Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [Lords]

Luke Pollard Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 18th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is good to follow the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly). I do not agree with most things he said, but he made a few points that I liked and will come to in my remarks. I welcome the Bill and I will support it today.

The Bill has come a long way since it was first introduced. It is a really good example of how Bills should be improved, especially through prelegislative scrutiny, rather than being stuck in the House of Lords. Many of the amendments made in the House of Lords should have been made in prelegislative scrutiny, so that we did not have a reformed Bill coming to the House of Commons.

I echo the remarks made by the new shadow Environment Secretary, and especially the thanks to Baroness Hayman for her sterling work in the other place, particularly on including cephalopods and decapods in the scope of the Bill. I welcome the fact that the era of boiling lobsters alive will come to an end. That is down to the work of Baroness Hayman and her colleagues in the House of Lords, and is long overdue.

The Bill is not really necessary, so to a certain extent the remarks from the hon. Members for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) and for Huntingdon were right in one respect: this really should have been mapped over in Brexit legislation. Of all the rules passed by the European Union during our membership, this is the only one that the Government chose not to map over. Why was that? Was it because there is an ideological divide over animal sentience? Was it because of a real desire to change the situation? Or was it because the Government fell foul of a debate that led to an outcry? This should not have been necessary; the measures should have been mapped over in Brexit legislation, and we should be spending our time looking at how we can improve animal welfare, rather than correcting the mistakes by the Government in the Brexit negotiations.

The Bill needs to work, however, and it is important that we get the detail right. Further work is needed to do that. Some of it is in the very short Bill, but the majority is in the terms of reference that accompany it. It is a shame that the Government have not put more effort into explaining what is in the terms of reference, because much of the detail about how the Animal Sentience Committee will work is in there. Many of the things that we need to improve are not in the Bill, but in the terms of reference, so it is important that we look at those.

There are three main changes that we should make to the Bill and that I hope will be accepted in Committee. First, we should remove the word “adverse” from clause 2(2), which says that the Animal Sentience Committee should have

“due regard to the ways in which the policy might have an adverse effect on the welfare of animals as sentient beings.”

As my Green colleague, the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), said, there really is no need to include the word “adverse”; if anything, it limits the legislation’s ambition and fails to deliver on the Government’s objectives. In the politics around animal welfare, it is quite a dated concept to use the word “adverse”, with its negative connotation in respect of animal welfare. It suggests that the job of animal welfare legislation is just to stop humans doing bad things to animals. It fails to consider the welfare agenda of the 21st century: what is a life well lived for an animal? How can we ensure not only that suffering is kept to a minimum but that animals enjoy a good quality of life? To delete “adverse” would not distract from the Government’s objectives in the Bill; indeed, it would arguably deliver a lot more on them. I hope that the Government will support an amendment to that end in Committee.

Secondly, on scope, I know that Ministers want the Bill to apply first to Government Departments—to the main Departments of State—but there is a strong case for Ministers to set out how they would accelerate its roll-out to apply it to non-departmental public bodies. For instance, I find it hard to justify the idea that the Bill will apply to the Department for Work and Pensions before it applies to Natural England and the Environment Agency. That does not make much sense, so I would be grateful if the Minister could set out the timetable for applying the Bill to every single non-departmental public body, and particularly to all the bodies in DEFRA-land, to ensure that they are within the scope of the Animal Sentience Committee. I would like this legislation and the committee to be in place by September this year; it is not unreasonable to argue that in September 2023, 12 months from that point, the legislation should apply to all non-departmental public bodies. I would be grateful if the Minister could set out whether that is the Government’s intention.

Thirdly, I am concerned about enforcement. I know that the Secretary of State will not like my saying this but, in my new-found freedom as a Back Bencher, let me be bold and speak frankly: DEFRA is a weak Department that does not really scare other Departments. The idea of DEFRA knocking on the door of, say, the Ministry of Defence to question its full implementation of animal sentience guidance is akin to a sardine taking on an Astute-class submarine: we are British and love the underdog, but it is not going to win. We need to be honest about that in relation to this legislation.

According to the guidance that accompanies the Bill, the Animal Sentience Committee will produce approximately six to eight reports a year. It seems to me that instead of allowing the delivery of written statements to the House of Commons three months after the Departments in question have made their initial reports, it makes much more sense for the Secretary of State to come to the House to make an oral statement, to enable parliamentarians to scrutinise the Animal Sentience Committee’s bulk report all in one go. I am concerned that the lack of such a parliamentary opportunity will limit the effectiveness of the legislation.

If the Secretary of State is keen to avoid the scrutiny opportunity of an annual moment, when he may also wish to set out the year-long cross-Government animal sentience strategy that is missing from the Bill, perhaps the Minister could set out the desired route by which parliamentarians will be able to question the effectiveness of the reports and whether they have led to any action or have simply been talking shops, designed to make Departments look but busy without delivering. Will we need to look to the good offices of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee to take time out of its busy schedule to analyse each report? Will we need a Backbench Business Committee slot to come free? Or will we need the Speaker to look favourably on a Member at DEFRA questions so that we can scrutinise any of the committee’s reports on the Floor of the House? I fear that without effective enforcement and proper parliamentary scrutiny, the Bill risks becoming a well-intentioned but meaningless piece of legislation.

It is important to look at the committee’s powers. The committee must have proper powers to investigate. Page 9 of the draft guidance the Government have released says that Departments will not have a legal duty to consult the committee. That is really important: Departments will not be required to co-operate with the Animal Sentience Committee. How can the committee improve accountability if Departments can simply decline to participate or to give information? The draft terms of reference suggest that if

“a Department fails to engage with the Committee or assist it with reasonable requests for information as it prepares a report, the Committee may record this non-cooperation in said report.”

That is a scary threat. How will Departments cope with the prospect of getting a black mark on their school report that will barely get any parliamentary scrutiny? What is missing here is a legal duty for Government Departments to co-operate and share information with the Animal Sentience Committee, to ensure that any concerns are properly followed up, otherwise the committee will not have the powers it needs.

I am interested in how DEFRA has come to the conclusion that there should not be a legal requirement to co-operate with the Animal Sentience Committee. Has there been an assessment of DEFRA’s own likelihood of co-operating with the committee? If so, will that assessment be published? Which Department is most likely not to co-operate with the Animal Sentience Committee? Is it the Ministry of Defence? Is it DEFRA? These are the questions to which we need an answer.

The Government admit in the draft terms of reference:

“The co-operation of UK Government Departments is necessary for the Committee to be able to work most effectively.”

But the Government are making that co-operation voluntary. It will be an option for any Secretary of State whose priority might not be animal sentience. Indeed, if they are being investigated, they probably will not have properly considered animal sentience in the development of policy. I suggest the Government take their own advice and make it a legal obligation for Departments to co-operate with the Animal Sentience Committee. That is another amendment that I hope will be moved in Committee. Perhaps the Environment Secretary will report annually on how many Departments are not co-operating with this new committee, as that would be very interesting for the House to know.

There are concerns about the independence of the Animal Sentience Committee and about who should be a member. In that respect, I share some of the concerns raised by the Countryside Alliance, which is not a likely bedfellow for me—the Countryside Alliance is generous and warm in how it describes me in these remarks. It is important that the membership of the committee is broad and has expertise, but it is also important that its members are clear and transparent about their involvement.

Annex A of the draft terms of reference sets out that the interests of members of the committee will be registered, and I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that, under paragraph (h) of annex A—on any organisations or work relevant to the committee—it will be very clear that all members of the committee, if they are part of a foxhunt, will need to declare it as an interest. I agree with the Countryside Alliance that it is important we have broad-based and transparent involvement. It is important that the interests of every member of the committee are transparently declared.

Finally, I want to address the inaccurate report that the Bill could, in any way, stop our fishers and farmers doing what they do best. We are in a strange period in which the UK does not have animal sentience legislation. We have not had it since we left the European Union because the Government chose not to copy it over, but we will have it again when this Bill passes, as it will.

The hysterical reports from the media and some lobbying groups suggesting that the Bill could affect fishing and farming are incorrect. Britain rightly demands high animal welfare standards for kept and wild animals, and we should be clear that that should continue with this Bill. The Secretary of State has my full support on that, but I echo my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) and the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) in saying that we need high animal welfare standards in our trade deals, because it is not acceptable that the Australia trade deal undercuts our farmers by allowing food produced to lower animal welfare standards to be sold in the UK.

I echo a Labour colleague in saying that we need to tighten up the Hunting Act 2004 to stop foxhunting being a 21st-century practice. Trail hunting is an excuse for the live hunting of foxes and we need to close such loopholes. I am disappointed that this Bill does not provide the opportunity to do so.

Much of the Government’s animal welfare legislation has come from Labour’s animal welfare manifesto. There are many members of the 2019 intake in the Chamber, and I am sure they have read it thoroughly because, in many cases, they will have voted for many of the manifesto’s soundbites from the Government Benches, but it is not sufficient just to borrow the headlines from Labour’s animal welfare manifesto; the Government must borrow the detail, too. I encourage the Minister to look again at his well-thumbed copy to see what more he can borrow.

This is an okay Bill. It is half a pace forward, but it could be a full stride forward if we get the detail right. I hope that will happen in Committee.

3.54 pm

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

This is a bad Bill, an unnecessary Bill and a Trojan horse for those who have no understanding of, and sadly in some cases despise, the countryside and all that goes on in it. Before I start, I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

We left the EU in order to pass our own laws, I hope guided by common sense and only where necessary, but this Bill is even more intrusive than the former legislation under EU law. It is a skeleton of a Bill, one that is not necessary and, indeed, it has the potential for great harm. I say “skeleton” because many aspects of the Bill are unclear. Who will be appointed to the committee? What skills will they have? How will it be resourced? Why is this a statutory committee when others are not? Why will it have the power to pass secondary legislation, and is this because the Bill itself has simply not been thought through and revision by whoever is in power will need to be accommodated? Why is the committee’s authority seemingly limitless, with its remit to cover all policy across all Departments, and what implications, which could be onerous, does that have for each Department?

As two of my colleagues have asked so far, what is sentience? It is simply not defined. To me, this will mean that the committee will examine the effect of Government policy on the welfare of animals as sentient beings. Sentience has long been recognised in Parliament. We have had animal welfare Bills since 1822. The most recent—it has already been mentioned—is the Animal Welfare Act 2006. They go far beyond the minimum standards set by the EU. Animal sentience is a fact, which is why welfare matters and why we have the highest standards. Then there is the question of the particular circumstances of the sentient animal. Animals kept by man are surely different from animals in the wild, even if both are sentient. To this end, I share the concerns of the noble Lord Etherton, who described this Bill as a magnet for judicial review.

I used the expression “Trojan horse” at the start, and what I mean is that I and many others fear that those with different agendas—often partisan and politically motivated—will hijack this committee and its role to attack activities such as shooting and fishing. I was interested to hear the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) mention fishing a moment ago, but he did not include shooting. The Countryside Alliance rightly believes that the Bill lacks the necessary details and safeguards to prevent the committee from extending its reach to rural activities, and in Labour and other hands that is exactly where this committee will head.

This Bill emanated from the Lords, where on Third Reading the noble Lord Herbert said that proposed amendments defining sentience, limiting the committee’s scope, ensuring scientific expertise, and balancing provision for religious, cultural and regional heritage were all refused by the Government as “not necessary”. This committee will be another bureaucracy whose tentacles will reach far and wide. A partisan committee will bring with it division and hostility where there need be none. Why on earth a Conservative Government are driving a coach and horses straight at our core supporters and many others is quite beyond me. I very much look forward to dramatic changes to this Bill before I would even begin to support it.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It feels rather odd to be rising after three Tory Back Benchers in a row—the only three Tory Back Benchers who have spoken in this debate—have all criticised a Government Bill, so I am here to lend my support to the Government, and I hope the Secretary of State is grateful for that.

By the time the Bill becomes law it will be more than six years since the UK voted to leave the European Union. It is now more than four years since the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) moved an amendment to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, which I seconded, calling on the Government to recognise animal sentience, as enshrined in article 13 of the Lisbon treaty, in UK law. It is four years since the Government promised to legislate, although that was only in a bid to stave off a Back-Bench rebellion after a big public campaign urged MPs to support the amendment. It has to be said that Tory Back Benchers back then seemed a lot more enthusiastic about supporting animal sentience—perhaps that is what comes of recent electoral changes.

It has been nearly three years since I introduced my own ten-minute rule Bill on animal sentience. That was after we took evidence at the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and the Minister kept saying, “We really want to bring measures forward, but we need the right legislative vehicle.” So I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill and said, “Here’s your legislative vehicle on a plate,” but the Government did not seem interested. It is also nearly two years since the Petitions Committee debate in Westminster Hall and well over a year since the end of the transition period, so we have been waiting a long time. Forgive me if I am a little cynical, but I am not entirely convinced that the Government really wanted this legislation at all, and I think that was borne out by the contributions from the three Conservative Back Benchers that we have heard from so far today.

I thank the campaigners and members of the public who have emailed MPs, signed petitions and kept pressing, because that is why the Government have finally produced this Bill. This pattern of promising action on animal welfare but taking forever to act is typical of this Government. We have seen it on ivory imports, trophy hunting, live exports and foie gras imports, as well as on refusing to crack down on the cruel and environmentally destructive practice of grouse shooting or to close the loopholes that have allowed fox hunting to continue. It is beyond me why an MP would stand here and say that we need to amend the Bill so that we have the right to be cruel to animals just because that has been traditional in this country. That is not exactly the definition of progress.

Nevertheless, despite my concerns about the Government’s credentials, I am glad the Bill has finally come before Parliament, and with a significant win for campaigners—the recognition of decapods and cephalopods as sentient beings. A couple of MPs have said that sentience is not defined. One reason the Government gave for the delay to this legislation was that they needed to carry out research. They got the London School of Economics to do research, and the LSE said:

“Sentience (from the Latin sentire, to feel) is the capacity to have feelings. Feelings may include, for example, feelings of pain, distress, anxiety, boredom, hunger, thirst, pleasure, warmth, joy, comfort, and excitement.”

There we go: that is the definition of sentience. I would have hoped that those MPs would look at the LSE definition.

[Luke Pollard]

The point I made in my remarks was that the terms of reference that accompany the Bill actually include a definition of sentience, and it is very similar to the one my hon. Friend has read out. Would it not be better if that definition was included in the Bill and not hidden in the terms of reference?

[Kerry McCarthy]

That might be a matter for the Bill Committee, so that we avoid some of the criticisms we have seen. I hope that the recognition of the sentience of decapods and cephalopods will mean an end to gross acts of cruelty, such as unstunned lobsters being boiled alive in the cooking process. When the Minister winds up, I hope she can confirm that that will indeed become illegal if the Bill passes, as the LSE recommended in its research.

We know that the octopus is an incredibly intelligent creature. I was shocked to read recently that the world’s first commercial octopus farm is set to be established in Spain. The farm will not be on UK soil, but the Government could ban imports and outlaw any such farms in UK waters, again as proposed in LSE research.

As has been mentioned, there are concerns about clause 2, which requires the proposed Animal Sentience Committee to consider only the adverse effects of policy decisions on animals, not the positive effects. I was not entirely convinced by the Minister’s very brief response to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion on that, and I hope the issue can be discussed in Committee.

I often say this in such debates, but I somewhat hate the self-congratulatory, complacent approach to animal welfare in this country. People are so very keen to boast of how good we are, but there are still many examples of where animals are abused and exploited. Industrially farmed animals can still face horrific, overcrowded and unsanitary conditions and be subject to abuse by those who purport to care for them. With live exports, we see animals suffering from thirst, overcrowding and overheating —again, in appalling conditions. The Environmental Audit Committee has just reported on poor water quality in UK rivers, and one of the key sources of water pollution was sewage run-off and agricultural slurry from intensive farming.

Undercover investigations from organisations such as Animal Equality and Viva! have exposed horrific conditions. Last year, it was revealed that cows were beaten with electric prods and sheep and pigs were slaughtered without adequate stunning at the G & GB Hewitt abattoir in Cheshire. We have seen reports of overcrowding, filthy conditions and even cannibalism among pigs on Hogwood Pig Farm. We have seen pigs being killed by having their heads slammed to the floor on Yattendon pig farm, chickens dying in heatwaves at Moy Park farm and chickens dying of thirst, suffering ammonia burns or resorting to cannibalism on multiple chicken farms that supply Tesco. All the farms I have mentioned were Red Tractor-approved, with supposedly higher animal welfare. We have a long way to go.

I echo what the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) said about the need to reduce dramatically the number of animal experiments, and the shadow Secretary of State’s concern about importing lower animal welfare standards into the country as a result of recent trade deals. All that leads me to a wider point about what we want our relationship with the animal kingdom to be. The reality is that biodiversity has plummeted by 60% since 1970, yet a staggering 60% of all mammals on this planet are now livestock, as industrial agriculture booms. Only 4% of mammals now are wild animals. That shows the impact that humans have had on the natural world: we have confined nature to farms and destroyed whatever is left outside them.

It is also estimated that since the dawn of human civilisation, 15% of fish biomass has been lost and 70% of global fish stocks are now either fully exploited or over-exploited. Renowned oceanographer Sylvia Earle recently said that humans treat oceans like a “free grocery store”, and called on us to respect marine creatures in the same way we do elephants.

Recognition of the sentience of animals is the first step in a better relationship with them, so I welcome the Bill and urge colleagues to support it—but recognition is one thing, and respect is another. If we truly respect animals, we must do a lot more than just pay lip service to sentience: we must end the exploitation and abuse of animals on factory farms; stop treating animals as commodities; end the hunting and shooting of animals for sport; and halt and reverse the devastating damage that we have done to the natural world. I hope that all those issues can come out as a result of this Bill. It is just a starting point, but it is important to get the concept of animal sentience on the record, and I am happy to support it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Churchill]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and for the letter that he recently wrote to me. We intend to do exactly that and I shall come to that in a moment.

The Bill delivers on our manifesto commitment and provides legal recognition that animals are sentient beings. As I have said, it is a tight, short Bill that establishes an animal sentience committee to consider how individual central Government policies and decision making take account of animal welfare. The Bill contains provisions to ensure that Ministers respond to Parliament in respect of reports published by the animal sentience committee. It establishes that committee and empowers it to scrutinise Minister’s policy formation and implementation decisions, with a view to publishing reports containing its views on whether Ministers have paid all due regard to animals’ welfare needs as sentient beings.

The Bill places a duty on Ministers to respond to the reports by means of a written statement to Parliament within three months’ sitting time and confirms that non-human vertebrates such as dogs, birds, decapod crustaceans and cephalopod molluscs and invertebrates such as lobsters and octopuses are sentient—that is, capable of experiencing pain or suffering. Together, these measures constitute a targeted, timely and proportionate accountability mechanism, as so aptly described by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett).

The hon. Members for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) asked why the Bill talks only of adverse effects. It is because the Animal Sentience Committee’s role will be to encourage policy decision makers to think about the positive improvements they could make to animal welfare, rather than just minimising adverse effects. Meeting the welfare needs of animals means avoiding those negative impacts, as well as providing for positive experiences. The reference to an adverse effect allows the committee to consider whether a policy might restrict an animal’s positive experience.

I was asked whether the Animal Sentience Committee will produce an animal welfare strategy, and the answer is no. The Government’s current and future work on animal welfare and conservation is set out clearly in the action plan for animal welfare, and the role of the Animal Sentience Committee is not to devise future policy or strategy.

I was asked whether the committee could produce an annual report. That task is not established by the Bill, although that would not be necessary. There is nothing to prevent the committee from assessing improvements annually, if that fulfils its legislative purposes, or from issuing a report should it so wish.

[Luke Pollard]

The Minister slightly misunderstands the point. It is not that Members want the Animal Sentience Committee to produce an annual report but that we want the Secretary of State to have an annual parliamentary moment when the findings of those reports can be discussed and debated on the Floor of the House. Rather than being buried in a report in the House of Commons Library, will it be debated by parliamentarians?

[Jo Churchill]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, but I gently point out that there are plenty of other devices for ensuring plenty of parliamentary time. I am sure that we will unpick that in Committee.

Ministers will remain responsible for balancing animal welfare against other important matters of public interest. We are and will remain fully accountable to Parliament for that. My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon spent some time asking whether the Bill increases the risk of judicial review, and it has been carefully considered and worded to ensure there are only two areas in which we could instigate grounds for judicial review if Ministers fail to fulfil them: by not appointing a committee or by not bringing forward a report in a timely fashion.

I was also asked how the Animal Sentience Committee differs from the Animal Welfare Committee. The latter offers substantive expert advice, whereas the former is a scrutinising body—that is the essential difference. The Animal Sentience Committee is there to give another line of evidence and to help Ministers make decisions, but policy decisions are and will remain a matter for Ministers, for which they are accountable to this House.

Ministers are under no legal obligation to follow the committee’s recommendations. However, there is no point in having a committee that brings forward evidence unless we take it seriously. As I say, it will be balanced in the round to make sure competing interests such as the rural economy or a particular enjoyment, angling or whatever—all those things that are good for people’s mental wellbeing—are considered when we make our decisions.

The key point about the terms of reference is that the Animal Sentience Committee will be classified as an expert committee. It will be funded from within DEFRA’s existing budget and supported by a small secretariat. This will not run and run and be an unsupported Government quango, as suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire. The Bill is drafted to keep sentience at the forefront of policy making and implementation, in line with its statutory functions.

Wide-ranging points were made by colleagues, which flowed into medical research and respect for people’s religious needs. The Bill is tight, and the reason it is a small, tight Bill is that it is important that we are aware that it does not change existing legislation. The committee does not make value judgments.

Hon. Members asked about the inclusion of decapod crustaceans, crabs, lobsters, molluscs, octopus and squid. I want to be absolutely clear about the reasoning behind the effects of that decision. At every point, it is about respecting and recognising animal sentience, and being scientifically led.

UK-EU Fisheries Allocations

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing this debate. There should be an annual fisheries debate in the parliamentary calendar, ahead of the December Fisheries Council, so that we can give as much power to the Minister’s elbow as possible to ensure that the deal that she goes to negotiate, albeit from outside the room, is as good for our fisheries as it can be.

Fishing matters. It matters in Plymouth, where there are nearly 1,000 jobs that rely on not only the catching but the processing sectors and the associated trades—supply chains and exporters. Fishing matters because it is part of our identity. Plymouth is no different from other coastal communities that I see represented around the room, in that we want to see our fishers get a better deal than they have so far.

I agree with the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) that we have started our time as an independent coastal state quite poorly. That is because of a botched Brexit deal, because of overpromising to our fishers and because, frankly, when it came to the crunch, fishers were regarded as disposable by the negotiators. They must not ever be regarded as disposable. This industry matters.

Fishing does take too many people; it is a dangerous profession. We need to remember people at home and abroad who lose their lives to accidents at sea or are injured. Progress is being made on safety. I would like to praise Clive Palfrey, RNLI coxswain and former fisherman, for his work taking the search out of search and rescue by starting to put locator beacons on lifejackets as part of the Plymouth lifejacket scheme, which the Minister supported with a grant. It has been a huge success, and we should continue to encourage its continued nationwide roll-out because it will save lives.

I pay tribute to the RNLI. It provides support for our fishers 24/7, all year round. In particular, I thank the people who have dedicated their entire lives to it. Milf—or Dave Milford, as he is better known—has given 32 years’ service to the RNLI at Plymouth. The fishing industry’s gratitude to him is echoed by me and many others whose lives he has saved. He also has an amazing nickname, which helps. Coastguards and the National Coastwatch Institution, which my stepmother is a member of, also do a super job all year round.

In the pandemic we saw the fishing industry hardest-hit, not only by a botched Brexit deal, but by the closure of the export and domestic markets. I want to give a shout-out to Call4Fish, a super Plymouth initiative that started out on a shoestring budget and is now supporting fishers nationwide to sell their catch directly from the back of their boats. That was thanks to the Seafarers’ Charity and fishmonger hall charities, who helped by putting their confidence in that. It shows that we continue to be pioneers in Plymouth. I would have liked a wee bit more support from DEFRA on that initiative, but there is still time.

I am afraid that, when it comes to fishing policy, all is not well. Fishers do feel betrayed, especially over the six to 12 mile promise that was broken. They feel betrayed that much of the money that has been promised to them in redeveloped opportunities has not come through. I know that the Minister will look kindly on an application made by Plymouth to help us redevelop our own fish market and bring our facilities into the 21st century. That will not only provide better, more cost-effective locations for landing, processing and selling fish, but will make sure that we have a sustainable future for the industry in Plymouth; we are also supporting the industry right around the south-west coast.

The National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations report by former senior DEFRA negotiator Gary Taylor set out the numbers that many of us suspected. There were losses by our fishing industry of £64 million a year. That is not just eating away at margins, but breaking businesses. We need to recognise that exporters have been hit in particular because of the additional red tape and costs, and other problems. Many small exporters have simply stopped exporting—stopped selling into our EU markets.

Problems remain, especially with live bivalve molluscs around the south-west: although some waters have been reclassified as grade A—the hon. Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), from further up the Devon coast, is very cheerful about that—not all those waters have. Businesses that still fish in grade B waters are unable to export their live bivalve molluscs to markets in the European Union, and I worry whether, after another season of that, there will be any business available for them. That needs to be addressed.

The French disputes over the past few months have been difficult for our fishers. They have added extra caution for people going to sea and extra worry about fishing in French waters in particular. I would like the Minister, when she gets to her feet, to explain what lessons have been learned, especially from the details of the fishing boat that was detained having been left off the database provided to the French by the UK authorities. A little bit of honesty would go a long way in supporting that.

[Jim Shannon]

The point is that it is not just fishermen from the UK who are fishing and are in contact with the French; it is also those from Jersey. Maybe the Minister can give us an update and report on where the Jersey fisher sector is, as well.

[Luke Pollard]

Fishing in the Channel Islands is an important part of the sector; they are part of our big family that has been hit by a botched Brexit deal. I hope that the Minister responds to that point.

Turning to the December fisheries council, what are the Minister’s expectations around shared stocks and what is the science that we are asking for in relation to that? Much of the extra promised fish that the Government made a lot of in their announcement is paper fish: it only swims on spreadsheets. It does not exist in the sea; it was a fabrication and a fiction, and fishers know it. How can we ensure that any deal that may come out of the December fisheries council that affects our shared stocks will be based on science and will be catchable? What are we doing in relation to non-quota species? There is a real concern about how some of that sits.

I would like the Minister to recognise that the absence of a deal with Norway on fishing in distant waters is causing real pressure—not for fishers in Plymouth, but certainly for the fishers that I met when I went to Hull to see the distant water fleet there. There is a real concern that the lack of a deal with Norway will collapse that part of the sector, which is a proud part of not only Hull’s fishing past, but its present and future.

Finally, I would like to know the Government’s plan for net zero for fishing. Each and every time our fishing boats go to sea they consume an enormous amount of diesel, pumping a large amount of carbon into the atmosphere. I would like the Government to have a strategy with a date by which fishing will become net zero—not just because they are buying offsets for the larger companies, but because they are decarbonising their propulsion and fishing in more sustainable ways. I have posed quite some challenges there, but I have enjoyed my chance to serve on the Front Bench, and I warn the Minister that I will continue to ask difficult questions from the Back Benches about fishers, especially for those from Plymouth.

Water Companies: Sewage Discharge

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

This has been a good debate so far, and one that has reflected the strength of feeling in all our communities, no matter which party represents them. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for opening this debate in such a coherent and clear way. A lot of people feel strongly about this topic, including the 207 people from Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport who have signed the petition, and that is testament to the campaigners, who have raised this issue for quite some time. I am grateful to Ferry Harmer, who organised this petition, but also to campaigners from Surfers Against Sewage, to Feargal Sharkey, to wild swimmers the nation over and to people who just think that this is not right; there are many of them. We are living in a climate and ecological emergency, and that matters, because it challenges us to do things differently from how we have done them before. That is one of the reasons why the sense of outrage about river pollution—river sewage—has been so intense.

I agree with the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who said that facts are important. I agree with her in that respect, and I think the facts of river pollution are sobering. Not one English river is in a healthy condition, and not one meets good chemical standards. England has the worst river pollution in Europe. There were 400,000 discharges of raw sewage into our rivers and seas last year. These are scary facts, but—

[Mrs Miller]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

[Luke Pollard]

I am halfway through a sentence, but I am happy to give way.

[Mrs Miller]

Does the hon. Gentleman not regret some of the misinformation that drove so much fear and anxiety among our constituents, particularly the suggestion that the Environment Bill enabled raw sewage to be pumped, for the first time, into rivers and seas? That is factually not correct. Does he agree?

[Luke Pollard]

If the right hon. Member had waited for the rest of my sentence, she would have found that I agree with her about certain bits of that assessment, because on this issue we need a debate that is based on facts. It is important that we get to the facts. The fact is that our rivers are dirty. They have been dirty for too long; they have been dirty for the past 11 years. It is a fact that we need them to be cleaned up— [Interruption.] That is true, and it matters.

When the House passed the climate and ecological emergency motion, that should have changed our approach. I am very glad that it changed the approach of the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne), who has been an incredible champion of cleaner rivers. I have enjoyed our conversations about how we encourage the Government towards a better place, and I am glad that they have moved in that direction.

However, there is still more to do, and that is why we can no longer accept being the dirty man of Europe. It is fair to say that the Government have moved on this, although it is important to note that they really did not want to. That was partly because of the screeching public outrage when Conservative MPs were whipped to vote against a motion that called for the ending of raw sewage discharges. I am not a fan of abuse on social media. I am not a fan of the nasty side of our politics, and I recognise that Members from all parties in the House have been subject to some pretty horrendous stuff recently, including over the issue of sewage. We need a debate on the facts, but with more urgency than we have seen for quite some time.

Today’s debate has been a good one, with some fantastic contributions from both sides of the House. I will talk briefly about several of them before I return to my speech. We need to challenge disinformation wherever we see it, and one of the best ways to do so is to place more information in the public domain. I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) said about the need to put more power into the hands of consumers so they can understand what is happening in their communities. I have been promoting a brilliant interactive map on The Rivers Trust website to any parliamentary colleague who happens to talk to me about sewage—and to those who do not—which allows people to zoom in on where they live and see where raw sewage is being discharged. It is disturbing to see how close to many of our communities this discharge is taking place. It is not happening far, far away; it is happening in all our communities. The right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) made the point about rivers being locked away in concrete tubes, but that does not stop the sewage emerging at some point.

It is important to understand what is happening. We need consumers to understand it so that they support greater investment. The Minister has used a variety of figures over the past month about how much it would cost to address raw sewage discharges. I look forward to hearing where those figures came from, because I have still not had the workings-out. However, there will be a cost to this process, and I think there are a variety of options about where the money should come from.

I have a huge amount of sympathy for the argument that many of my Labour colleagues have made today about using shareholder dividends, and holding water in the public interest in the public sector with genuine common ownership. There is enormous potential in looking at that method. However, I look at the party that is in power now and say, “Where is the plan?” We need to have a plan for raw sewage discharges that considers not only “storm overflows” but a creaking sewage system.

In discussing the compromise amendment to the Environment Bill, the Secretary of State was careful in his use of words and talked about “storm overflows”. I commend the Bill writers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for using that term and enabling a focus on one part of a sewage system that is broken, while omitting the rest of it. There is routine discharge of raw sewage into rivers and seas, not in the event of extreme weather, from combined sewer outflows, but as a result of daily discharges. The fines levied against companies, including the £90 million for Southern Water, show that this system is not working. I agree with the comments on both sides of the Chamber about delays in prosecution. I encourage the Minister to look again at the budget that the Environment Agency has been given, and to ensure that there are no further cuts to that budget and that there is a real emphasis on it bringing further prosecutions.

I also want higher fines for water companies, because it is clear that the level of fines are not yet producing a change in behaviour in water companies and stopping raw sewage being routinely discharged. The word “routine” really matters, because it means every single day. While we have been debating, the water companies have been routinely discharging raw sewage—not because of extreme weather in the last hour, but because of a sewerage system that cannot cope with the level of demand being placed on it, and the lack of investment in it.

The Bill that we have passed in the past week—the Environment Act 2021—set out changes to the way raw sewage will be reported on, which are welcome; and it set out the need to produce plans, which I hope will be welcome, although I want to see what they look like. However, it did not set out a timetable for when the scandal of raw sewage discharges would be brought to an end. Nor did it set out any interim targets—a sense of direction. I think that, in a very meaningful way, every Member here today wants to see an end to raw sewage being discharged into our seas and rivers, but we need a clear timetable in order to hold any Government to account, to see how their performance is going.

We also need to delve into the workings of the water industry. The right hon. Member for Ludlow is right when he talks about the need to strengthen Ofwat and the SPS guidance that the Minister is preparing. That will influence the changes for water companies in the next pricing period, but what changes are happening in this pricing period? What changes are happening right now in water companies? They know that they do not have to invest in the same way until the next pricing period, because Ofwat has set the pricing controls and set the investment strategies. Although many water companies fell foul of the business plans in this period, I doubt that we will see a huge surge in action to close raw sewage outfalls and invest in treatment until the next price period. The challenge is what we do about it now, and that really matters. What we discharge into our rivers is not always easily seen. We need a clear plan to understand how much will be stopped, how much will be properly treated and how much will be carefully looked after in the future.

I hope that the Minister will be able to set out a clear timetable, because the people who signed the petition and the people in all our communities want action to be taken. They want it to be taken against a timetable. They want it to be measurable and demonstrable. They want to hold to account the people who are responsible for it, to see whether they are doing what they have been told to do and what they promised to do and, if not, what the consequences will be. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s remarks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Lady for clarifying. As I said, I share the passion of the people who signed the petition, so I am not arguing about that.

The petition calls for the complete elimination of storm overflows. We need to look at how possible that is and what the function of overflows is in emergency situations. We need to look at the whole issue in the round. The recently published storm overflows evidence project report shed some light on that and the costs that we are looking at. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport keeps asking about that, but he can read all about it in an independent survey published on gov.uk. It highlights that the cost of complete elimination would be between £350 billion and £600 billion.

When we are looking at all those things, we also need to consider all the other things that we have to deal with in terms of water, such as phosphates, nitrates and soil in the water. Several right hon. Friends rightly referred to that and how complicated the picture is. We are dealing with it, as we need to.

Work is under way on that timeframe to reduce and potentially eliminate overflows. The hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) made some interesting points about consumer involvement and bringing the public along so that they understand what we are doing. Water companies consult consumers but, of course, that does not change their obligation to meet their requirements and regulations in law.

That is where the Government’s direction to Ofwat, the regulator, is important. We have just produced our draft strategic policy, in which we flagged the issue of storm overflows and reducing the harm for the first time. We also put the environment at the top of the agenda. I am sure we all share the view that that is the right thing to do.

The issue of enforcement has been raised several times. Action is taken and must be taken, but I understand the frustration about how long it can take. The Southern Water enforcement took years, but the fine was £90 million, which sent a clear message. Thames Water has also had some significant fines, but it is now spending £4.4 billion on the Thames Tideway Tunnel. That will be a game changer, rightly treating sewage that goes into the Thames. We have seen progress, although that is not to say that we do not need to go a great deal further.

We have seen some action. The shadow Minister keeps asking, “What is happening now?” There is some action. Yes, we need more, but through the taskforce we instigated a call for action that is happening right now. Importantly, water companies are spending £144 million in additional investment on storm overflows in the period 2020 to 2025, on top of the £3 billion they are already spending on the environment.

[Luke Pollard]

Can the Minister square these two challenges? She has told us that it is going to cost us £660 billion, but also that if water companies spend £144 million now, that is sufficient to deal with it. Those are two very different extremes. Why is more not being spent now? How is such a paltry sum supposed to deal with a problem that just moments ago she said could cost £660 billion?

[Rebecca Pow]

I do not think the hon. Gentleman is really listening to what I am saying. What I said is that the water companies have taken some action now to start to invest in some of the facilities that they need. I did not say that they were doing everything that they needed to do, but my point was that they are not waiting until the next price review.

I mentioned the strategic policy statement to Ofwat, the regulator, which is crucial. Just last week, we set out on a legal footing in the Environment Act a statutory requirement for water companies to progressively reduce the harm from sewage from these overflows. The Act refers to harm not just to the environment, but to “public health.” That is something new that we added that was not even in the Duke of Wellington’s amendment, and that I think all hon. Members here will welcome, especially those who have bathing areas in their constituencies. All credit to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley, who mentioned the bathing area in Keighley being the first inland bathing area.

The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) talked about Warleigh Weir, which I know because lots of my school friends used to go swimming there when I was at school in Bath. I am horrified at the data she gave and I would be interested in hearing more about that. If she wants to apply for a bathing water quality safety test, it is clear how to do that. Indeed, we write to local authorities every year to ask if they have an area they would like to put forward. I am happy to help progress that, if it is at all possible.

In the Environment Act, of which I am very proud, there are so many things, including a whole page of duties, plans and monitoring. The hon. Member for Gower mentioned the important need for data, which she is absolutely right about. To really tackle these issues, we have to know what is going on. We do not need to wait for ages. We can start, but we still need the data. There are timelines for monitoring and reporting, and a system that holds water companies to account if they do not do the right thing. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) for all the work that he has done. He fully understands the data issue, which is so important. Crucially, every water company now has to produce a sewage management plan—they did not have to do so before—and that will help.

Water companies have been mentioned so much that last week I called them in—I mentioned this on the Floor of the House—before we thrashed out the final amendments. I read the Riot Act to them about the need, and the expectation, for them to do better. We need to work with them to make sure that that happens, and we have been very clear that if we do not see action, we will take enforcement action. There are clear enforcement powers through the EA, which issues the permits; through the regulator and through Government in the new power in the Environment Act; and ultimately through the Office for Environmental Protection, so the system is now in place.

I thank all right hon. and hon. Friends and hon. Members. We share a concern about water quality. Water is the stuff of life. It is precious. It is our lifeblood, as is soil—another of my favourite subjects. It is our duty to look after it. I will conclude by saying that it is a very complex issue, and my right hon. Friends the Members for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) and for Basingstoke have talked about the need to pull together other Departments and talk about the building requirements. We are indeed carrying out a review on the sustainable drainage systems, as set out in schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, which will include the right to connect. It is really important that we pull all those things together.

I do not often agree with the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), but he is absolutely right about semi-permeable driveways and membranes. I am a gardener, and I have talked about that issue forever.

The hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) should visit the living lab at Salford University, which is amazing. What it shows people about greywater harvesting, underwater tanks and green walls is brilliant. It is in her constituency, and I have visited it.

On that note, I hope I have made it clear that the Government are taking the issue very seriously. The measures are in place but there is, of course, more to do.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 582336, relating to the discharge of sewage by water companies.

Environment Bill

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 8th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

Apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker—that is a pity. My fault—I got carried away. Today, I am asking the House to vote in support of the Government, and this means a vote directly to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas, with greater protection for our waters than ever before.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

Here we are again—it is 648 days since the Environment Bill was first introduced to Parliament and we are still here debating it, trying to get bolder action from Ministers on the environment, climate and nature. Ministers, I am afraid, are still dragging their heels in not introducing the bold action that we need—particularly against the routine discharge of raw sewage into rivers—still favouring a weaker watchdog than they should be.

In the middle of a climate and ecological crisis and at the very time that the UK is hosting COP26, this is generational injustice in action. We need to see bolder action. There was no mention from the Chancellor in the Budget of climate or nature. In fact, there were cuts to domestic flying duty, coupled with the Prime Minister flying from Glasgow to London on a private jet. I am sure that the Minister will have joined me when we came back from COP in travelling by train, rather than flying, and the Prime Minister should have done so as well. It is a wrong, bad, outdated message to say, “Do as I say. Don’t do as I do”, but I am afraid that that is what we are used to. It sets an appalling example for the world that the Prime Minister did not take the train instead of taking the plane, and it is up to us here to sort that out.

Britain is, again, the dirty man of Europe. Not one English river is in a healthy condition; not one meets good chemical standards.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Pollard]

As a keen wild swimmer, I want bathing water quality in our rivers to improve massively, not just for swimmers but for the natural world, so I support the hon. Lady in her efforts.

Water quality in our rivers in England is not good enough. In the past year alone, raw sewage was discharged into UK rivers and seas more than 400,000 times. The Government’s response was to whip their MPs to vote against an amendment that would have stopped raw human sewage pouring into our precious rivers and seas. I am afraid that the message that that vote sent was a poor one.

Then came the rightful public outcry, which shamed the Government into a U-turn after days of digging in their heels. They have now adopted much of the amendment that they voted against, which is welcome, but they have not adopted it all. I thank the Minister and the Secretary of State for their time speaking to the Opposition about the issue, and I am grateful for the Minister’s words today putting our concerns on record, but I have to say that publishing an amendment at 5 pm last Friday did not really build trust, either among Members on both sides of the House who wanted to see the detail or among the stakeholders who were looking forward to scrutinising carefully what the Minister had to say.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Trust is paramount for the communities up and down the great rivers of this country, as the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) mentioned. Reading is downstream from Abingdon; London is further downstream. We are all deeply concerned about the state of our rivers. Although the Government have given some concessions and have listened to some extent, the way they have behaved still leaves a lot to be desired. The public remain deeply concerned about the issue.

[Luke Pollard]

I believe that the public are seriously concerned about what has happened in the House over the past few weeks. They have been alerted and awakened to the volume of raw sewage discharged into their rivers and seas; they want faster and bolder action from Ministers now that they are aware of this absolute outrage in our environment. That is why we need to build trust again.

In her speech and in earlier remarks, the Minister has cited a figure of more than £600 billion, but the maths is disputed, to say the least. It is not sufficient to say, “To deal with this properly will cost £600 billion, but to deal with tinkering around the edges will cost hardly anything on the side,” and pretend that those are fair options to choose between. We need a much bolder approach, with honesty and clarity rather than threats about bills and about how the process works.

We also need to look at how to build trust with the public again, because they are very concerned. I share the Minister’s concern about fake news online and do not wish to see wildly inaccurate claims made, so such a large figure needs to be backed up with clear evidence. I have tabled a parliamentary question asking the Minister for the working behind it; I hope she will be able to confirm the answer in due course.

Labour wants a stronger amendment. The Minister’s amendment in lieu of the Duke of Wellington’s amendment is confined to storm overflows rather than addressing the sewerage system as a whole—a really important point. There is no specific duty on Ofwat or the Environment Agency to ensure compliance, but there should be. We need to focus on reducing harm, rather than just on the adverse impacts. The amendment in lieu looks like the Government looking busy without making a real difference, so I want to set out three things that I hope the Minister will confirm today that could make a difference.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

We all want to clean up the rivers. Could the hon. Gentleman give some idea of the timetable and cost that he thinks would be appropriate?

[Luke Pollard]

Funnily enough, that is a point that I was going to refer to the Minister, because there is no timetable—a really glaring hole in what has been published today. A progressive reduction in discharges sounds all well and good, but I would like to progressively reduce the amount of cake I eat, and yet there is a big difference between doing that over a day and doing it over a year. I am a big fan of cake, as some in the House may know.

Let us get down to the detail. There are three things that I would like the Minister to confirm; otherwise, I fear that we will not be able to support her amendment. First, will she commit to reviewing the scale of fines so that water companies that continue to routinely discharge raw sewage face higher penalties?

Secondly, Labour wants the guidance in the strategic policy statement for Ofwat to be super-strengthened so that there is a clear direction to water companies to target the most polluting discharges now, with a plan to address the rest urgently against a clear timeframe. Progress by DEFRA, Ofwat, the EA and water companies should have proper parliamentary scrutiny annually via the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, or potentially the Environmental Audit Committee.

Thirdly, will the Minister set out in detail what she means by “progressive reduction”? That means answering two very simple questions: by when, and how much? If that cannot be set out, it is just spin. I fear that water companies could say, “We are meeting our progressive reduction with these two tiny projects over here,” and not set out a clear commitment. By when and how much will discharges be progressively reduced?

[Geraint Davies]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Luke Pollard]

I will keep going, just because of the pressure on time.

It is not just the Opposition who have concerns. Water UK and water companies tell us that they have concerns about the Government’s amendment and favour the Duke of Wellington’s. Green groups, environmental groups, angling groups, fishing groups and swimming groups also say that they favour the Duke of Wellington’s amendment over the compromise amendment, so there is widespread concern.

There is a lesson for Tory Back Benchers from the sewage vote and from what happened last week with parliamentary standards and corruption. It is now a brave Tory Back Bencher who will listen to their Whips on unpopular votes, because after dragging their MPs into the gutter, the Government are likely to U-turn a week later and make them look foolish. However, let us be clear about the agency that each Member of Parliament has. The last vote on sewage was a disaster for the reputation of many Members of this House. They knew what they were doing: they were putting the party Whip ahead of the environment, and voters will judge them on it. Doing it once was a mistake; doing it twice is a pattern that voters will recognise and will vote on accordingly next time round.

It is vital that we rebuild trust on the issue. The sewage scandal has been a shameful episode for the Government. There is real cross-party desire to make our approach stronger. I would be grateful if the Minister set out whether she will support the three elements that I have outlined so that we can support her amendment; if we do not get that reassurance, I am afraid that we cannot.

Labour wants the OEP, instead of being a lapdog, to be a strong, robustly independent watchdog. The Minister has tried to put reassurances on the record that the Government will not seek to frustrate the OEP if it needs to hold them to account and take enforcement action against Ministers. In the past week, however, we have seen exactly what happens when the rules no longer suit the Government, so we want them in the Bill—not just a statement from the Dispatch Box that may or may not be used in future court cases, but clear rules in the Bill.

What the Minister set out about having regard to the guidance is welcome, but the experience with budget-setting powers and with the Electoral Commission, where Ministers have threatened a public body on receiving bad news from it in another investigation, is a bad precedent that needs to be removed.

We want the Bill to be better. There are good things in it, but on the whole it is just a bit “meh”: it does not reach the scale of the action we need for the scale of the crisis we face. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister set out whether she will support the three things that I mentioned. If not, I am afraid that Labour will not be able to support her compromise amendment on sewage and will vote against it so that we can secure a vote on the Duke of Wellington’s amendment, which is far superior.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

I am very conscious of time, so I will be brief. I rise to discuss Lords amendment 45 and the Government amendment in lieu of Lords amendment 45B. I thank the Minister for the time that she and the Secretary of State have taken to engage with me and with the Duke of Wellington in relation to his amendment, which I supported at the last stage. I particularly thank the Minister for her clarification today that the Government amendment in lieu places in the Bill a clear duty on water companies to reduce the impact of sewage discharges. That issue was at the heart of my private Member’s Bill and is included in her amendment.

What the Minister’s amendment adds, which was not in my private Member’s Bill or, frankly, in the Duke’s amendment, is the commitment to include a reduction in harm to public health, which will be of great benefit to the increasing numbers of people who use our rivers for swimming, canoeing and other activities that involve actually getting into the water, rather than just touching it with a fly or a leaded weight to catch a fish. The public health impact is something that we should not forget.

There have been comments about how effective the Minister’s proposed enforcement regime will be. I think that locking the enforcement regime into the existing Water Industry Act regime is potentially a more effective method than the one proposed in the previous Lords amendment. Of course there will have to be enforcement, and one of the big problems that we have had with the Environment Agency over the last 30 years is that its powers have not been rigorously enforced. I strongly encourage the Minister, as she engages with the consequences of the spending review, to urge the agency to increase its enforcement efforts in respect of the water companies.

There have also been comments—a few moments ago from the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), with whom I have also engaged on this matter, and from outside—to the effect that the concept of a progressive reduction could be trivial. The hon. Gentleman gave some examples. I think that that is to fundamentally misunderstand how the amendment will lock into the other measures in the Bill. Before my private Member’s Bill emerged, the Government had already indicated that they would introduce for the first time in statute a requirement for sewerage undertakings to produce a drainage and sewerage management plan to last five years. Every five years, it would be updated. Within that plan, there is a requirement to reduce the impact of the activities on the environment.

The proposed new clause locks the duty into those plans, and the plans are subject to a Government power to rewrite them if the Secretary of State of the day does not believe that they are good enough or go far enough. So there is, in my view, a clear link between the amendment and requiring water companies to make a progressive reduction in sewage discharges of materiality. That seems to have been missed by many of the commentators who have been complaining about whether the Bill has teeth.

In addition—as the Minister said—to this set of requirements on water companies, the office for environmental protection will have the power to investigate poor behaviour on the part of companies that do not meet their statutory duties in the Bill, which include a progressive reduction in sewage discharges and their impact. It will be able to consider whether the Environment Agency is doing its job in regulating the companies’ progressive reduction of those discharges, and, as we have just heard, it can also investigate Ofwat.

For all those reasons, I think that the Bill provides a clear direction to water companies that they must reduce sewage discharges, which, as Members in all parts of the House agree, have got to stop. I will be supporting the amendment.

UK-French Trading Dispute

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

First, may I congratulate my hon. Friend on his new role as our fisheries envoy in the Government? I can think of no one better to be a champion for the interests of fishing. He raises a very important point, which is that everything we have done is entirely consistent with what was agreed in the trade and co-operation agreement. The reason that some vessels inevitably will not receive the licence that they might have had previously is that the trade and co-operation agreement is different from both the Granville Bay agreement that we had in respect of Jersey, and, of course, the previous provisions of the common fisheries policy, in that access is now determined by a reference period. There will be some vessels that might have had the right to access but that nevertheless never used that access during the reference period, and which will therefore—under the terms of the agreement, which all sides understood—no longer be entitled to access.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

The threats and actions from France are completely wrong and unacceptable. There is a real need to ensure that everyone involved uses language to de-escalate the situation in order not to risk the lives of either British or French fishers in any clashes at sea, and to ensure that there is uninterrupted trade between the United Kingdom and France. It is really important to set that out.

It seems to me that the situation is a result of the Government, at some point along the way, losing control of some of the negotiations and positions that keep our fishers safe. Will the Secretary of State set out whether the crew are okay and what support is being given to them? Will he also set out clearly that we expect our British fishing boats to be able to fish legally, sustainably and uninterruptedly in French waters, as French boats can expect to fish legally, uninterruptedly and sustainably in British waters, as per the agreement that has been set out?

There is a real concern that the botched Brexit deal will lead to more clashes between UK and European fishers. Will the Secretary of State set out what steps he is taking to ensure that there are no further clashes and there is no risk of escalation? What steps is he taking to support our industry to ensure that this important trading period, in which UK seafood exports provide a huge part of the annual income for fishing businesses, is uninterrupted, because there is a risk that the situation could erode the confidence of European suppliers in buying from British companies?

May I further ask the Secretary of State whether—after having investigated whether the licence for this boat, having been granted by UK authorities, was subsequently removed from an MMO or Marine Scotland register—he will come back to the House to report on what has happened and what lessons can be learned to ensure that this does not happen again? I ask him sincerely to use his offices in Government to ensure that there are no voices that seek to escalate and churn up distrust between ourselves and our colleagues in Europe, because in the risk of escalation is the risk of lives being put at risk at sea, and we must ensure that everyone who goes to sea to catch fish is safe.

[George Eustice]

I welcome the tone with which the hon. Gentleman has approached the issue. He is absolutely right that it is important that we remain calm and try to de-escalate the situation. The UK Government, and the authorities in Jersey and Guernsey, have implemented the provisions of the trade and co-operation agreement. We have licensed many vessels. In the case of Jersey, for instance, although it has 65 of its own vessels in its waters, it will have granted access to its waters to well over 100 EU vessels; it has not been unreasonable.

The hon. Gentleman asks about the crew. This morning, I asked my officials to check on that point. We do not think that there are any issues with the crew. The vessel was asked to go into port in the usual way, as part of a routine inspection, so we do not think that there are any issues of that sort to be concerned about. He is also right that UK vessels, with their licence to fish in EU waters, should be allowed to do so uninterrupted. The UK will continue to implement and enforce things in good faith in our exclusive economic zone as well. We are not going to get into any sort of retaliatory tit for tat on this kind of thing. It is important that everybody remains calm.

On what the French have said they will do regarding borders, obviously France, as an EU member state, is bound by the official control regime. There will be a role for the European Commission to ensure that France does not break EU law in any approach that it takes. That is why our principal port of call is talking to the European Commission, which negotiates on behalf of France on these matters. We will also, of course, speak to French Ministers and officials.

Finally, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman’s caricature—that is, that the situation has happened because we have lost control of a negotiation. The reason that we have these tensions is that what we secured in the trade and co-operation agreement means that there will be some EU vessels that previously had access that will not enjoy access in future. That is obviously causing a bit of tension; we do understand. Even though those vessels probably never accessed our waters and never took up the right that they had, it is an option that they would like to retain, but, put simply, that is not what the trade and co-operation agreement provided for. So it is by adhering, calmly but resolutely, to the terms that were agreed in the trade and co-operation agreement that we have some of these tensions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for coming to the meeting earlier this week to explain what is a very complicated picture. It has to be tackled from so many angles, which is why I mentioned agriculture just now—it is not just one source. We have the measures in the Bill and the six pages of measures we added to improve reporting, monitoring, duties and governance to check on the actions that water companies are taking. Those are in the Bill, but this overarching new duty to direct water companies to progressively reduce sewage will make the real difference. It puts into law what we have already directed Ofwat, the regulator, to do.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

Days from COP26, I must tell the Minister that the episode with raw sewage has not done Britain’s reputation going into that conference any good. The Government whipping their own MPs to vote against an amendment to end the routine discharge of raw sewage does nothing to build confidence and has rightly sparked a public outcry. Raw sewage is being routinely discharged today, right now and every single day throughout COP26. When the Minister talks about progressive reductions, can she say how much raw sewage will be progressively reduced each and every year? Importantly, when will this disgusting practice come to an end?

[Rebecca Pow]

I want to make it clear that a lot of what we have heard in the social media storm has been whipped up, and there are a great many untruths flying around. We all spoke last week, after all the tributes to dear Sir David Amess, about a better form of government that is more respectful. Actually, I would like us to pick that up, because a lot of people have not seen it over this issue. The amendment, as it was worded by the Duke of Edinburgh—[Interruption.] Sorry, I will correct that right now. The amendment of the Duke of Wellington, with whom I have had many meetings, would have legally bound Ministers to ensure that untreated sewage is not discharged from overflows, eliminating them. That would have involved the complete separation of the sewerage system. We have data, which I believe will be published today, that shows that that could cost between £300 billion and £600 billion. We had to be mindful of that. The hon. Gentleman asks when these things will start happening. They are happening already. Some £3 billion is already being spent by the water companies to stop sewage going into our rivers. The measures in the Bill will further add to that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

The fishing dispute with France is very troubling, and the facts need to be established. Can the Secretary of State confirm whether the Marine Management Organisation has issued an external waters licence to the Scottish scalloper currently detained in Le Havre, as its name does not appear on the MMO website? Is that an oversight?

[George Eustice]

My officials are investigating the circumstances around the vessel that has been detained in France. It is too early to be able to identify precisely what happened, but I have seen reports that it was on a list originally and then appeared not to be on a list. I have asked our officials to investigate urgently.

Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill

Luke Pollard Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 25th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

My party has been the party of animal welfare for quite some time, and we welcome the fact that many of the policies in Labour’s animal welfare manifesto have found themselves in the Bill. That is good to see. It is also good to see the Secretary of State in his place making such a good case for the protection of animals. There is a strong cross-party and public interest in us making sure that animals are put first. That has not always been the priority I have heard from those on the Government Benches, and it is good to hear that now from the Secretary of State himself.

The Secretary of State has clearly read a copy of Labour’s animal welfare manifesto. It must be a well-thumbed copy, given how many of our policies appear in the Bill. As such, Labour will support the Bill. It is a good Bill and implements much of what we have been arguing for, for many, many years. However, there are a number of elements in Labour’s animal welfare manifesto that have not been copied over in full. I want to raise a few of them, to make the case for how the Bill can be further improved and to reflect, on a cross-party basis, the concerns of many of our constituents, who want Britain to be the best country in the world for animal welfare and to ensure that all our animals are cared for and respected, because every animal matters.

I have made this offer to the Secretary of State before, and I am happy to make it again: on such a Bill, there should be no need for partisan disagreements, and I hope and would like to work on a cross-party basis, especially in seeking improvements in Committee; we have identified a number that can be made.

I echo the Secretary of State’s words on our fallen comrade, Sir David Amess. He was always a passionate campaigner for animal welfare, and a passionate campaigner on a cross-party basis for animals in general. He is much missed in this debate. I have great sympathy with those who want to name provisions in the Bill after Sir David. I think that passing a good Bill would be a fitting tribute to his passion on this issue.

Turning to puppy smuggling, over the pandemic, demand for puppies and kittens has sky-rocketed. The simple truth is that demand in Britain outstrips supply. That has created a space for criminals and animal cruelty. Research from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home shows that there were 700,000 online searches about buying a dog in February 2020, and that that increased to 1.5 million online searches in April 2020. That has made it so much more lucrative for unscrupulous smugglers, and has driven desperate dog lovers to dodgy websites. I pay tribute to all campaigners, including organisations such as Justice for Reggie, who have, for quite some time, been raising issues around puppy smuggling, puppy farms and their cruel practices. The way that so many animals have been brought to Britain is sickening. Animals suffer not just on the journey, but in many cases for many years afterwards. They suffer as a result of what they experienced in being bred and transported. Smugglers have been feeding a market of dog lovers—our fellow citizens who want the best for their animals. That is why action is necessary.

In one recent seizure during a thwarted smuggling operation, 10 French bulldog puppies just four weeks of age were found heavily sedated in a car travelling from Poland to the UK. The puppies were hidden in the hollowed-out back seats, under a pile of blankets. Luckily, they were seized by the authorities and cared for by the brilliant Dogs Trust, but tragically one of the puppies did not make it through the ordeal. Sadly, that is an all-too-common occurrence. That is what makes the proposals an important part of the Bill. I would like them to go further.

Labour believes we should reduce the number of puppies and kittens allowed per vehicle to three, rather than the five that the Secretary of State set out. We also believe that the minimum age at which dogs can be imported should be raised from 15 weeks to six months; that will help to rule out the importation of puppies during the entirety of the early stages of life. That should be in the Bill, rather than in guidance or secondary legislation that follows, to send the very clear message that puppy smuggling will not be tolerated in this country. We also want to raise the maximum penalties for those caught illegally importing dogs. There is a longer sentence available for illegally importing cigarettes than for illegally importing puppies. That does not quite seem right.

There is a question about how the rules will be enforced. I would be grateful if, when the Minister sums up, she explained how much additional funding is being made available to police forces to enforce the rules. The cost of policing puppy smuggling is borne disproportionately by a small number of police forces. How can that be taken into account? We welcome the consultations the Secretary of State mentioned on dogs with cropped ears and tails, and the potential changes regarding heavily pregnant dogs, too. We look forward to those being brought forward and enacted soon.

As regular viewers of Westminster Hall debates on animal welfare will know, the Labour party and I are big fans of Gizmo’s law and Tuk’s law. I do not understand why the Bill on pet microchipping brought forward by the hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly) has not been cut and pasted into this Bill, because it is a good provision. I would be grateful if the Minister set out why that is, because it enjoys cross-party and public support, and would make a difference. It would put into statute Gizmo’s law, which would make it compulsory to scan the microchips of diseased cats, and not just dogs, and Tuk’s law, which would require vets to scan a dog’s microchip before it was put down. I would be grateful if the Minister could sum up the progress on those two campaigns.

There is strong cross-party support for ending the keeping of primates as pets. I, too, congratulate my constituency neighbour across the river from Plymouth, the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), on the work she has done on that, and on the work done at the sanctuary in her constituency, which not only looks after rescued primates but makes the strong, positive, non-partisan case that primates should never be kept as pets.

There is a problem with what the Secretary of State has outlined, in that a licensing system that allows primates to be kept as pets does not deliver on the promise and the pledge that many of us made to our constituents—that we will ban the keeping of primates as pets. A primate keeper licence does not deliver that. I also have serious concerns about whether local authorities, which already in many cases struggle to fulfil their animal welfare responsibilities, will have the powers and resources to go after illegally kept primates and check on those being held under the Government’s primate keeper licence.

I would be grateful if the Minister could set out when the Government will publish the licensing standards, what those standards will contain, who will be involved in drafting them and how many suitably qualified persons there will be across the country. The easiest thing to do here is to say clearly, “Keeping a primate as a pet is unacceptable in the 21st century, and it will be banned.” I do not believe that a licensing system will try to deliver that, but there is public support for that position.

I know the Secretary of State is currently fighting his Back Benchers, because he whipped them to vote to continue to allow raw sewage to be discharged into our nation’s rivers. I hope that keeping primates as pets will not also be considered a mistake by the Secretary of State. The Opposition will table amendments to ensure a complete ban on keeping primates as pets, which I believe the public support, and I hope the Secretary of State will choose carefully how he whips his MPs in that vote.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

May I remind the hon. Gentleman that the sanctuary in my constituency is called Wild Futures? He seemed to have forgotten the name, although he has visited it. Can he explain why he is not sticking to the subject of the Bill, but rather making disparaging remarks, which are completely untrue, about sewage being disposed of in rivers?

[Luke Pollard]

I am always cautious when I compliment the hon. Lady, and hope she receives it warmly. I trust she will when I next mention her campaigns. Wild Futures is a great place, and the expertise that I saw on show was exceptional. It is not the only place in the country that has been caring for rescued primates, and I hope that continues to be the case. My point about raw sewage is simple: we need to be careful about voting in a way that is so contrary to public opinion, and keeping primates as pets—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is answering a point from the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), and I did not want to prevent him from doing that, but he should not have introduced the subject of a Bill that was debated thoroughly last week and should not be mentioned in the context of Second Reading of this Bill.

[Luke Pollard]

I understand what you say, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I will contain my remarks to this Bill, but I hope that any whipping and voting on amendments in future will be cognisant of public opinion. On animal welfare, there is strong support for ending the keeping of primates as pets—not for licensing, a “get out of jail free” card, or a small number of very rich owners being allowed to carry on owning primates as pets, but for banning it completely. That is what the Opposition will argue; I look forward to those votes, and I hope that when they come, the Secretary of State will be mindful of public opinion.

I support the measures set out by the Secretary of State on banning live animal exports. That is an issue on which we have campaigned for a long time, and there has been cross-party feeling that they should not happen. I am afraid in recent years we have still seen animals exported, in particular for fattening, and what many of those animals experience in being transported for a long time can be a real concern. I share the concern of the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), to ensure that a system is put in place properly and supported by our farming sector, but long journeys on which animals suffer are not acceptable to the British people, and this measure is long overdue, so I support it.

On livestock worrying, what the Secretary of State suggests here represents good progress, but we must ensure that the legislation is as thorough and robust as it can be. My concern with this section of the Bill is that the language is a little bit looser than I would like, and it could be open to interpretation. I encourage him to look in particular at the definitions of animals as being “at large” and under the control of a person, because already concerns are being raised about how that would work in practice and how the measures would be enforced.

On livestock worrying, which the National Farmers Union estimates costs £1.6 million a year—probably more in terms of the emotional costs to farmers—it is important that we ensure the message is clear and precise for anyone doing that, and, importantly, that it fits alongside a right to roam and further access to the countryside for many people. There are tensions here, and clarity of language would make an enormous difference on that.

Although it is not specifically in the Bill, I also think there is an opportunity within the scope of the Bill potentially to look at strengthening the foxhunting ban because of the nature of the hounds, which are kept animals themselves. It would be good to explore that, and I know my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) will table amendments on that in Committee.

I am proud of Labour’s record on animal welfare. I am proud also that many of the campaigns that have been fought on a cross-party basis and many of the arguments made are popular with the people we represent. People want to see us go further on animal welfare than we have done. They want to see Britain be a beacon nation, putting the health of our animals first and foremost. We know that by the amount of correspondence each and every one of us receives from our constituents when it comes to animal welfare. There are opportunities to enhance this Bill, to make it stronger and to ensure that the necessary provisions are in place.

In the spirit of cross-party working, I am happy to say to the Secretary of State that we will work with him and his Department to seek to strengthen the Bill. I do not want to see votes along the way where arguments on animal welfare are pitted against a three-line Whip, if only because the public want to see us working together in this area. In particular, the bits I have mentioned that could do with a wee bit more strengthening, a little more content and a little more thought, are ones that have enthusiastic popular support among the people we represent.

Environment Bill

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

Thank you.

Although I must ask hon. Members to reject Lords amendment 66, I hope that they will support our approach and my announcement today, which will deliver effective action to protect our precious and irreplaceable ancient woodland.

The intention behind Lords amendment 67 is to introduce additional formality to the process for entering into conservation covenants and to require such agreements to contain specific terms. There is a balance to be struck: conservation covenants must be flexible tools and straightforward to create, but they must also be robust. It is important that they are not entered into lightly or without due consideration and forethought—sounds a bit like a marriage contract, doesn’t it?

Having reflected on concerns raised in the other place, and with particular thanks to the Earl of Devon, we acknowledge that an additional layer of formality when entering into conservation covenants would provide some reassurance to landowners. We therefore propose an amendment in lieu to require that conservation covenant agreements be executed as deeds. Government guidance in this space will also be drafted to provide clear support on the relevant formalities required for conservation covenants.

I hope that hon. Friends and Members will support our proposals. I look forward to their contributions.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

Before I start, I want to send condolences and thoughts on behalf of Plymouth to Sir David Amess’s family, his staff and his community. We have seen our fair share of tragedy over the summer in Plymouth, and Plymouth stands with Southend at this time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

Would my hon. Friend agree with me and my beleaguered constituents in Whitstable that this is not an unusual occurrence, and that it is happening more and more frequently? On the Whitstable coast, for example, it is ruining the lives of kayakers, sailors and swimmers and ruining the tourist industry. The removal of the lines in the amendment that have teeth would be a real disappointment.

[Luke Pollard]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. As a regular wild swimmer myself, I recognise that this is a concern not only to people who swim in our nation’s rivers but to those who value their biodiversity. I think that the Minister has underestimated the strength of feeling in this area.

There is a way through this, however. There is a route that could result in progressive improvement in the reduction in the number of raw sewage discharges, that could simultaneously collect the required data and that could protect our environment without big increases to bills, with appropriate investment and a sense of urgency from Ministers. There is a route for that, and I suspect that further compromises will be necessary on this point when the Bill returns to the House of Lords and then comes back to us. I do not think we are yet done with this.

[Matt Rodda]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the key is to focus the big water companies on this issue? They have significant resources; they are large, wealthy businesses. Many people use our rivers, including many residents in Reading who live next to the Thames, the Kennet and the Loddon who are affected by this and very concerned about it. We are downstream of a number of effluent emissions, and people want to see real action from Thames Water.

[Luke Pollard]

My hon. Friend raises an incredibly good point. People want to see action. This is not something that concerns only politicos; the public want to see proper action as well. We need to put pressure on the Minister to do the right thing, and I am afraid that more pressure will be put on her on a cross-party basis. What she has announced is a step in the right direction, but it does not reach a compromise that is acceptable. We also need to put pressure on the water companies. Water companies such as Southern Water have presided over huge amounts of discharge into our natural environment, but it is not just those companies. Southern has had an enormous focus as a result of its huge fine for deliberately venting sewage into the sea, but we need every single water company to step up. To achieve that, we need pressure from the companies’ shareholders to do so and also pressure from Ofwat.

Ofwat needs to prioritise action to deal with raw sewage outflows into our rivers much more in the business plans. If it is not incentivised or required to do that, it will not do it. That is the power the Secretary of State and the Minister have over water companies under this privatised system. They have the power, but they are choosing not to use it to put in the investment that we need. That is why we need to see further improvement on this amendment, and I suspect that there will be further improvement on it, but I would also encourage the Minister to find a good answer to the question that was posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi):

“When will all English rivers be sewage free?”

That seems a simple question, and our constituents want to know the answer. If she cannot provide the answer, we must recognise that there is a bigger problem here that we need to look at.

Turning to habitats, I am proud that the British people have an ambition to protect the environment. All of us are here reflecting the views of our constituents who want to see more action to protect the environment. Not everyone knows how much carbon is emitted from their community on a daily basis, but we all recognise how many trees there are and the volume of the birdsong chorus in our communities. Nature matters. Dr Andy Purvis from the Natural History Museum has said that the UK has

“led the world in degrading the natural environment.”

We only have half our biodiversity left as a nation; we have lost an awful lot of species and habitats and we cannot risk losing any more.

The habitats regulations, which are the first line of defence in providing strict protections for the UK’s finest wildlife sites and endangered species, are so important, yet clauses 113 and 114 essentially give the Secretary of State the freedom to do what he likes with those regulations. He is required only to “have regard” to the need to enhance biodiversity when making changes, but “having regard” is not sufficient when we are in a climate and ecological emergency. That is why we are seeking to protect Lords amendment 65, which would ensure that powers to amend these regulations did not weaken their important environmental protections and could be used only for environmental improvement. I struggle to understand why anyone would not agree with the case that the Lords have made on that.

The public want to see us protect our forests and woodlands, and they want to see us plant more trees. The Climate Change Committee, the independent body set up to advise the Government, has been clear that we need to raise our current 13% forest cover to 17% by 2050 if we are to have any chance of meeting our climate goals, but we know that the Government’s slow, pedestrian and managerial approach to tree planting means the target will not be met until 2091. Their action does not match their soundbites, as it must if we are to hit our climate goals.

Planting more trees in England is strongly supported by the public, by business, by local councils and, looking at their press releases, by Ministers as well, so why are Ministers failing to plant sufficient trees? It is not because they do not enjoy enough support, it is not because the public will not support further measures and it is not because the public will not support further spending on this, so what are the obstacles and inhibitors that stop Ministers from delivering more trees? We need to see further action on tree planting by mobilising more of the power of the state to get this done.

On an issue where there is cross-party and full public support, we need Ministers to do better than they are at the moment. England is being left behind in the UK’s family of nations when it comes to tree planting, and we are being left behind on the global stage, too. If Ethiopia can plant 5 billion trees a year, including planting 350 million trees in a single day on 29 July 2019, why can we not have similar ambitions and scale of delivery?

Although we should be planting more trees, we must also be careful of losing trees, which is why Labour supports Lords amendments 94, 95 and 66. We know that deforestation, legal and illegal, is increasing alarmingly across the planet, but we also know that, far too often, we measure the impacts only within our own nation. Our global consumption and global supply chains must be taken into account if we are to prevent deforestation. Allowing illegal deforestation to become legal deforestation is a “get out of jail free” card that does nothing to get our planet out of trouble, so we need to see further advances. I am glad the Minister is making progress on certain commodities that come from stressed areas, but I encourage her to go further and do more.

Briefly, could the Minister ask the Financial Conduct Authority to issue new guidelines to financial institutions on deforestation risk? No British bank should be bankrolling deforestation internationally.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

I have a simple question for my hon. Friend, following on from what my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said. How do we differentiate between illegal logging and legal logging? There is no such mechanism known to humankind, so it is a farce, frankly, to say that we will ban illegal logging and allow legal logging in the Amazon rainforest.

[Luke Pollard]

My hon. Friend raises a good point, and it is why we need firm action not only from the Government but from the supply chain. We also need enforcement of our high standards, which must not be undercut in any trade deals. Food and produce produced to lower standards abroad must not undercut domestic industries or our environmental and animal welfare standards.

I thank Labour peers, Cross Benchers and peers from other parties for their work on this Bill. Until the votes earlier, the Bill was in a much better place than it was at the start. I deeply regret that the Government are whipping their MPs to remove many of those improvements, and I hope Conservative Members will consider what further pressure can be put on Ministers to improve the Bill.

On the important issue of river sewage, I want to work on a cross-party basis with Ministers to find a better compromise. I do not think what we have just heard will convince Opposition Members or Conservative Back Benchers, but there is a route through this, and that is firmer action and a clear timeline as to how we will address this problem.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to be in the Chamber physically to discuss the Environment Bill, which the Select Committee I am privileged to chair considered in pre-legislative scrutiny. I share the pleasure of the Minister and the House that, at last, this Bill is at the point of concluding its passage.

I will confine my remarks to Lords amendment 45 and Government amendment (a) thereto. I do so because the origins of much of the work, as the Minister has been generous to admit—the Government amendments and amendment 45—stem from the private Member’s Bill I was fortunate to be able to introduce to this House before covid struck.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

I am very happy to finish these proceedings on a really positive note. I am delighted to offer amendments in lieu of Lords amendment 85 to expand the scope of the single-use items charge. Amendment (a) will allow the charge to be imposed on single-use items made from any material, not just plastic. This charge will help us to future-proof the Bill and protect the environment for generations to come by providing a powerful tool to incentivise the right shifts towards more reusable alternatives to single-use items and towards a circular economy. We want to take this opportunity to strengthen our hand and encourage citizens to reduce, recycle and reuse.

I also urge the House to accept the relatively technical amendments made to the Bill in the Lords that will improve both the Bill and delivery. They will support the swifter and more effective implementation and operation of extended producer responsibility measures, allow consistency in enforcement powers for waste tracking in Scotland, and provide clarity on the exercise of search and seizure powers for waste crime. We have also accepted all the recommendations of the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, and the remaining amendments implement those recommendations.

[Luke Pollard]

I am glad that the Minister has listened to the concerns that were expressed about the throwaway economy and the throwaway culture that we have seen. Since the pandemic hit us, much of the progress that had been made in addressing single-use plastics has gone into reverse, with more single-use plastics being used and more being disposed of, including the emerging threat to much wildlife of PPE being disposed of in an inappropriate way. I am glad that the Minister has taken action to listen to the concerns of the Lords, which will now include extension of the single-use charge to other items that accompany this. That is a positive step and Labour Members support her in doing so. I invite her to look again at some of the other aspects around this that we have discussed today.

It is important to finish this Bill soon. It is an okay Bill—it is bit meh—but we do need the measures in it to be put in place soon. I know that it will be considered again by our friends in the Lords next week.

I invite the Minister to have words with those programming Government business to see whether this Bill can be brought back before COP26. Although I would like this Bill to go much faster and further, and although there are bits that are clearly insufficient, it is a step forward. Besides, I know that the Minister has plenty of press releases saying, “Landmark Environment Bill” ready to be sent, and I would hate to think that she would not get a chance to do so before COP26. I would be grateful if she brought forward those measures beforehand, but the Opposition welcome this positive step forward to address our throwaway culture.

Lords amendment 85 disagreed to.

Government amendments (a) to (c) made in lieu of Lords amendment 85.

Lords amendments 36 to 42, 44, 68, 76 to 84, and 86 to 90 agreed to.

Ordered, That a Committee be appointed to draw up Reasons to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing to their amendments 1, 2, 3, 12, 28, 33, 43, 65, 66, 94 and 95;

That Rebecca Pow, Selaine Saxby, Heather Wheeler, Ruth Edwards, Luke Pollard, Mary Glindon and Deidre Brock be members of the Committee;

That Rebecca Pow be the Chair of the Committee;

That three be the quorum of the Committee.

That the Committee do withdraw immediately.—(Michael Tomlinson.)

Question agreed to.

Committee to withdraw immediately; reasons to be reported and communicated to the Lords.

Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend is right. The pelagic sector in particular has benefited from the UK becoming an independent coastal state with more quota and less competition from Norway and the Faroe Islands, which have not had access to our waters this year. For 2021, the fleet received an increase of around 5,800 tonnes of mackerel compared with the year before. My hon. Friend is also right: we want to deliver for all sectors, which is why, in England, we have given a significant uplift to the inshore under-10 metre fleet with additional quota this year. It is also why, as I speak, we are in the final stages of negotiations on annual exchanges with the EU that will help the white fish sector.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

The fishing industry knows that the Government have failed to negotiate real-terms quota data with the European Union, and it also knows that the Government have no idea—no idea—how much non-quota species are being caught by EU boats in our waters. With the shellfish ban on exports and British fishers being harassed for catch data that we do not require from EU boats, where in the Tory manifesto did it say that we would actually give away control of our waters, and where is the plan for fishing? Where is the plan?

[George Eustice]

I will take no lectures on these matters from the hon. Gentleman who wanted us to remain in the European Union and wanted to allow EU vessels to have the ability to fish in our waters without even requiring a licence to do so.

The Government have required all foreign vessels, including EU vessels, to have a licence to fish in our waters, and that sets certain conditions. We have access to vessel monitoring data so that we can track the precise location of all those vessels, and we are also working on methodologies now so that they must declare their catch when they leave our waters and when they enter our waters, and that will give us the data that he suggests that we need.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

We regularly monitor household spending on food. It is important to note that last year household spending on food among the poorest 20% of households was the lowest on record, at about 14%. That said, we absolutely recognise that there are individual households that struggle to afford food. That is why the Government have brought forward a number of initiatives over the past 12 months to support them through groups such as FareShare, as well as the holiday activities and food scheme.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

There are crops rotting in the fields due to a shortage of people to pick them, there is a self-inflicted shortage of HGV drivers due to the Government’s poor Brexit deal, and there are now empty shelves across Britain because thousands of retail workers are doing the right thing and self-isolating. Why has the Secretary of State for food not got a grip on the lack of food security in the country, and where is the plan?

[George Eustice]

When it comes to labour, the hon. Gentleman will know that we have introduced the seasonal agricultural workers scheme, which has been crucial this year in providing farms with the seasonal labour that they need, and we have allowed 30,000 seasonal workers to come in under that scheme. We are also continuing to work with businesses on the issue of staff having to isolate. The Government will shortly be saying more about their approach on this to ensure that key critical infrastructure can continue.

Draft Fisheries Act 2020 (Scheme for Financial Assistance) (England) Regulations 2021

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2021 General Committees

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to respond on behalf of the massed hordes of Labour MPs in this Committee today.

This is a really important SI. The Minister will know, because we were in the same debate on fisheries policy yesterday, just how betrayed and let down fishing feels because of the poor Brexit deal—the promises that were made and the breaking of those promises. That is why these types of SIs must be got right, and their implementation must be got right as well. We know that British fishing has been sold out by the Government. In the last few months we have seen our distant water fleet tied up, shellfish rotting at the ports, unable to be exported, and EU boats catching non-quota species basically unchecked, with no real time data-sharing arrangements in place due to a botched deal between the Government and the EU.

Fishing really is crying out for help, which is why it is important that this SI is adequate and properly resourced and, importantly, that the correct decisions are made as a result of it. We support a well-resourced and well-managed fund for the fishing industry to get the vital support it so desperately needs. We will not stand in the way of passing this instrument today, but I have some questions for the Minister that I hope she will be able to answer. The questions express not so much my personal concern, but the concerns of fishers whom we have spoken to in advance.

The instrument will give powers to the MMO to administer payments to fishers. For some fishers that is causing anxiety, and I will explain to the Minister why that is the case. It largely relates to concerns about the transparency and openness of decision-making processes that have been undertaken over the past year. The Minister and I probably share a desire for greater openness and transparency, and I hope that she will reflect that in discussions with the MMO when she looks at implementing the SI in due course. The SI will give the MMO more powers to set schemes, approve payments, and revoke, suspend or even reclaim money. That is all without a proper duty under the SI to convey the reasons to the applicants, let alone an open and transparent process or an independent appeals process.

The SI will hand powers to the MMO without any indication of how its decisions will be scrutinised, how fishers can appeal bad decisions or how the decision makers will be held to account. Can the Minister outline what scrutiny will be in place for MMO decisions after an award of funding or a rejection of an application? Can she tell us what the appeals process will be for fishers if the MMO gets decisions wrong, or a decision has been taken on incorrect grounds?

We know all too well that things can go wrong when DEFRA throws cash into its menagerie of non-departmental public bodies. Last year’s domestic seafood supply scheme handed out hundreds of thousands of pounds to companies, some of which had huge reserves, running into millions of pounds in some cases. The great concern is what will happen to our small-scale fishers. The Minister and I have had many debates, in this room and elsewhere, about the desire to focus on small-scale fishers. Labour’s view is that our small fishers are the backbone of our fleet and deserve the lion’s share of attention from Ministers. However, the funding has not always followed that in the past year. As the Minister said, the SI does not set out any significant changes in regulations or policy, but that is why fishers are concerned that it will reinforce the present situation, in which larger fishing businesses, including foreign-owned fishing businesses, receive the greater share and smaller fishing businesses, for whom support and intervention can have a more profound positive effect, will be overlooked.

Some fishers were concerned about the openness and transparency of the process in the past year, how decisions were taken, who sat on the panels taking the decisions, and what interests they took in with them. It is important that we have industry representatives assisting the MMO to make decisions, but there should be a focus on ensuring that those industry representatives are representative of the whole fishing sector—because as the Minister knows, there are dozens of different fishing industries, catching different species in different locations, with different gear set up very differently—and also on ensuring that there is always a voice for small fishers on decision-making panels. There should be a space reserved for them. The smaller fishers associations are not as well resourced as the larger ones, and I appreciate that availability may be an issue, but the Minister should task the MMO to ensure that, regardless of the issue being debated or the applicants, there is a seat for a small fisher to help to inform the decisions that are being taken.

Some fishers have told us about their concerns that some of the organisations that received money last time had connections, through membership bodies, to some of the people on the panel. I do not wish to suggest that any decisions were made improperly, but we must ensure that the sense is that all decisions are beyond reproach and are made wisely. We know, sadly, that some recipients of past funding were at risk of being struck off at Companies House for late filing. Some had not even set up their companies after the application was submitted, and some of the projects given funding had been planned before the pandemic hit. How does the Minister feel the decision-making processes have gone to date, and can any enhancements to scrutiny and openness be provided for with the additional powers in these regulations?

The Minister will know, because I mentioned it yesterday, that the Seafarers UK report, which is a good one, stated that most small-scale fishers have little or no savings or financial resilience, and that was before the start of the pandemic. That places a greater onus on decision makers to ensure faster processing and a greater focus on applications from small-scale fishers, many of whom will not be able to access the professional bid writing support that is available to larger organisations. Making sure this works is really important. We need proper transparency in these decision-making processes and proper reporting.

Earlier I briefly mentioned the appeals process. I would be grateful if the Minister set out where in this SI there is scope for an appeals process. My understanding is that the only provision anywhere close to that is regulation 8, on decision and notification, which says:

“The Marine Management Organisation must…decide whether to approve an application unconditionally, to refuse or reject it”

and to

“notify the applicant of the decision made under sub-paragraph (a).”

I want to see applicants notified of decisions, but I also want to understand what happens when decisions are wrong, or where a decision might have been made incorrectly, on the basis of a different interpretation of the evidence before the MMO. There does not seem to be any scope for appeals in the process. That does not sit right with me, and I hope it does not sit right with other members of the Committee, who I think would want to know that there can be an appeal in the event of a decision being made incorrectly.

That is especially important for small-scale fishers, who by and large do not specialise in bid writing and appeal writing. They are professional fishers; they are really good at that, but not necessarily at completing all the forms. Certainly, that is much of the feedback that I have had when speaking to fishers in Plymouth about this, so I would be grateful if the Minister set out what the appeals process is. If there is not an appeals process in the SI, could one be added subsequently, albeit on an informal basis, or brought back in a future SI? We certainly have a lot of them that could assist in updating this area.

I am grateful that the Minister set out in her opening remarks that there is support available for recreational fishers. The hon. Member for North Cornwall and I share much in common in our support for recreational fishing, which is a significant part of our fishing industry in the south-west. It has potential for huge growth if appropriate decisions are taken to provide support in catching species—the Minister will know that I am keen, as the hon. Gentleman is, to see a catch-and-release fishery for Atlantic bluefin tuna, rather than the catch-and-eat fishery, to preserve these amazing marine species—and also to ensure a focus on decarbonisation, not only of recreational fishing boats but of commercial fishing boats too.

The Minister mentioned in her remarks yesterday that there are three pillars in the new fisheries fund announced by the Prime Minister when the deal was announced just before Christmas. One pillar will be about environmental performance and sustainability. I would be grateful if she expanded ever so slightly on that, because there is a real opportunity to decarbonise, moving from the heavy, thirsty, diesel engines that we have in the fishing fleet, towards electric and hydrogen propulsion. If the Minister has any time over the summer, I hope she will head to Plymouth to see the world’s first electric ferry, as a testbed for marinised battery technology, which can be scaled up to provide an alternative to many diesel engines. I would be grateful if she could again set out the three pillars for the sake of transparency.

Mr Twigg, you may know that I am not a fan of some of the wording of impact assessments, because I say it in every SI Committee—I hope the Minister will forgive me for having to hear it again. Page 3 of the explanatory memorandum says:

“There is no, or no significant, impact on business”

from this SI. First, those are two different things: either there is no impact or there is an impact. Secondly, if there is no impact on businesses, what is the point of this SI at all? The entire point of this statutory instrument is to provide financial assistance for fishing businesses, yet the Minister’s own impact assessment says there is “no, or no significant, impact on business”. Both of those cannot be right, so either we are wasting our time here today, passing legislation that will not have an impact to look busy, or the Minister has got the impact assessment wrong. I would be grateful if she set out which of those it is, because it cannot be both. There is either an impact or there is not. If there is not, we are all wasting our time and missing an opportunity to support our brilliant fishers around the coast.

I want to see proper support for our fishing industry and, as I made clear in the debate yesterday, a proper debate on the Floor of the House, when we come back after recess, to provide robust scrutiny ahead of any annual negotiations. I invite the Minister to look at whether fisheries support schemes need to be flexed in conjunction with the annual negotiations, because the annual negotiations will adjust the available quota for different species around the coast. That will have a knock-on and sometimes immediate effect on the financial viability of certain businesses, particularly if their quota goes down. Whether there is a moment to align some of the support mechanisms with the annual negotiations is the type of a constructive suggestion that Members on both sides of the House will be able to make in a beefed up annual fisheries debate on the Floor of the House. I hope that she will support that.

As it stands, we will not oppose the SI, but I have some questions, in particular about appeals and the impact assessment, that I hope the Minister will be able to answer.

[Victoria Prentis]

I must have been in a different debate yesterday. I heard concerns and difficulties that had arisen in these very difficult 18 months during the pandemic, when many of our markets have not been open to us in the fishing sector, but I also heard tales of hope and optimism about domestic sales, for example, which have gone up 11% in the last year, and hopes for the future from around the country.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman was not detailing improper behaviour in previous schemes. He was careful to say that he was not, but then he also referenced some instances that would have been less than perfect had they been completely accurate. If there are specific concerns about the operation of previous schemes, I very much want to know about them, please. I ask him to write to me very soon and I will take them up with the MMO.

[Luke Pollard]

indicated assent.