Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords]

Louise Jones Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 28th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Freddie van Mierlo]

The measures we propose should be taken in the round. All our amendments significantly improve the Bill.

New clause 21 would also improve sewage outflow in Henley-on-Thames and the villages along the Thames Path national trail. That is desperately needed to end the shame of welcoming the world to our beautiful town of Henley at the royal regatta, only to subject it to what we put down the toilet.

In conclusion, I welcome the Bill and the protections it will deliver to my constituents, but I hope the Government will consider going further very soon.

[Louise Jones (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for all the hard work she and her team have been doing on the Bill. It is very important to my constituents.

To go back to the very basics, we are talking about something that everybody in North East Derbyshire uses every day—water. I believe that everybody in my constituency, and in the whole country, has a right to know that the water in our rivers and streams is clean, clear and free from pollution. The reason I have to state that now in this House is that we have not had the action we should have had over the past 14 years. That is a huge failure of the previous Government to get action taken and completed on this important issue. Instead, in 2023 water was polluted over 2,000 times in North East Derbyshire—and that is in just one constituency.

Last week, I met local residents in Ashover, which is situated on the River Amber, in my constituency. They impressed on me their concerns about pollution in that very picturesque part of the river. We have had good news, in that Severn Trent Water has improved treatment tank capacity in the area, but my residents are worried that that will not be enough, and indeed that we will not know whether it is enough. They are already concerned that the water they see does not live up to the standards they wish to see. That is why I particularly welcome the fact that the Bill is bringing in independent monitoring of water quality. I am afraid I disagree with the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron). What I think is important is not that we get carried away with volume, but the impact on water quality. That is what matters most.

[Tim Farron]

They are not mutually exclusive, are they? Knowing the duration of a spill is important, but knowing what went into it and how much also helps to know the impact so we can regulate it. Is that not true?

[Louise Jones]

The Bill looks at the result—the impact. I do not understand why we need to look at the volume if we are looking at the impact.

A huge amount has been spent on bosses’ bonuses: over £9 million in 2023-24. To put that into perspective, the average salary in my constituency is just over £30,000. If bonuses are received, we expect it to be for work well done and not just as a matter of course for the failings those bosses are responsible for.

Time and time again, we heard from the former Government that the water industry would change. Unfortunately, it did not under the previous measures, and that is why I welcome the action to ensure results as soon as possible. The Bill will mean cleaner rivers, which is my hope for the River Amber and what my constituents deserve; better infrastructure; better protection for those who use our waters for leisure activities; and better protection for the nature in our beautiful constituency. That is why it has my full support.

Foot and Mouth Disease

Louise Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am always grateful for invitations from hon. Members and feel that I am permanently on tour, but the hon. Gentleman is right that I have not yet had the opportunity to visit, although the Secretary of State has. Last week, when I was at a conference in York, very senior officials from the APHA gave me a very detailed briefing on the work they do. I share in the thanks to those people who play a huge role in keeping our country safe.

[Louise Jones (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

As a child, I distinctly remember the creeping fear on my family’s farms as foot and mouth moved ever closer. I realised that even as a child, and I feel sick just thinking that we could ever go back there. Many farmers in my constituency have repeatedly raised their concerns over infectious diseases entering the UK. Please can the Minister assure me, and them, that we are doing everything to take this very seriously, and that we have contingency plans in place?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reflecting on the awful experiences of 20 years ago. I assure her that we have excellent people, to whom I have just referred, who are working extremely hard to minimise the risk of any further outbreak. We are doing everything we can to prevent that from happening.

Rural Affairs

Louise Jones Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I will make some progress. The immediate impact of the changes, as my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) said in his intervention on the Secretary of State, is that farmers are already stopping capital investments in machinery, systems and buildings for fear that any improvements to their farms will send them over the cliff edge into this tax trap. So for a Government that claim to want to grow the economy, their choices are achieving the exact opposite. This family farm tax is a broken promise that will break family farms.

I move now to the second broken promise: the accelerated reduction in delinked payments. From next year, those vital payments will be substantially less than farms were promised. They cannot have foreseen that when they made their business plans. A tenant farmer has told me that he does not know how he is going to pay his rent next year, because the drop is worth more than £20,000. Can the Minister explain how this farmer should do more with less?

The third broken promise is the hike in national insurance for employers, of course. As the OBR has said, an increase in employer NICS will be passed “entirely” on to working people. I know that Labour does not actually know who it means by “working people” but the Conservatives are clear that it definitely includes farmers, their staff and the small businesses that support them, day in, day out.

[Louise Jones (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

The shadow Secretary of State says that she opposes the changes. Will she commit to reversing them, and which public services would she cut—for example, which NHS services?

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Lady is new to her place. As Financial Secretary to the Treasury I used to collect taxes for the United Kingdom and as the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care I used to spend pretty much all of them, so I know that the £500 million that the Government have score-carded this increase as achieving by the end of the score-card period will buy a fraction of what the NHS needs on a daily basis, let alone annually. If you believe the Whips’ handouts, the difficulty is that they sometimes get you into trouble.

For that matter, the phrase “working people” also includes our rural publicans. Labour Members are very proud of their Chancellor taking a penny off a pint. Yet any rural publican will tell you that will not even touch the sides alongside the NICs tax hike. Sadly, Labour’s jobs tax will see higher prices, fewer staff and more pub closures.

The jobs tax is also hurting our frontline services. GP surgeries, care homes, hospices, pharmacies and dental practices will all see their costs rise, and some will close. That hurts in a city centre, but it is devastating in communities who live with the impacts of rural sparsity, where it is more expensive to deliver services.

Budget: Implications for Farming Communities

Louise Jones Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner]

I love visiting farms all over the country, and I am sure North Dorset will feature on my list at some point in the future.

On this whole question of optimism, pessimism and the stress and strain in the countryside, my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) earlier warned about some of the things that are being said. I urge people to be temperate in their language on these issues, because people are stressed, anxious and worried. My task is to be calm, sensible and reassuring to them, and to remind them that the vast majority will be able to pass on their farms just as they have before. Just as pressing is to tackle those other real issues that they face. I do not underestimate the challenges that people face—of course it is difficult, and we know it is hard, but this Government will do everything we can to support people and to maintain their prosperity into the future.

[Louise Jones (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

Many of the farmers in my constituency have regularly raised concerns with me over protecting farms and our food system from animal diseases. Will the Minister please outline what steps he is taking to protect our food and farming systems?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that important point, because among the many, many stressful things for farmers is not just the weather of the past few years, but the disease threats. Whether that threat is avian flu or bluetongue, we are committed to helping. As part of that, in the Budget we committed more than £200 million to start the process of upgrading the facilities at Weybridge, which is so very important for our future biosecurity. Biosecurity is so important. I was staggered that the previous Government did not take swifter action to protect our borders from African swine fever. We have toughened the rules on that.

Independent Water Commission

Louise Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

The commission will look at identifying a model of appropriate and effective regulation for precisely the reasons my hon. Friend outlines.

[Louise Jones (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

My constituents in North East Derbyshire are rightly disgusted that water bosses received over £41 million in bonuses and other incentives under the previous Conservative Government. Can the Secretary of State assure me that every penny of my constituents’ hard-earned money will be spent where it is needed?

Farming and Food Security

Louise Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mike Reader (Northampton South) (Lab)]

May I start by paying my respects to the resident who died in my constituency during the recent floods? I am sure that the thoughts of the whole House are with her family. I thank the Secretary of State for leaving the Labour conference early to visit Northamptonshire and ensure that we had the support that we needed. Over 1,000 Northampton South residents were evacuated from their homes.

I thank the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor). I send my commiserations to his father on his election losses, but I am sure that he is very proud to see his son sitting on these green Benches.

Unfortunately, I cannot support the Opposition’s motion. I believe that we should support all possible funding opportunities for our farmers, but the motion seeks to commit the Government to underfunded—and in some cases imaginary—policies proposed in May 2024 by the previous Prime Minister. Those policies have contributed to the £22-billion black hole that the Labour party has inherited. They were political gestures and not a real offer to the UK farming community. People saw through that: 61% of people told Farmers Weekly that they trusted a Labour Government, whereas only 6% trusted the Conservatives.

[Louise Jones (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the fact that so many Labour MPs have a farming background, as I do, and that so many rural seats are represented by Labour, makes it clear that we are now the true champions of our farming community?

[Mike Reader]

It is very clear that Labour is on the side of our farming and agricultural sector. I stand here as the hopeful chair of the all-party parliamentary group for food. I am sure that those who are concerned about food security will join us at our inaugural general meeting very shortly. I am also a member of the NFU’s food and farming fellowship. It is clear that Labour Members take this issue seriously, and we are dedicating time to ensure that, unlike the previous Government, we work with farmers, not against them.

We are also working across industry. The motion focuses solely on farming, but in order to deliver food security, there must be a cross-sector approach, as I am sure everyone in the House recognises. The approach should include food manufacturing, logistics, retail and the hospitality chain. The whole agrifood ecosystem delivers a gross value added of £147 billion to our economy, including £15 billion through our farming sector, and a whopping £70 billion through our manufacturing, distribution and wholesale sector in food and retail. We want to improve food security in the UK, which is already classified as “broadly stable” by DEFRA.