it clear that, to get the tree cover that our country needs, we do not need a magic money tree; we need a Labour Government?
Robbie Moore
There is no better champion than my hon. Friend on the challenge of coastal erosion. The Environment Agency is developing a new national flood risk assessment and an updated coastal erosion risk map to improve how we access flood risk information and communicate it to our communities. Those new datasets and maps will include the potential impact of climate change on flood risk and coastal erosion, and will help to inform how we better protect homes, businesses, farmland and infrastructure along our coastal communities.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
We learned from the Public Accounts Committee report that 500 flood defence projects have been cancelled, just like the one in Lowestoft. Whether the Minister chooses to use the words “cancelled,” “deferred,” “delayed” or “on a long list” makes no difference, because he is still refusing to tell us where those projects are. Why does he insist on holding residents in contempt by not telling them the fate of their local flood defences?
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Steve Barclay)
Since last updating the House, we have remained focused on delivering our plan to improve food security, on improving our water quality, and on leading the way, both at home and abroad, in protecting the environment. That is why we are introducing legislation to ban the supply and sale of wet wipes containing plastic. It is why we have launched, as part of our catchment plan, the £35 million scheme on the River Wye, further to our announcement yesterday of £11.5 million in water company fines and penalties to be reinvested in water restoration schemes. We are working on Dartmoor to implement the very good recommendations set out in David Fursdon’s report, and we have seen over 20,000 farmers now sign up to the sustainable farming incentive, making it the most popular scheme ever. Alongside that, we are working at the G7, on bluetongue virus and in many other respects, but I can see, Mr Speaker, that you want me to speed up my reply.
Dr Coffey
The Environment Act 2021 was landmark legislation, and we of course need to think not only locally but globally. One element of that legislation was the introduction of forest risk commodity regulations. I would be grateful if my right hon. Friend said what more we can do through our global supply chain measures.
Steve Barclay
My right hon. Friend is right to focus on forest risk commodities: our flagship announcement at COP28 was that we were taking leading action on that. Many who have watched nature documentaries, for example on the orangutans, can see how important that is to particular species. I hope to table legislation on that later this month, but my right hon. Friend is right to focus on its importance.
Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
The environmental regulator has today condemned the disgusting state of our waterways caused by the Conservatives letting water companies pump them full of raw sewage. This has to stop, so will the Government now back Labour’s plan and make water bosses personally criminally liable, so that if they keep illegally dumping sewage, they end up in the dock?
Steve Barclay
We already have the biggest ever prosecution by the Environment Agency, which is already live. We have also already banned bonuses for those companies guilty of serious pollution. We are quadrupling the number of inspections as part of that tougher enforcement scheme. We are also bringing record investment into the water industry. The hon. Gentleman never comments on the quality of water in Wales, but perhaps he will want to address that in his follow-up question.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The Attorney General
I am afraid that I do not have to hand specific figures for the hon. Gentleman’s constituency under that Act, but I am happy to get them for him. We are confident that it will be possible to bring prosecutions under the Act. These are important and distressing but relatively new crimes, and it is important that we continue to work with the police and the CPS to prosecute novel areas of criminal activity. It is really difficult for survivors of these crimes to deal with them.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
The Attorney General rightly refers to the work done in relation to domestic violence. The most serious offences of violence against women and girls are rape and serious sexual offences. As she will know, there are concerns that once victims have come forward, there are delays in their cases being heard, largely because of the difficulty in getting suitably experienced barristers to prosecute them. Does she accept that one of the main drivers of that is the fact that legal aid fees were increased for defence barristers, but prosecution fees have lagged behind? There is a gap of around £500 in the brief fee between prosecuting and defending. Does she agree that we must plug that gap urgently, to get suitable counsel prosecuting as well as defending those cases?
The Attorney General
This Government believe very firmly in international law. On 9 April, the Foreign Secretary announced that our position on export licences was unchanged. We publish data on our export licensing decisions transparently and on a quarterly basis.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
We have heard questions about the International Court of Justice, but I want ask some questions about the International Criminal Court. Its chief prosecutor said last week that
“all attempts to impede, intimidate, or improperly influence”
the Court over its investigations of war crimes in Gaza must “cease immediately”.
He was forced to issue that demand after a letter signed by 12 United States senators warned the ICC:
“Target Israel and we will target you.”
That letter threatened sanctions not just against the ICC’s officials, but against its employees, associates and families.
Will the Attorney General join me in condemning those Republican senators for their outrageous actions? Will she also join the chief prosecutor in agreeing that anyone who threatens the ICC simply for doing its job is undermining the very impartiality and independence on which its international mandate depends?
The Attorney General
I thought that the ICC’s statement was worthy of note, and I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for bringing it to the House’s attention. In his statement, the independent prosecutor was also keen to point out that he welcomed active engagement by Governments and other parties on the work in which he is clearly engaged around the world to ensure that international humanitarian law is respected and war crimes are not committed. He is a British prosecutor, and we in this Government are proud to work with him; we have been very proud to support him in his work in Ukraine, for example. There are ongoing investigations of what is going on in Israel and Gaza by more than one international court at present, and I think it is difficult to speculate on specific outcomes.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
The Attorney General will be aware of the Government’s grounds of defence in the ongoing case of Al-Haq v. the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, in which the FCDO lawyers admitted that the
“inability to come to a clear assessment on Israel’s record of compliance”
with international humanitarian law “poses significant policy risks”. What is the Attorney General’s assessment of that submission? Given the FCDO’s concerns about Israel’s compliance with IHL, what has she said to her Cabinet colleagues who are worried that the issuing of arms export licences could make the UK Government complicit in breaches of international humanitarian law and the arms trade treaty?
The Solicitor General
The hon. Member is absolutely right. This is a particularly pernicious crime. It often targets the vulnerable and, sadly, in an interconnected and digital world, it is likely to increase. We will look very closely at all such matters. A number of joint strategies are shared between agencies in any event, but I am certainly very happy to look at her suggestion.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
There were 36 failed personal protective equipment contracts during the pandemic, costing over £1 billion, but only one company, PPE Medpro, has been named. If the Government are serious about tackling fraud, why are they refusing to disclose the details of the other companies? How exactly were those contracts awarded, and can the Solicitor General update the House on how many prosecutions are pending?
Checks on Goods Entering UK
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Sir Mark Spencer
The hon. Lady either chooses not to understand what is happening, or deliberately tries to inflame a situation that will be of great benefit to the UK moving forward. She deliberately picked the highest figure available. For low-risk goods, there is a £10 charge for products, capped at a maximum of five products, so the maximum amount that can be charged on a lorry load of low-risk goods would be £50.
The hon. Lady is right that we have calculated that over three years that will lead to an additional 0.2% on food inflation. In comparison, an outbreak of foot and mouth disease cost this country £12 billion, not taking into account the impact on international trade and our reputation as a country, so these checks are a small price to pay for ensuring we are safe and protected for phytosanitary and sanitary goods coming into the UK.
Sir Mark Spencer
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question and for the scrutiny that his Select Committee has undertaken.
It is important to distinguish between those goods that come into the country through approved routes, via approved importers on traditional lines, and those people who may seek to import goods into the UK illegally or without that documentation. There will still be border control checks by Border Force at the port of Dover to catch those who are trying to do something illegal, but those who are operating within the system will move to Sevington. To stop halfway and avoid those checks would be a criminal act and those goods would not be able to be sold within the UK marketplace.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
We recognise the need to ensure the UK’s biosecurity, but I echo the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). What a mess. It is 29 April and the new checks are being introduced tomorrow, but the businesses involved are unclear about how the system is supposed to operate—and that is after the five delays that we have heard about and huge sums wasted on border control points. Perhaps the Minister can tell us how much has been wasted on Portsmouth, for instance.
We want these checks to work. I have been to the London and the Dover port health authorities and been extremely impressed by the work that they do, but it is baffling that, in the battle against Asian swine flu, at Dover, the Minister is taking away vital funding, as the Government move the checks 22 miles up the road to Sevington. Can he tell the House how food vehicles will be controlled on that journey, as Dover Port Health Authority tells me clearly that they won’t?
The Government have admitted that the cost will be an extra £330 million annually. Others say it will be more. What definitive figures can the Minister provide for the inflationary impact that this Government’s border measures will create for food supplies in the UK? What assessment has been made of the savings and efficiency that would be made if we were to achieve a better veterinary agreement with the EU?
In conclusion, the British chambers of commerce says that DEFRA has failed to listen to industry over these changes. Others say the same. Many businesses are exasperated by the endless delays and the repeated and continual lack of clarity and certainty in the implementation of the new system. Why have the Government left businesses and even border chiefs in a position where they simply cannot plan properly and are left in the dark, as one put it, at one minute to midnight in terms of being told about the essential features of the new system? What is the Minister going to do to sort out the mess?
Sir Mark Spencer
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work in this area and his expertise in it. Moving forward, we will be in a much stronger place in terms of our phytosanitary and sanitary protections. That is the right outcome. We will continue to ensure that we are safe in the UK and that we protect our borders proportionately.
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
The continual uncertainty being caused by these border checks is not only disgraceful but highly damaging for industry and consumers. There have been five delays by the UK Government, accompanied by a complete failure to communicate those delays effectively. Does the Minister accept that the significant disruption being faced is a symptom of not only the Government’s disastrous delivery of the checks but Brexit itself? Any suggestion to the contrary is frankly for the birds. Secondly, will he apologise from the Dispatch Box to the businesses that have been diligently preparing for the changes, only to be left utterly in the dark by his Government?
Sir Mark Spencer
I am a strong believer in democracy. The Brexit debate was one that was settled by the great British public. They voted to leave the European Union, and now I want to embrace the opportunities that that brings for the UK. As a Government, we will continue to work tirelessly to make sure that we make Brexit work for the UK and seize those opportunities that come our way.
Mr Speaker
I am now going to have to suspend the House. I suggest that we suspend for 10 minutes in order to allow the Front Benchers to read the statement.
Pet Abduction Bill
Lindsay Hoyle ExcerptsFriday 19th April 2024
(7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Pet Abduction Act 2024 View all Pet Abduction Act 2024 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 19 April 2024 - (19 Apr 2024)
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 1, in clause 1, page 1, line 2, after “if” insert “without lawful authority or a reasonable excuse”.
This amendment seeks to ensure that an offence is only committed if the acts complained of are shown to have been made without lawful authority or a reasonable excuse, so that it is not necessary for the person alleged to have committed the offence to prove their innocence.
Amendment 2, page 1, line 3, after “to” insert “permanently”.
This amendment seeks to ensure that only acts where the dog is permanently removed from lawful control would fall under the offence.
Amendment 3, page 1, line 3, leave out “any person” and insert “its keeper”.
This amendment seeks to ensure that only where a dog is removed from the lawful control of its registered keeper falls under the offence, rather than removal from any person.
Amendment 4, page 1, line 5, after “to” insert “permanently”.
This amendment seeks to ensure that only acts where the dog is detained so as to permanently keep it would fall under the offence.
Amendment 5, page 1, line 5, leave out from “of” to end of line 6 and insert “its keeper”.
This amendment seeks to ensure that only where a dog is detained so as to keep it from its registered keeper falls under the offence.
Amendment 6, page 1, leave out lines 21 to 23.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 1.
Amendment 7, page 2, line 16, leave out “(3)”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 6.
Amendment 8, page 2, line 30, at end insert—
“(aa) references to a dog are only to a dog which—
(i) has been implanted with a microchip pursuant to the Microchipping of Cats and Dogs (England) Regulations 2023; or
(ii) has been certified as exempt from such an implant under those Regulations”.
The above Regulations provide for the compulsory microchipping of dogs and the recording of each dog’s identity and its keeper’s contact details on a database. This amendment ensures that the offence of dog abduction can only be made in respect of dogs which have been microchipped (or are certified as exempt) in accordance with those Regulations and will thereby incentivise keepers to comply with the rules about microchipping.
Amendment 9, page 2, line 34, at end insert—
“(aa) “keeper” has the meaning given to it under the Microchipping of Cats and Dogs (England) Regulations 2023”.
This amendment ensures that “keeper” is intended to have the same meaning as under the specified Regulations.
Amendment 10, page 2, line 39, leave out clause 2.
This amendment removes the offence of cat abduction.
Amendment 11, in clause 3, page 3, line 36, leave out “or 2”.
This amendment is consequential on the removal of clause 2 from the Bill.
Amendment 12, page 4, line 5, leave out “or 2”.
This amendment is consequential on the removal of clause 2 from the Bill.
Amendment 13, page 4, line 8, leave out “or 2(5)”.
This amendment is consequential on the removal of clause 2 from the Bill.
Amendment 14, page 4, line 38, leave out “or 2”.
This amendment is consequential on the removal of clause 2 from the Bill.
Amendment 15, page 5, line 6, leave out “and 2”.
This amendment is consequential on the removal of clause 2 from the Bill.
Amendment 19, page 5, line 6, leave out
“come into force in relation to England”.
and insert
“, so far as they extend to England and Wales, come into force”.
This is a technical amendment to ensure that it is clear how the commencement of clauses 1 and 2 operates in so far as those clauses extend to England and Wales (rather than just in relation to England).
Amendment 21, page 5, line 7, at end insert
“provided that the Secretary of State has fulfilled the requirement to publish the guidance required by section [Guidance]”.
Amendment 16, page 5, line 11, leave out “and 2”.
This amendment is consequential on the removal of clause 2 from the Bill.
Amendment 20, page 5, line 11, leave out “in relation” and insert
“so far as they extend”.
This is a technical amendment to ensure that the commencement of clauses 1 and 2 is dealt with in the same way throughout clause 6.
Sir Christopher Chope
Before I begin to address the issues, Madam Deputy Speaker, may I, on behalf of myself and many others, express our condolences to Mr Speaker, who I know is unable to be present today because he is attending his father’s funeral? I had the privilege of serving with Doug Hoyle in this House from 1983 until 1992, and he was an exemplar for Back-Bench activity during that time. Our sympathies are very much with Mr Speaker.
Turning to the amendments, and particularly new clause 1, I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) and my right hon. Friend the Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries, with whom I was privileged to have a meeting last week to discuss my amendments. They will have a better understanding of the way I work than quite a lot of other colleagues. I am pleased that as a result of that meeting there was essentially an agreement—an acceptance—that we must try to link communications about the appalling incidents of pet abduction or theft to the need for people to microchip their loved animals, particularly dogs and cats. In the course of that discussion, it was pointed out by the Minister of State that before the Bill is to become law, it will be necessary for guidance to be discussed with the Crown Prosecution Service regarding exactly what the enforcement provisions would be. I hope that in responding to this debate, my right hon. Friend will expand on that point.
Following that discussion, I thought I would table a new clause about guidance, so that any references in the debate could include references to the specific issue of guidance that would be issued following the enactment of the Bill. I would like that guidance to set out clearly the position for people who do not microchip their cats and dogs. Microchipping of dogs is mandatory and has been since 2010, but we know that something between 5% and 10% of the 9.5 million dogs in this country are not microchipped. In early June, it will be mandatory for all cats to be microchipped, and probably about 70% have been microchipped by now.
I hope that we can send out a message, in discussing this important legislation, that if someone does not have their cat or dog microchipped, they should not expect the law to rush to their assistance in the event of their cat or dog being abducted. Apart from anything else, if they complain to the police that their dog or cat has been abducted and it has not been microchipped, it is all the more difficult to identify it, search for it and so on. On that great principle of English equity, it seems to me that if someone seeks the protection of the law, they should come with clean hands. In this context, that means they should be able to say that they have complied with the law in respect of the pets for which they have responsibility and have microchipped them. I hope people will realise that if they do not—I hope that the Government will point this out in the guidance—have their pets microchipped, they will not be able to take advantage of the benefits and special provisions in this legislation.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(8 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Robbie Moore
I thank my right hon. Friend for raising this important issue, and I reassure her that I am having conversations with officials not only in the Environment Agency but in DEFRA on this very issue. I am more than happy to meet her so she can share her knowledge from when she was Secretary of State.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
It is clear from what we have heard that the Minister is here to tell us how well the Government and the water companies are doing. Meanwhile, out there in the real world, the recent “State of Our Rivers” report exposed that not one English river is in a good overall condition. The capital’s water supplier is on the brink of collapse, and the only solution that the Government are even considering was stolen from the Labour party. Is it not the truth that what Britian’s rivers really cannot afford is five more years of this useless Government?
Steve Barclay
I will leave it to others to deduce the link to Sadiq Khan’s bus. I think the hon. Lady prepared her question before the previous answer, because I just set out that we are giving £50 million of transitional labelling support. Of course, a consultation is live and we are working with businesses on it.
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
The Food and Drink Federation has warned the UK Government that their plan to require all meat and dairy sold in the UK to have “Not for EU” labelling attacked will divert “hundreds of millions of pounds” of investment away from the UK, and that several international investors have paused their plans to invest in UK food and drink. As we continue to circle the drain of Tory-imposed recession, will the Secretary of State tell the House and the public if driving investment away from this vital sector will help or hinder attempts to avoid yet greater recessions?
Steve Barclay
My hon. Friend raises an important point. My focus, and that of the Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries, is first and foremost on ensuring food production and food security is viable for our farmers, but diversification is also important. I am in advanced discussions with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on extending permitted development rights.
To go back to the question raised by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), a certain very famous farmer has raised his frustrations in Oxfordshire. I want to streamline permitted developments to make it easier for farmers to diversify, but first and foremost farmers want to produce food, which is my key focus.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
Farmers need support against potentially devastating contagious diseases, such as African swine fever. I recently visited Dover, where the diligent Port Health Authority regularly seizes contaminated meat. Yet next month, its DEFRA funding will be cut by 70% and, incredibly, those border checks will be moved 22 miles inland. Why are the Conservatives putting the farmers of this country and our national security at risk?
Rebecca Pow
A great many people from that industry were at an international women’s event about sustainability that I spoke at yesterday. In our engagement on the new alternative transition model, which involves working with the industry very closely, we are taking into account the fact that supply chains are complicated, that they operate cross border, and that the sector values access. We will be consulting on the strategy very shortly.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
The Minister told me in January this year that the chemicals strategy will be produced next year, before correcting it to this year. Whether it is this year, next year or sometime never, does she agree that the strategy will be worth the paper it is written on only if the UK regulations catch up with other countries and stop hazardous substances being dumped here, damaging our environment and public health?
Rebecca Pow
As the hon. Member will know, there is a global framework on chemicals. I attended a conference on the UN global framework on chemicals back in September in Bonn. We signed up to the framework, which is binding, sets targets and international commitments, and relates to finance capacity-building, so that we can soundly manage and handle our chemicals and waste, and that is exactly what we are doing with our bespoke UK strategy.
Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Steve Barclay)
Since last updating the House, we have continued to bring forward measures to place greater prioritisation on food production and food security. That includes delivering a key National Farmers Union ask for a food security index, committing to the Farm to Fork summit as an annual event, and the largest ever round of grants for farmers, worth £427 million, announced by the Prime Minister to drive greater productivity. We are also consulting on fairer food labels to ensure that our British farmers are fairly rewarded. We are announcing today a consultation on the next phase of our tuberculosis eradication strategy, which includes culling in high-risk areas, and this week I announced that my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince) is conducting a review into public sector food procurement.
Furthermore, we are taking action to hold water companies to account more strongly, which includes a fourfold increase in inspections and consulting on banning bonuses for companies that commit serious criminal breaches. We are working at pace with the devolved Administrations on the banning of wet wipes. As we covered earlier, we continue to address the threat from the bluetongue virus. I can confirm to the House that I have acted on the representations of my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson) on extending the neutering deadline for XL Bully dogs by some months, from 30 January 2024 until 30 June 2025. Finally, tomorrow the Minister responsible for nature will announce the successful bids for species restoration grants, building on the progress on biodiversity net gain.
Sir John Whittingdale
Is my right hon. Friend aware that the inflexibility, bureaucracy and cost of the seasonal poultry workers scheme make it prohibitive for businesses such as Kelly Turkeys in my constituency to hire labour for just a few weeks in the run-up to Christmas? Will he urge the Home Office to include it within the existing seasonal agricultural workers scheme, thus allowing producers to use labour that is already in the country?
Steve Barclay
My right hon. Friend raises an important point. Of course, there are 2,000 seasonal worker visas to meet the demand in the run-up to Christmas. He will know that from my time as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, when I dealt with the issue of turkey supplies before Christmas, I am happy to look at that issue. He is talking about a finite period, and I will make those representations to Home Office colleagues.
Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
Last month, I visited Newcastle-under-Lyme with local campaigner Adam Jogee to meet residents who are literally choking on toxic fumes from the Walleys Quarry landfill site. More than 10,000 residents have complained about the stench, and a five-year-old child ended up in hospital. Will the Secretary of State publish all correspondence between DEFRA, the Environment Agency and the operator, so that residents in Newcastle-under-Lyme can see why the site has not been closed down?
The Attorney General
When I visited the region with the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) many years ago, we saw some of the actions of settlers in the occupied territories. So far as I was able to, I reprised that visit when I went to the region most recently, and I was surprised at the difference in the level of violence used. I was able to visit a Bedouin village and talk to those who feel that at a very difficult time for the farming community, during lambing, they were being pushed off their land. I listened very carefully to what the hon. Gentleman said, and I reassure him that the Government continue to keep this issue under review.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I welcome the Attorney General’s comments. I think every one of us shares the desire for the fighting to stop, and respect for the International Court of Justice. However, does she agree that it is important to be careful when we use legal terms in broader political debate? For example, the test of plausibility in the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice is essentially about the admissibility of a claim, rather than its ultimate merits. The Court itself has described that, in a judgment involving Myanmar, as a “low threshold”. It is important not to make more of a preliminary finding than we should before final litigation is completed.
The Solicitor General
The hon. Member raises a key point. There is nothing more tragic than the circumstances he outlines. I am happy to meet him to talk about any specific case concerns he has, but more broadly, I am acutely aware of the pressures, and I will look at whether there is anything I can do to ensure that the pressures and stresses on his constituents are alleviated.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
I am absolutely certain that the Attorney General and the Solicitor General will have been as shocked as I was to read this week’s report by researchers at Warwick University on the recent handling of rape cases by the CPS. In far too many areas, the picture it paints is simply appalling: poor communication, poor quality control, poor decision-making, outdated attitudes, stereotypes and victim blaming, added to the constant problem of staff being overworked and under-resourced. The one positive is that it was the CPS that commissioned the report in the first place. It has not shied away from the findings, and researchers are clear that the roll-out of Operation Soteria will take things in the right direction. Do the Law Officers agree that we simply cannot leave things there? Will they undertake to come back to the House with an action plan based on the findings of this report, and a clear timetable for its implementation?
Mr Speaker
Are you the shadow MP for Kettering or something? I hope this is linked to the question.
Jim Shannon
I welcome the Minister’s answer. The Minister is responsible not only for Kettering and the east midlands, but for the United Kingdom. What one- to-one support can be offered to victims of sexual crime across the United Kingdom, to improve their experience of the criminal justice system?
The Solicitor General
The hon. Lady is quite right to draw attention to the seriousness of this crime, but the Government accept the urgency, which is why, for example, we have the CPS available to provide early advice to law enforcement in exactly the cases that she refers to. We have specialist prosecutors providing that advice, so that we have the right advice and the right charges against the right people at the right time.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
Even in freezing conditions at the start of the year, thousands more men, women and children crossed the channel in small boats. For all the talk that the threat of deportation to Rwanda will act as a deterrent, there is no evidence whatsoever of that deterrent working. Perhaps that is why the Government have changed tack and plan a £3,000 incentive for refugees to get on planes to Rwanda. Does the Solicitor General now accept that the only way to stop the boats is to crush the trafficking gangs and prosecute the criminals?
The Solicitor General
The hon. Gentleman is quite right that the country faces a major challenge from the cruel people-smuggling gangs who are exploiting people financially and emotionally. We have to put an end to that. The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill has passed through this House, but there will be further opportunities for debate on its return here. What he has underlined is how important it is that we take action: I agree, and that is what we are doing.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Last week, the Prime Minister’s flagship Rwanda Bill was defeated 10 times in the House of Lords, with calls for the UK Government to protect victims of modern slavery and human trafficking from being removed to Rwanda without their consent until a decision, based on conclusive grounds, about their safety and not being placed at risk of being re-trafficked has been completed. Does the Solicitor General not understand that modern slavery protections for vulnerable children and adults appear to be expendable under his Government?
Oral Answers to Questions
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Steve Barclay)
We are committed to maintaining high animal welfare and food standards. Since leaving the EU, we have put in place strong controls on imports, and we are using Brexit freedoms to strengthen animal welfare standards even further by banning the export of live animals for slaughter. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Can I say to the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) that we are in the middle of a question, and he has just walked right in front of the Member asking it?
Neale Hanvey
Yesterday, the UK Government implemented a border target operating model in which a veterinarian must provide a health certificate for meat imports from the EU. Meanwhile, the UK-Australia free trade agreement, which came into effect six months ago, is likely to lead to increased imports of low-cost products produced in Australia using pesticides that are not permitted in the UK and in the absence of veterinary checks. According to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Australia has lower welfare standards in many sectors, such as eggs, pigmeat production and chicken. Does the Secretary of State accept that this asymmetry on standards of animal welfare is incoherent and poses a significant risk of contaminating the food chain with banned pesticides?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Robbie Moore)
I know what a blight litter and fly-tipping can be on local communities, which is why we have provided nearly £1 million to help councils purchase new bins and almost £1.2 million to combat fly-tipping, while a further £1 million will be awarded in the spring. We have more than doubled the maximum fines that councils can issue, with all income from fly-tipping fines to be reinvested in enforcement and cleaning up our streets from April, to ensure that councils can invest in cracking down on crime.
Chi Onwurah
My constituents’ anger and frustration with litter and fly-tipping has grown as £390 million-worth of Government cuts to Newcastle City Council’s budget has impacted on services. Children in particular complain to me about having to play in rubbish. My 15-point plan for rubbish sets out some of the additional powers councils need to address the scourge. Will the Minister meet me to discuss it, and will he back Labour’s plan for fixed penalty notices for fly-tippers?
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Hounslow Borough is plagued by fly-tipping. Despite the council using all the powers it can to address the problem, spending large amounts of money to do so, and having a good rate of recycling, fly-tipping continues. What is the Government’s timetable for responding to the Public Accounts Committee report on the Government’s programme for waste reforms?
Rebecca Pow
I too have met the RHS, and went to see its wonderful experiments on peat-free products very recently, some of which the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs put money into. This Government are committed to ending the use of peat in horticulture in England, and we will legislate as soon as parliamentary time allows. I can assure my hon. Friend that in the meantime we are working closely with those who want peat-free mediums, as well as the businesses supplying those growing mediums. A wide variety of work is going on, including research and experiments. As I have said, peat use has halved, and my hon. Friend might be interested to know that the Forestry Commission promises to go peat free—
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for that very long response. Peatlands in Northern Ireland are extremely important. They absorb water and moisture and improve the habitat. This question is as important in this House as it is to us in Northern Ireland. Given that the Northern Ireland Assembly will hopefully be up and running again, will the Minister have discussions with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister, to ensure that we can work together for the betterment of all?
Rebecca Pow
Peatlands are such an important habitat, so it is important that we work together. That is why we are putting huge amounts of money into restoring peatlands in the uplands and the lowlands, and we have just increased our sustainable farming incentive payments for that. Farmers can get more than £900 a hectare to start to re-wet peat.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
I agree entirely with what the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said. We welcome the Government’s intentions on peatland, but the idea that this Government, after 14 years, is so fizzing with new ideas that they do not quite have the parliamentary time to get on with acting on those intentions is, candidly, laughable. Will the Minister tell us what is actually happening? We were expecting legislation in this year’s King’s Speech, but it is not there. There is an urgent need for it, and it is supported by industry. Will the Government just get on with implementing one of the few popular policies they have left?
Mark Spencer
My hon. Friend is truly privileged to represent such a beautiful part of England. We are collaborating with stakeholders to ensure that our schemes work for them. We regularly communicate with them through the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affair’s farming blog, by meeting them at trade shows, through ministerial visits, and through stakeholder organisations such as the National Farmers Union, the Country Land and Business Association and the Tenant Farmers Association. We are also providing free business support to farmers and land managers in England through the future farming resilience fund. Grants and schemes for farmers are published through our single funding page.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
Last week’s report from the Government’s environmental watchdog, the Office for Environmental Protection, was a damning indictment of the Government’s record. It said they were “largely off track”, with just four of the 40 targets being achieved. When it comes to the environmental land management schemes, can the Minister tell the House just how much environmental improvement they have helped farmers to deliver so far?
Mr Speaker
Order. It was the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) who asked the question. Let’s not have a personal battle across the Chamber.
David Simmonds
Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner is home to many incredibly important sites for biodiversity, as are many of our London suburbs. Does my hon. Friend agree that the new Riverside park delivered by Harrow council in partnership with the Hatch End Association is a good example of projects that support biodiversity in our suburbs?
Steve Barclay
It is always a pleasure to meet my hon. Friend. He mentioned the important issue of seabirds. He will have noticed yesterday’s announcement of two major positive steps. The No. 1 issue of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds for the last 25 years has been tightening up the overfishing of sand eels. We are closing English waters to sand eel fishing, which is hugely important to seabirds, particularly the puffin. Secondly, we announced 13 marine designated areas—to put that into context, that is an area equivalent to the size of Suffolk. It is a huge step forward in protecting seabirds, on which the UK has a leading position globally.
Mr Speaker
Hopefully Emma Hardy will get us back on track. I call the shadow Minister.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
I recently met with farmer Henry Ward, who showed me the extensive and damaging flooding right across his farmland caused by two breaches in the river after a storm. The Environment Agency is unable to tell him when it will have the resources to repair those breaches. This means that Henry not only lost all the crop that was flooded, but will be unable to plant a new crop in spring. He is not the only farmer to be impacted. When will the Government realise that their failure to be decisive and get ahead of the problem of weak defences is costing farmers their livelihoods and—
Mr Speaker
Order. We only get until 10 o’clock—to take advantage is just not fair. We must have briefer questions from the Front Bench.
Steve Barclay
Not only has the water Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore), been decisive; he has met the individual farmer the hon. Lady mentions on his farm. We are taking action to look at how we can better empower the internal drainage boards—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady chunters from a sedentary position. I actually represent, in the fens, one of the areas where internal drainage boards are most important. I have worked with them for 14 years, and the ministerial team is working actively with them now.
Steve Barclay
As my hon. Friend knows, I am familiar with the Fylde and the issues there. I am always happy to meet him to discuss the issues he mentions. I am in contact with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities about new developments and some of the wider issues that my hon. Friend has been raising.
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
The UK ended the year as the only rich nation with food price inflation of more than 10%, and families buying food still face persistent price increases. New Brexit red tape affecting European food imports poses a further risk of rising inflation in the prices of items such as bread, milk and even baby formula. May I again ask the Secretary of State to commit himself to implementing food price controls if further Brexit red tape leads to the food price hikes that are being anticipated?
Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)
Walleys Quarry, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell), is stinking again, with monitoring stations showing high levels of hydrogen sulphide and with complaints soaring. The site is blighting my constituents too, and the Environment Agency now says the owner is no longer working towards compliance. It is long past time that the permit was revoked and the company prosecuted. Will the Minister come to Staffordshire to witness the stink and see the sorry sight for himself?
Mr Speaker
When he does, can he take the licence away from the one at Cuerden, in Chorley?
Steve Barclay
I always listen closely to your steer, Mr Speaker. My hon. Friend raises an extremely important issue, which I know is very troubling to those affected. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) is going there in the coming days, and I can assure her that this is being discussed and actively followed up.
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In response to Question 1, the Secretary of State attributed another party’s position on Europe to my party. The Alba party’s position on Europe is to opt for the European Free Trade Association, thus maintaining sovereignty over fisheries and farming. I would be grateful if the Secretary of State would correct the record.
Steve Barclay
Such is the confusion within the Scottish National party that I hope the House forgives me for the mistake. I recognise that the hon. Gentleman has changed his party and now is an Alba Member. I am happy to correct the record.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like your advice on the scheduling of business today. A number of people—
Mr Speaker
Sorry, but that is not relevant to the questions we have just had. The only way the hon. Gentleman can raise that as a point of order is by doing it after we have done all the questions. We now have questions to the Attorney General.
The Solicitor General
Yes, I can. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to this, as people being taken advantage of is one of the great issues of our age. It happens to members of society of all kinds, but particularly to those who are elderly and vulnerable. Work continues on a number of sector charters, which have been successful in bringing forward positive outcomes. For example, 870 million scam texts have been blocked. We have taken forward work on the Online Safety Act 2023, as well as the charters I referred to, but I assure my hon. Friend we will continue to see what more can be done.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
It is two years since the former anti-fraud Minister, Lord Agnew, resigned in embarrassment over the Government’s oversight of covid business loan schemes, describing it as “nothing less than woeful”. Can the Solicitor General tell us, in the past two years, how much of the missing billions, seemingly written off by the Prime Minister as Chancellor, has been recovered and what the Government are doing now to chase down the covid crooks?
The Attorney General
We are asking Parliament to look at the matter afresh—not just to look at the facts as they were before the Supreme Court, but to look at new circumstances. Evidence was published on 11 January to assist Parliament in those deliberations. We have assurances from the Government of Rwanda that the implementation of all measures within the treaty will be expedited, and we will ratify the treaty when we are ready to do so.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Journalists and bloggers who criticise the Government are arrested, threatened and put on trial, with allegations of torture, disappearances and suspicious deaths. Those are just some of the issues that Human Rights Watch and Amnesty have reported on in Rwanda. When asking Parliament to disregard established legal principles such as the burden of proof and the need for evidence, is the Attorney General genuinely comfortable in passing the Rwanda Bill?
The Attorney General
My right hon. and learned Friend makes a characteristically significant intervention. Having served as both Solicitor General and Attorney General, he will know very well the importance of the Law Officers’ convention to the working of Government. Legal professional privilege generally is a very important construct and something on which the client relationship relies. In Government it is, if anything, even more significant, and when Law Officers’ advice is leaked it has a chilling effect on our ability to provide free, frank and honest advice to the rest of Government. That is something I wholeheartedly deplore, and I agree with everything my right hon. and learned Friend said.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
We have all read with deep concern last week’s interim ruling from the International Court of Justice regarding the situation in Gaza, and Labour is absolutely clear that Hamas must release all remaining hostages immediately, that Israel must comply with the ICJ’s orders in full, that the judgment of the Court must be treated with respect, and that all parties must comply with international law as part of an immediate humanitarian truce and a sustainable ceasefire. I ask the Attorney General, very simply: does she agree with me on all those points; and is it the official position of the Government to accept the authority of the Court in this matter and, even more importantly, to urge Israel also to accept the authority of the Court and to implement its orders in full as a matter of urgency?