Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill
Debate between Luciana Berger and Martin Horwood(10 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Martin Horwood
It is important that the Government consult carefully on all these things. We do not want to intrude too much into the realm of private property and what people are allowed to do with their dogs in their property, but the point that the hon. Lady makes is well made.
I ask the Minister to consider carefully the campaign by Naturewatch, which is based in my constituency and led me to table early-day motion 412 to address the issues of irresponsible breeders and the need to regulate the advertising and selling of pets. That could be the next important step that the Government take in their rather gradualist approach to the issue. In many ways, that is one of the root causes of the phenomenon of dangerous and trophy dogs and dogs used as weapons.
For now, however, we should congratulate the Government on taking some important steps to tackle the issue. The steps we are voting on today will help to save lives. They will potentially save the lives of children like poor Jade Anderson and the lives of adults. They will certainly save the lives of pets. Those steps are overwhelmingly to be welcomed.
Luciana Berger
In November four years ago, my constituent, John Paul Massey, was killed by a dog in Wavertree. He was four. It happened during the run-up to the general election. I remember the impact that his death had not only on his family and their friends but on the wider community. To this day, I have people who come to talk to me about the experience of that happening in our community and how it has impacted on them, even though they may just have been a neighbour or someone who lived in a neighbouring street. It is not just John Paul Massey who tragically lost his life. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have mentioned many other victims. One life lost because of a dog is one life too many. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that in his response.
I am going to echo many of the comments made by hon. Friends and Members on the Government Benches. I notice that there are people present who have been long-standing campaigners on the issue for far longer than I have following my election in May 2010. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) for the hard work that she has done for so many more years than I have on the issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) has been affected in more recent times. We have heard the worst examples and seen evidence in newspapers and on television of the most tragic injuries and of people who are permanently disfigured. As we have heard, every year, thousands of people are hospitalised. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people are attacked by a dog and may not present themselves to the NHS. For many of those people, there are long-term psychological consequences. For people on the front line who go into homes, be they social workers, BT workers, meter readers or energy company staff, such attacks can have a long-term impact on their ability to work.
As we have heard, the attacks come at a great cost. The estimates that we have are very conservative. There is a cost of £10 million a year to the NHS. That should cause any Government concern. Equally, as the hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) said, people who are visually impaired will be affected if their guide dog is attacked. I do not think that enough of us know—I learned this only recently—that it costs £50,000 to train and look after a guide dog over its lifetime. That is all charitable money. If a guide dog is attacked by a dog, not only will there be a cost and long-term consequences for the guide dog, but the owner, who has spent time bonding with the guide dog and has depended on it, will no longer have a friend. That can also have long-term consequences.
I support new clause 3, which is in my name and that of many hon. Friends, because I share the criticism by the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and many hon. Members on both sides of the House. Although I welcome what the Government have done on the issue, the clear message that I have heard from professionals in the field is that we should prevent dog attacks from happening in the first place.
I have listened very closely to the contributions of Members on both sides of the House, in particular those on the Government Benches who spoke in support of what the Government have come forward with thus far. I have also looked very closely at the community protection notices and I have listened to the professionals who know far better than I do how this will operate in practice, and I will listen very carefully to the Minister’s response, too, but I have strong concerns. As it stands, CPNs are very bureaucratic and practitioners will need a lot of time and resource to implement them. They will not sufficiently address dog behaviour and welfare. That is, essentially, what all of us here are talking about today. There are also concerns that the CPN will come too late, because the dog owner must be served with a written warning before they can be issued with a CPN.
Energy Bill
Debate between Luciana Berger and Martin Horwood
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister raised a number of issues. I wish to focus on his points about demand reduction and community energy, before handing over to other hon. Members who wish to speak on this group of amendments.
Let me begin by saying how wonderful it is finally to hear what the Government propose to do about reducing demand for electricity. When the Bill was first published in May last year, many industry experts rightly observed that there was a gaping hole where the answer to that question should have been. We spent many hours in Committee and on Second Reading discussing and debating how we generate energy, but not how we could use less of it in the first place. A fortnight ago, the Government produced new clauses 11 and 12. I will come to their merits in a moment, but first I must tell the Minister that these proposals should have been brought forward much sooner. I know that the right hon. Gentleman agrees with me about that, because when we debated the need for demand-side measures in Committee at the end of January, he said:
“There can be no proper discussion and scrutiny of electricity strategy or really forward-looking ambitious Government energy policy without the inclusion of our plans for demand reduction.”––[Official Report, Energy Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2013; c. 345.]
He was absolutely right. It was challenging, however, that the Government did not have any demand reduction plans in place at that time.
Martin Horwood
Has the hon. Lady not noticed the launch of the green deal, which is possibly the most significant energy efficiency initiative in British history? I have to say that, for those of us who remember the chaotic system of energy efficiency grants that existed under the last Government, it compares extremely favourably with them. I think she is being a little ungracious about this Government’s energy demand reduction strategy.
Luciana Berger
We wanted properly to scrutinise the Government’s plans in Committee. We have only recently had the opportunity to do so, and we have just heard what the Minister said. I remind the hon. Gentleman that pay-as-you-save efficiency scheme pilots were started under the last Government. We are waiting to see exactly how the green deal is doing. We await the Government’s figures, and we expect to see them at the end of June.
During pre-legislative scrutiny, the Energy and Climate Change Committee concluded that Ministers were failing to give enough priority to demand-side measures. As I have said, we still had no firm proposals on Second Reading. In Committee, the Minister would not confirm whether the Government would definitely seek to include demand reduction amendments in the Bill once his consultation had concluded. Now, at long last, we have the results. We received them two weeks before Third Reading and a year to the day since the Bill was first published.
The Minister has now said that he is minded to pilot measures to reduce electricity demand through the capacity market, and we welcome that step. However, the Government’s own response to their consultation accepted that that course of action still presented a number of uncertainties. A number of questions remain unanswered. I am sorry that the Minister will not have an opportunity to answer them, but I would be happy to give way if he would like to intervene on me. It would be helpful to know, for example, exactly how the pilots will work and by how much the proposals will reduce electricity demand. Those are currently complete unknowns.
The Government’s forecasts from before the new clauses were published showed that current policies would reduce electricity demand by 59 TWh in 2018 and by 68 TWh in 2030. That energy saving would be dwarfed, however, by an additional 92 TWh of untapped potential saving that could be achieved by 2030, according to analysis by McKinsey. That could be the equivalent of a 25% reduction in total electricity demand, representing a colossal saving. It is unfortunate that the Minister could not share with us the Government’s estimate of by how much the capacity market could reduce electricity demand over the same period.
Many people have also raised serious concerns about how effective the capacity markets can be in rewarding energy saving. In the United States, for example, a similar policy in Massachusetts resulted in energy efficiency projects receiving just 3% of total capacity payments. Despite complex design, 70% of capacity payments went to existing fossil fuel generation instead. Were the Government aware of that scheme? If so, what lessons have they learned from it?
The way in which new clauses 11 and 12 are drafted provides the mechanism for pilots to happen, but they do not offer any further detail. I listened carefully to the Minister’s remarks, but there were a lot of gaps. The proposals do not specify what measures will be piloted, or whether more than one measure will be trialled. We are no clearer, following his remarks, as to when the Government are planning to launch the pilot or when they expect the first capacity auction to take place.