National Pollinator Strategy
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Alan Whitehead(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I think the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) has got the message.
Dr Whitehead
The hon. Gentleman makes a strong point about the extent to which we need a better overview of the policy implications of the various elements in the research. I want to concentrate briefly on that point.
I remain concerned about not just the Environmental Audit Committee’s original inquiry and the Government response to it, but the latest Government response, which was published just two or three days ago, to the Committee’s second inquiry. The response is apparently very tentative about how far the Department is bound by the two-year moratorium on the use of neonicotinoids, and about whether the Department will consider simply reintroducing the use of neonicotinoids at the end of the moratorium.
Is the Department prepared at the very least to make time available for researchers to come up with much more definitive conclusions before it lifts the moratorium? I would prefer—there are caveats on the research, but it seems to me that overwhelming evidence for this is already available—for the Department, rather than considering what to do about neonicotinoids at the end of the moratorium, to go further than that and say, “That is it, as far as neonicotinoids are concerned. What we need to do for the substantial element of the national pollinator strategy is to get much clearer and better definitions of integrated pest management.”
In such a way, we could move from neonicotinoids to other forms of pest management that are more appropriate for the overall health of our pollinator population in the longer term. I must say that I am disappointed that the Government response lacks a definition of an integrated pest management scheme. For the final strategy, I urge the Minister to look again at a much better, more understandable and clearer definition of how integrated pest management might continue following the moratorium, so that we can move to a much more organic, less pesticide-intensive and certainly more modern ways of ensuring that our pollinators are protected as far as possible.
Mesothelioma Bill [Lords]
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Alan Whitehead(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend accept that in terms of events in the workplace we are talking about identical events with a different period of maturity into full-blown mesothelioma? Some people with identical circumstances will not qualify, while others will. Will he speculate on the issues that that may cause? Someone may have been through the same process as the person sitting next to them in the workplace—in the case of Southampton, handling blue asbestos in the docks, bailing it up and throwing it on to the dockside—with the disease appearing many years later over different periods for different people—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We need shorter interventions—there are quite a lot of other speakers to get in. Interventions are important, but they must be shorter.
Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Alan Whitehead(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Dr Whitehead
I am tending towards that view. As has been said, the Bill should be a matter of careful thought. Indeed, over a long period there has been substantial and careful thought about third-party campaigning. Nevertheless, the Bill has been the subject of no consultation, not even with the Electoral Commission on how it would carry out this rag-bag of proposals without putting itself in an impossible position. Turning up without consultation or warning is just not the way to organise and regulate third-party campaigning at elections.
Part 3 seeks further to regulate trade unions to count their membership in a way that they already do. I wonder what that is about. That seems to be dog-whistle politics that says, “We are putting further impediments in the way of trade unions, which are already doing what they are supposed to do, but we are taking action as though they weren’t.”
Overall, this is a shocking Bill, which goes 100% away from what we should be doing to regulate lobbying and about the process of third-party campaigning and civil society. We really need to take the Bill away and think again. I hope that we will vote to do that today, to get a Bill that we are in favour of—
Solar Power (Feed-in Tariff)
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Alan Whitehead
Dr Whitehead
On the impact assessment that the Minister himself carried out, does he accept that the £26 is relevant only if the tariff at its present level continues until 2015, which was never the scheme’s intention in the first place, on anybody’s reckoning? Will he withdraw that suggestion and replace it with what is the case in the impact assessment? [Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order, Minister. Has the hon. Gentleman finished his intervention? Right, now it is the Minister’s turn. I think that we will decide, thank you.
National Policy Statements
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Alan Whitehead(13 years, 12 months ago)
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Dr Whitehead
I am sorry but I have to make progress because I will not get injury time for the second intervention I take.
Points of Order
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Alan Whitehead(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker
Many points of order are being made that are not a matter for the Chair. Once again, the matter has been put on the record.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. On 10 June, I asked the Minister for Housing a question concerning the powers that Southampton city council has concerning homes in multiple occupation, and in regulation. The answer I received that those powers would be maintained has proved not to be true and to be seriously misleading. Is it in order for you to ask the Minister to come to the Chamber to give me an answer that is both true and not misleading?