Fisheries Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 8th September 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Brendan O'Hara]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman. That has taken an awful lot longer than I imagined it would. I was primed for that one at 9.35 am morning. Obviously, clearly not, but I appreciate his sentiment.

Given the circumstances in which these resolution mechanisms have been put in place, there is a massive potential conflict of interest if the UK Secretary of State, who is also in charge of English fisheries, is the person we charge to found that dispute resolution mechanism. Rather than the Secretary of State having this power, surely any dispute resolution mechanism would have to be created by all four nations, which would be bound by it. It should be something that all four nations and Administrations can agree to. I do not think anything else would work practically or politically.

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

The reason why we discussed this mechanism in the previous iteration of the Fisheries Bill Committee was the very real fear that a dispute might arise between the Westminster Government and a devolved Administration in the preparation of the annual fisheries statement. Let me take the Westminster Government and Holyrood as an example, although it could be one of the others. A dispute could become a political game. So the purpose of this mechanism was to say, “What happens in that scenario?” It is not out of the question that there could be a disagreement between the fisheries approaches of the devolved Administrations and the United Kingdom.

This amendment was proposed in the previous iteration of the Committee to challenge the Minister, as my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East has done here, to say what would happen in the event of a dispute. The answers that were given in the previous Fisheries Bill Committee were very weak, and there is still no solution to what would happen if a devolved Administration took issue with the Secretary of State’s fisheries statement, or if the fisheries management plans, as detailed in the joint fisheries statement, were not compliant with the obligations set under the Secretary of State’s joint fisheries statement but were compliant with the devolved Administration’s approach. That is an important issue.

[Brendan O'Hara]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept the premise that the Secretary of State is also the person who is politically in charge of English fishing, and that there would be a potential conflict of interest if that individual was charged with setting up the dispute resolution mechanism? We absolutely agree that there should be a dispute resolution mechanism, but it should not be for the Secretary of State alone to decide what it should be.

[Luke Pollard]

I am afraid that the remit of the Fisheries Bill affords us only the ability to give certain responsibilities to certain people, and the Secretary of State is responsible for the Secretary of State’s fisheries statement, so he seems to be the logical person to look at in that respect. I am pleased that the SNP wants to see a dispute resolution system in place. I say to the Minister that there is a good argument for having a plan before a dispute arises. Given that fishing is so political and important to the livelihoods of our coastal communities, as the shadow Minister said, having a dispute resolution system in place makes good sense, and it is better to design one when the Administrations are not in dispute than to cobble one together when they are.

[Victoria Prentis]

We do not think this amendment is necessary. As the hon. Member for Barnsley East said, the Bill places a statutory obligation on the Administrations to produce a joint fisheries statement. When it is possible to set out joint policies in the JFS, we will do so. Equally, it is perfectly possible for each Administration to have separate and different policies within the JFS. That is part of devolution, and it is not something that I am resisting. The policies in the JFS do not have to be the same ones. For instance, we were talking about bycatch earlier, and it would be perfectly possible for each Administration to put in place a different policy to achieve the same bycatch objective, as appropriate for the industries in the different parts of the UK, but we would still be working towards the same goal. That means that there should not really be a circumstance in which a JFS cannot be agreed if we are working towards the same goal.

Processes are in place to resolve disputes between the Administrations. They will be strengthened. I accept some of what the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport said about the need for a memorandum of understanding between the Administrations. In fact, contrary to some of what the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute said, the fisheries administrations have a strong track record of working together for the common good to develop fisheries management policy—as demonstrated by the close working on this Bill—while respecting the individual circumstances of each Administration. Most fisheries issues can be resolved through a strong working relationship at ministerial and official level, because we share an aspiration to maintain sustainable fisheries, as well as the vibrant and profitable fishing industry that the hon. Gentleman mentioned.

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[Victoria Prentis]

In answer to the hon. Lady’s question about why the period of six years was arrived at, I understand that the six-yearly review period mirrors that found in the requirement in the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 relating to marine plans. I recognise that the hon. Lady aims, with her amendment, to ensure that the delivery of the joint fisheries statement is effectively monitored and reviewed, but I do not feel that the amendments are necessary. Similar amendments were tabled in the other place, and the Government’s view is unchanged on that.

As Lord Gardiner of Kimble set out in the other place, we have chosen a six-year review period following a great deal of discussion with the devolved Administrations, with whom we work closely. We believe that six years is sufficiently regular to ensure that the joint fisheries statement reflects the current state of fisheries management and the best available scientific evidence, while providing sufficient stability for fisheries managers and the industry. It also reflects the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009. Six years is enough time to allow policies to have tangible effects, while avoiding placing undue burdens on policy makers and stakeholders.

We will report every three years on progress towards achieving the objectives, which I think is right. That new commitment, which ought further to increase transparency and accountability, has been made in this iteration of the Bill in response to recommendations from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. As with the Agriculture Bill, six years is the longest possible review period—clause 3 provides that the JFS can be amended wherever appropriate—so the provisions in the Bill will enable us to respond quickly and as required to changing circumstances or really bad environmental changes, for example, ensuring that the policy remains fit for purpose.

[Luke Pollard]

Given that the Minister is arguing against a six-year period—

[Victoria Prentis]

No, I am arguing for a six-year period.

[Luke Pollard]

Forgive me; I meant against a five-year period. Will she set out in which years she expects the first and second reviews to be produced, as that would allay fears that we will not have an opportunity in this Parliament, and perhaps the next, to ensure that a review is adequately addressed?

[Victoria Prentis]

I would like to take further soundings on that from the devolved Administrations because, as I said earlier, we are concerned about their purdah and election periods. If I may, I will talk to the hon. Gentleman about that outside the Committee. I do not think it will be possible for me to give him those years now without consulting the devolved Administrations. He knows, because he is aware of the provisions in the Bill, that it will be two months from Royal Assent, and we will then have a two-year period before the first JFS. Following that, the rest of the provisions continue to apply. I would like to reassure him that there is sufficient flexibility in the way the clause is drafted for us to act more urgently if needed.

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[Victoria Prentis]

The amendment seeks to require the Secretary of State to consult any appropriate person when preparing a report on an SSFS. It is of course important to ensure that we have sufficient evidence and data to establish the extent to which policies have been successful, but the amendment is not needed to achieve that. DEFRA already collects information from a wide range of sources, including scientific bodies, regulators, statutory advisers and industry in preparing its reports and we are committed to using robust evidence in all areas related to fisheries.

We would of course seek to follow a similar evidence-based approach to developing a report under the clause, including engaging with the fishing industry and non-governmental organisations. Any report on an SSFS must also be published and laid before Parliament, which would provide us with an opportunity for scrutiny.

[Luke Pollard]

Could the Minister set out whether the list of people she expects to be consulted on such statements includes organisations representing recreational fishing? There is a concern among many fishers in that sector that recent decisions, and especially those in relation to bass, for instance, were taken without adequate consultation with that part of the sector.

[Victoria Prentis]

The hon. Gentleman, you, Sir Charles, and I all share an interest and understanding of the importance of recreational fishing to the fishing sector. I assure him that, where appropriate—it might not always be appropriate—the recreational fishing community will be included in any consultation necessary under the SSFS. As a consequence, it is not necessary to legislate for what is already our standard way of working, so I ask the hon. Member for Barnsley East to withdraw the amendment.

Fisheries Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th September 2020 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We are off to a flyer. We now begin line-by-line consideration of the Bill. The selection list for the sitting is available in the room; it shows how the selected amendments have been grouped together. Amendments on the same or a similar issue are generally grouped together, but please note that decisions on amendments take place not in the order they are debated—I know this occasionally confuses all of us—but in the order they appear on the amendment paper. The selection and grouping list shows the order of debate. Decisions on each amendment are taken when we come to the clause that the amendment affects.

Clause 1

Fisheries Objectives

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

I beg to move amendment 61, in clause 1, page 1, line 11, at end insert—

“(1A) Any public authority with functions relating to fisheries activities or fisheries management must have regard to the fisheries objectives in the exercise of those functions.”

This amendment would place a duty on public authorities to have regard to the fisheries objectives in exercising their fisheries functions.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 62, in clause 2, page 3, line 33, at end insert—

“(3A) The Secretary of State must annually lay a statement before Parliament on progress towards achieving the fisheries objectives.

(3B) The first such statement under subsection (3A) must be laid before Parliament within 12 months of this section coming into force.”

This amendment would add a requirement on the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament an annual statement on progress towards achieving the fisheries objectives.

[Luke Pollard]

It is good to be back in the Fisheries Bill Committee. A few of us in the room—the hardy few—are alumni of the last time that we had a sitting of the Bill Committee, which was a good debate. We have a Committee that is made up of all political parties and is focused on getting the best deal for our fishers, which is what the Opposition seek to do by proposing a number of amendments that look at how we strengthen our fishing sector, how we make it more sustainable, and how we do so clearly. I know there has been a lot of misdirection around positions on fishing in the past, especially after the Second Reading debate. However, I trust that there will not be any further misdirection by political parties’ press offices, especially the ones responsible for the rather shameful adverts that we saw after Second Reading.

Labour supports the Bill. We support it because we want our fishers to have a sustainable future. We want to see a coastal renaissance that creates more jobs in fishing, lands more fish in British ports and enables us to eat more local fish. It is in that spirit that we have tabled a number of amendments. Amendments 61 and 62 stand in my name and that of the shadow Fisheries Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East. A lot has changed in the past two years, but I hope that we can make some real progress and get a good deal, because time to get a good deal for our fishers is running out, with the hard deadline for our departure from the Brexit transition period the end of the year.

Clause 1 sets the tone for the entire Bill, highlighting the objectives—what they are, and how they will be put into practice—but it also sets the tone for the next 50 years of fishing in Britain. If we get this right, we have the opportunity to create more jobs and that coastal renaissance, but we will need amendments to the Bill to get there. That is the simple challenge that I put to members of this Committee. How sustainable do we want our industry to be—indeed, do we want it to be sustainable or not? Our amendments show clearly that we want fishing to be more sustainable, because there is no future for fishing if it is not sustainable. Sadly, that is not implied by the Government amendments.

The amendments in the House of Lords that made sustainability the prime consideration of fisheries management were a really important statement. It said that Britain will not be overfishing, that Britain values our fish stocks, and that we will support our industry so that it has a sustainable future. Those Lords amendments were a beacon of sustainability and good environmental practice, and we should defend that in this Committee.

I am pleased that the Government took the time to consider the amendments proposed by Labour the last time that this Bill was discussed—indeed, a large number of those amendments have now been made and they will be defended by the Government. I am grateful to the Minister and her officials for listening to our arguments, if not at the time then subsequently, and for accepting those amendments. But when it comes to sustainability, we need to recognise that more needs to be done.

Fishermen and women are some of the original stewards of our environment. Many of those I have spoken to in Plymouth, which I represent, and in fishing ports across the country know how important it is that fishing is sustainable, that we protect our ecosystems. We must recognise the impact climate change is having on fish stocks and reproduction rates, on the zones where certain species are found, and on the growth of certain species in some fishing areas and the decline of species in other areas.

We have these objectives for the Bill, but the Bill does not explain what will be done about them and how they will be achieved. What is the point of having these objectives that we have all worked so hard on if they are not going to be achieved? Our amendments are very simple. Amendment 61 would oblige any public body that has functions relating to fishing to have regard to the objectives, instantly giving them a practical aspect. There is already a requirement in the Bill for a report to be made, but we should give the Bill some teeth by ensuring that the report is presented to Parliament, as amendment 62 sets out. My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East will say more on this when we discuss clause 2.

Both amendments relate to the important idea that fisheries must be our key consideration. Why would anyone not support amendment 61? If Members do not support this amendment, they do not want public bodies to pay due regard to these objectives.

[The Chair]

Mr Pollard, I am sorry to interrupt you, but I just want to be sure that we have all understood that amendment 62 is also being discussed now.

[Luke Pollard]

Yes, Mr McCabe. I am still on amendment 61. I beg your pardon; I will get to amendment 62 in just a moment.

Amendment 61 would ensure that public bodies—national Governments, regulatory bodies, science bodies and, in relation to funding arrangements, bodies of the Government that allocate funding to our coastal communities—have due regard for the objectives. If they are not to have due regard for them, why are they there at all? Why have a sustainability or ecosystem objective, or a bycatch objective, if they are just to create lines in the Bill and are not an important part of it?

Turning hurriedly to amendment 62, Mr McCabe, the important part of laying the statement before Parliament is that we want the opportunity to discuss it on an annual basis. In the previous Bill Committee, the transcripts of which I am sure the Minister has read thoroughly, there was a good debate about the frequency with which the Government should report to Parliament. Historically, we had the annual fisheries debate in Westminster, which was designed to strengthen the hand of the Fisheries Minister ahead of the December Fisheries Council, to set out clearly for them the concerns of our fishing sector and coastal communities, and to ensure that they would fight the corner of the species and sectors that were most at risk. However, the annual fisheries debate has become slightly less frequent, and it has moved around because of the frequency of fisheries Bills. Having an annual report laid before Parliament and therefore discussed by parliamentarians is the key part of amendment 62 that would allow us to look at what progress has been achieved towards the objectives. Amendment 61 states that people must have due regard in the exercise of public functions, and amendment 62 states that there must be decent scrutiny of the progress towards those objectives. Both are important starting points for the Bill. Both set the tone, which is that sustainability must be the prime consideration.

Although there is good, sound logic to say that all the objectives are equal, there is one simple truth: if we overfish our seas, there will not be enough fish left for a fishing industry to exist. That is why sustainability has to be the prime consideration. I want jobs in our coastal communities to continue. That is the argument that Labour Members present. We need to make sure we manage our fish stocks at sustainable levels, that we do not set total allowable catches above maximum sustainable yields, and that we ensure that sustainability is the prime consideration at all times. For that to take place, we need to make sure that all public bodies have due regard to the objectives set out in the Bill. I know that the Minister and her officials have worked very hard on those objectives and will make further proposals to improve them shortly, but what is the point of all the work that has gone into those provisions if no regard is paid to them?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Victoria Prentis)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe, and to speak to this important Bill. I hear what the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport says about Labour’s support for the Bill, and I am grateful for the genuinely consensual way in which Labour and Conservative Members normally work on fisheries. Those negotiating on our behalf with the EU hear how this House speaks as one on fisheries, as we did very strongly on Second Reading. We are all determined to get the very best for our fishermen.

It is fair to say, as the hon. Gentleman did, that the previous Committee worked hard to improve the Bill. Those improvements and those made in the other place are reflected in the Bill before us today. I am grateful to all the people who worked so hard to bring it to its current incarnation.

The blanket requirement that amendment 61 would place on all authorities is not appropriate. It is for the fisheries administrations to determine appropriate policies for meeting the objectives set out in the Bill. Public authorities already have relevant duties under a vast amount of other legislation. A statutory body’s objectives and duties will be set out in primary legislation. Inshore fisheries conservation authorities already have a duty under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 to seek to ensure that the,

“exploitation of sea fisheries resources”,

is carried out in a sustainable way. Under that Act, the Secretary of State may give guidance to an IFCA on how it performs the duty, and the IFCA must of course have regard to such guidance. I am worried that the amendment could dilute the accountability of fisheries policy authorities, as clearly established in the Bill, by dividing responsibility for the objectives more broadly across a wide range of public authorities, which might lead to divergent approaches.

A similar argument applies to amendment 62. The Bill already contains a robust framework of reporting and review requirements that will provide sufficient information to inform and drive progress against the fisheries objectives. Clause 11(1) states that the fisheries policy authorities must, every three years, prepare and publish a report on the extent to which the policies set out have been implemented. Clause 11(2) requires the report under subsection (1) to include the extent to which the policies contained in a relevant fisheries management plan have been implemented and how they have affected stocks.

Bearing in mind the number of objectives, we strongly believe that an annual reporting requirement would place a disproportionate burden on fisheries managers and the industry for not a great deal of gain. Not enough would have changed in a year, and the report might have little value. It would divert needed resource away from direct fisheries management, reduce the authorities’ ability to move towards co-management with the industry, and potentially hamper the deliverability of the eight objectives.

There is of course nothing to prevent a parliamentary debate—a Government debate, an Opposition day debate or a Back-Bench debate—from taking place if that were considered appropriate as an annual event, or more frequently. I for one am always happy to talk about fisheries policies in Parliament and I am sure that the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport is, too. However, that does not change my view of this amendment, and I therefore ask him to withdraw it.

[Victoria Prentis]

For the reasons that I have set out, I believe that the reporting requirements that need to be legally binding and are in the Bill are more than sufficient, but I am not in any way denigrating the idea that we might want to talk about fisheries far more often.

[Luke Pollard]

I am a big fan of having votes on these proposals and putting Labour’s positions clearly, but on this amendment, I have listened to what the Minister has said and I am happy not to push it to a vote. I like the commitment that the Minister has given to good scrutiny of fisheries policy in the future. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Luke Pollard]

I beg to move amendment 71, in clause 1, page 1, line 11, at end insert—

“(i) the public asset objective;

(j) the safety and workforce objective.”

This amendment would add to the fisheries objectives the “public asset” and “safety and workforce” objectives, defined in Amendment 72.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 72, in clause 1, page 2, line 35, at end insert—

“(10A) The “public asset objective” is to manage fisheries, and the rights to exploit those fisheries, as a shared resource and public asset held in stewardship for the public good.”

(10B) The “safety and workforce objective” is—

(a) to protect and enhance the safety of workers in fishing activities,

(b) to set and protect minimum standards for wages, terms and conditions of employment in fishing activities,

(c) to prevent modern slavery in fishing activities, and

(d) to ensure the application and enforcement of the national minimum wage by HMRC on fishing vessels within the United Kingdom’s Exclusive Economic Zone.”

This amendment defines the “public asset” and “safety and workforce” objectives.

[Luke Pollard]

For future reference, Mr McCabe, I will be dealing with all the amendments to the first clause.

In amendments 71 and 72, Labour is suggesting that we add two further objectives: a public asset objective and a safety and workforce objective. Each is important, but the safety one is particularly so. I know that there is a good amount of cross-party support for it, and I wish to ensure that that matter is kept separate from the cut and thrust of other political debates around fishing.

I have already spoken about why strengthening the objectives is important, but if we are truly to back our fishers, we need to go further. That is why Labour proposes two new objectives. The public asset objective would deliver on the pledge in the Government’s original fisheries White Paper:

“We aim to manage these fisheries—and the wider marine environment—as a shared resource, a public asset held in stewardship for the benefit of all.”

That aim has cross-party support, but it seems to have got lost somewhere along the way between the White Paper and the Bill. In addition, the Conservative manifesto for the recent general election said:

“British farmers and fishermen should be able to profit by producing food and fish that are the envy of the world—both for their quality and the high standards to which they were produced…we want those same farmers and fishermen to act as the stewards of the natural world, preserving the UK’s countryside and oceans as they have for generations.”

It is important that we recognise that our oceans are the inheritance of us all, and their fishers need to be their protectors but also their stewards along the way.

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[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a large number of fishermen are paid a share of the catch? Therefore they may have a good day or a bad day. Were we to impose national minimum wage objectives, that type of payment system could well be disrupted.

[Luke Pollard]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the share fishing that many trawlers go with. I think the point is that there should be a base minimum. That debate on the consequences of a national minimum wage was held in Committee Rooms such as this when nearly all the Members now on the Opposition Benches were at school. The consequence of introducing a national minimum wage in fishing will be that all fishers are paid a basic level. That is especially true for those who are currently paid well below it, not because of a bad day at sea or weather obstructing fishing activity—I believe that that is what the right hon. Gentleman was suggesting—but because of the deliberate pay policy of the fishing organisation in question, to pay below the minimum wage, and in particular to pay foreign crews below the minimum wage.

The signal that the safety and workforce objective would send out in relation to that—although the Minister will no doubt say that subsequent work would be needed to sit behind it—would be a strong message that we expect a certain standard of pay for fishers. As to poverty pay for those fishing at sea, which is a dangerous profession, it would show that we as a newly independent coastal state, to borrow a phrase often used by the Conservative party, will set a high standard. Whether it is a matter of safety or pay, there is a profound case for high standards, especially for the foreign crews who are often paid less, which creates market distortion vis-à-vis the pay for British crews. There is an opportunity to level the playing field and create the basic standards that will say that safety and workforce issues matter. That is why the safety and workforce objective sends a clear message about our intentions.

I suspect that the Minister will disagree with most of what I have said, and I predict she will not want the objective to be in the Bill, but I hope she will be able to set out what measures the Government will take on the issue, recognising that there is a grey zone of responsibility, with safety sitting between the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for Transport, while the minimum wage sits between that and fisheries.

[Mr Goodwill]

No one would doubt the importance of health and safety, but there is already an obligation in the Bill, in clause 35(1)(e), to be able to give help, in terms of health and safety funding. I suggest that the amendment is superfluous, given that the issue is covered elsewhere in the Bill.

[Luke Pollard]

The right hon. Gentleman highlights a good topic, which I did not touch on, but am happy to, about the optionality of safety. My view and that of the Labour party is that safety should be a minimum standard, not an optional extra. Under the clause 35 financial assistance powers, the Secretary of State has the ability to arrange financial assistance for

“maintaining or improving the health and safety of individuals who are involved in commercial fish or aquaculture activities”.

He has the ability to do that: there is not a minimum standard that insists on it.

If the right hon. Gentleman suggests that clause 35(1)(e), on which we can still table amendments as we have not reached it yet, should be a compulsory measure—that the Secretary of State should ensure that there is always funding to create a minimum standard—I would agree. In the absence of a minimum standard, clause 35(1)(e) solely suggests that the Secretary of State can fund such provision if he or she wishes. That is a very different point from a minimum standard, and that is why it is so important that there should be a safety and workforce objective that establishes at a high level the belief that there should be minimum standards.

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[Victoria Prentis]

I believe very firmly in the rule of law, and I would never accept that the legal system and reality are in any way in divergence. The Government have made it clear that the current quota system needs to stay in place for the reasons that I am in the middle of giving. However, for future quota allocation we will—and probably should—look at very different ways of doing that. I will go on to explain why that is the case.

To go back to FQA units and the existing law, which is reality as far as I am concerned, this method of allocation has its detractors across the House and in the industry. However, FQA units confer benefits, such as creating a sense of stewardship of the resource and enabling quota to be traded to get into the hands of those who want to fish against it. If amendment 71 were passed, I am concerned that it could undermine the FQA regime and that that would undoubtedly cause instability, prevent investment and, ultimately, have a damaging effect on the jobs and coastal communities that we all want to thrive. For example, I know that in the constituency of the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, Interfish is one example of those that fish to FQAs. We propose to keep the existing quota system broadly as it is, while looking at the future system for the extra quota that we will be able to allocate.

[Luke Pollard]

The Minister mentions Interfish, which is a brilliant fishing company that I am very proud to have in the patch I represent. However, I do not follow her argument. Can she set out how having “public asset” already in UK law, as defined by the court case she has just mentioned, and then having a public asset objective are different? They seem to be very similar. Saying that we already have a public asset within UK law but that we cannot have a public asset objective in UK law because that would be bad seems to be contradictory. Can the Minister clarify that?

[Victoria Prentis]

There is no contradiction; I just do not feel that the extra amendment is necessary. Another reason for that is that the national benefit objective in the Bill already requires UK fishing activities to bring social or economic benefits to the UK. That means, in effect, that the Bill already recognises the importance of managing fisheries for the public good.

I now move on to the important issue of safety and training requirements. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport is right to highlight that the matter was mentioned a great deal by Members across the House on Second Reading. It is right that I should—as I did on Second Reading—pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman’s long campaigning on this important issue. It rightly concerns us all and, as the hon. Gentleman said, it is shared between Departments, but that does not in any way detract from the importance of moving forward. Indeed, it rather strengthens our hand across Government.

Safety at sea is, of course, not just about fishing. It is a maritime vessel issue. The safety of all vessels falls within the remit of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. Legal requirements for the safety of vessels are already in place in several pieces of legislation, most particularly in the Merchant Shipping and Fishing Vessels (Health and Safety at Work) Regulations 1997. Adding further complexity to an already comprehensive framework of legislation will not do much to improve safety. As the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport rightly said, training and behaviour change are what is needed. I was particularly glad to hear him mention personal locator beacons, not least because grants are available to fund those at the moment. I encourage all those who could benefit from wearing a personal locator beacon to apply for those grants. I am pleased to see—I think the hon. Gentleman would agree—that positive progress has been made, with the industry taking greater responsibility, with support from the relevant authorities where possible. We should not be complacent, obviously, and I look forward to continued working across the House on that important issue.

On the equally serious issue of modern slavery, working conditions and the general wellbeing of our fishers, the UK has fully implemented the requirements of the International Labour Organisation’s work in fishing convention. Of course, we have the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which ensures that—from 2016—officers from police forces, the National Crime Agency and Border Force can board and search vessels, seize evidence and arrest offenders. Section 1(2)(b) of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 already requires that

“all seafarers working on ships within the UK internal waters and ports are entitled to be paid at least the national minimum wage.”

That is

“regardless of where the ship is registered”

or where the worker ordinarily lives or comes from. The legal exception to that is for those paid by crew share. We know that almost three quarters of fishermen are paid that way.

Recent research conducted by Seafish shows that average gross crew shares in the UK range from £1,060 a month for onshore workers to over £4,000 for mates. That is in line with or better than national minimum wage requirements, so we do not feel that the amendments are necessary and I ask the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport not to press them.

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful to the Minister for setting out her reasons for disagreeing with the amendments and for setting out the importance of safety. We will return to safety later. With that in mind, I am happy to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Victoria Prentis]

I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 1, page 1, line 12, leave out subsections (2) and (3) and insert—

‘(2) The “sustainability objective” is that—

(a) fish and aquaculture activities are—

(i) environmentally sustainable in the long term, and

(ii) managed so as to achieve economic, social and employment benefits and contribute to the availability of food supplies, and

(b) the fishing capacity of fleets is such that fleets are economically viable but do not overexploit marine stocks.”

This amendment alters the definition of the “sustainability objective” so as to revert to the definition as it stood before it was substituted at Report stage in the Lords.

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[Victoria Prentis]

I think the hon. Lady is possibly slightly unaware that we do not currently have good data for many stocks. We fish, we think, just over 100 stocks—we have 100 stocks available to us to fish in the UK, and we are very fortunate to have a very wide, mixed fishery—but we simply cannot say whether we are meeting MSY because we do not have the data available. That is why it is so important that we do the work where we need to, such as in Dogger Bank, to find out what is happening.

I can answer the hon. Lady more fully as we go through the Bill; we have a whole section on MSY coming up. I know it was not the intention that this amendment, inserted in the other place, should cause difficulties by introducing a hierarchy into the set of interlinked objectives, but I feel that returning clause 1 to its original balance is the best outcome for the environment, our fisheries and our coastal communities.

Amendment 74 would extend the scope of the Bill to the management of fish and aquaculture activities in freshwater ecosystems. Freshwater ecosystems are already managed through a comprehensive suite of legislation, which emanates mostly from the EU water framework directive. The Environment Agency regulates inland waters under the Environment Act 1995. Freshwater fisheries are also regulated under the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act 1975. There are, of course, specific challenges to managing freshwater ecosystems, most of which are unrelated to fishing or angling—for example, those relating to water quality or obstructions in sluices. We are further strengthening our regulation of such issues through both the Agriculture and Environment Bills.

This Bill has been developed to put in place a new sea fisheries management regime and clearly focuses on the marine environment. We recognise that the term “marine and aquatic” is used elsewhere in the Bill where appropriate; we want there to be no doubt, for example, over the scope of an administration’s powers to make grants in relation to inland as well as marine activities. However, this Bill’s core purpose is managing marine and coastal fisheries, and that is why we do not feel that this is a helpful amendment.

Amendment 75 is also well intentioned, but we feel it would have significant unforeseen impacts, which could lead to stopping a great deal of fishing activity and damaging our coastal communities as a result. Requiring our fisheries and aquaculture sector to reverse all the negative impacts of their activities on marine ecosystems, as proposed in the amendment, would simply render many fishing activities impossible.

On amendment 76, we of course agree that we must protect sensitive species from incidental catches in fishing nets. The Government are committed to encouraging the fishing industry to minimise bycatch of sensitive species as much as possible, and we are developing UK plans of action for cetacean and seabird bycatch, working closely with the fishing industry and environmental groups. Our various bycatch monitoring programmes are essential to inform that work. We will be launching a broader programme of work on protected, endangered and threatened species bycatch to support a more holistic system.

However, the effect of this particular amendment would be that fisheries administrations would have to have policies that would eliminate all bycatch. While our goal is to reduce bycatch to as close to zero as possible, in some situations complete elimination of bycatch will not be possible and some sensitive species will inevitably be caught. The wording that bycatch should be,

“minimised and, where possible, eliminated”,

reflects this intention and ensures that our objective is ambitious but achievable. It is accepted by both environmental organisations and fishermen.

Turning to amendment 77, the Government support extensive monitoring. We already have an extensive data collection programme that uses effective and innovative methods, such as underwater TV surveys. We feel this amendment is unnecessary, as the objective to collect scientific data is already included within paragraph (a) of the scientific evidence objective. It is important, as not all scientific data can be collected or used in real time. There may be a period of several weeks, or indeed months, between samples being taken from a fish on deck and the completion of the scientific processes. We agree—I know we will be discussing this issue further on another day—that the increased use of remote electronic monitoring may well help us to achieve this scientific objective, which is why we have included powers in the Bill that would allow its future roll-out, or further roll-out. Even then, given the volumes of data collected, that data may well not be checked in real time.

Turning to amendment 78, the CFP’s landing obligation, which was fully implemented last year, requires all species subject to catch limits to be landed and counted against quota, rather than discarded at sea. There are a few limited exceptions. Now that we have left the EU, the Administrations are free to develop discard policies that are tailored to the industries. However, as I have noted, even when our fishing practices are highly selective there will be instances in which this unwanted bycatch cannot be avoided entirely, given the high number of mixed fisheries in UK waters. If, for example, that catch is scientifically proven to have high survivability, it will be better for the long-term sustainability of the stock for it to be returned alive, rather than landed dead. There may be some limited instances in which there would be a high economic or safety cost to land bycatch caught unintentionally, so that is the purpose behind the “where appropriate” phrase in the Bill. I am worried that the effect of this amendment would be to undermine our future discards policy.

Amendment 79 would cause significant problems for the industry and the fisheries administrations. The management of fishing opportunities, namely quota, is inherently different from managing access to fishing waters. The equal access objective ensures that all UK fishing boats can continue to access all UK waters. By contrast, the management of quota is devolved. At the start of each fishing year, UK quotas are apportioned between the Administrations by the Secretary of State, and each Administration is then responsible for distributing those quotas to industry: the Scottish Government determine how quota is allocated to Scottish-registered vessels, and so on. Allowing equal access to fishing opportunities regardless of where vessels are licensed and registered directly conflicts with those devolved arrangements, and implies that each Administration would have to make quota available to boats managed by the other Administrations. It is unclear how that would work, and the uncertainty it would create would threaten the stability of the current quota apportionment system.

Finally, I will make a few points regarding amendment 73. The Government’s world-leading commitment to net zero, declaration of a climate emergency, and the inclusion of a climate change objective in this Bill—an improvement on the Bill, in my view—all show how seriously the Government are taking their commitments to climate change mitigation and adaption. Emissions from fishing vessels count towards national emissions, and are part of national plans to address emissions in the longer term under the Climate Change Act 2008. The unique part of the Bill’s existing climate change objective is the focus on mitigating the adverse effect of all fish and aquaculture activities. While part of that mitigation is through decarbonisation, it is important to emphasise that many other potential impacts need to be mitigated, such as impacts on the health of marine habitats that impair their ability to store carbon. I am concerned that the amended wording would limit our options on developing policies for mitigation only through decarbonisation and port improvements.

Fishing activity is already part of the Government’s commitment to net zero by 2050. The UK takes its international obligations very seriously, as underlined in the fisheries White Paper. We believe that it would be inappropriate to include in the Bill references to some, but not all, of our international commitments in this area. We feel this amendment is unnecessary, as it restates existing obligations and commitments of the UK under international law. I hope that the Opposition will feel able to support Government amendment 1, and will not press their remaining amendments.

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful to the Minister for setting out what is a lengthy, complicated group of amendments. I will also go through each amendment in turn, with specific focus on Government amendment 1 and amendment 73, the key amendments within this group.

Government amendment 1 seeks to remove a line inserted by the House of Lords:

“The sustainability objective is the prime fisheries objective.”

That sends a very poor message to those who want us to manage our fish stocks sustainably. There is no future for fishing unless it is sustainable, which is the clear message of the current wording of the Bill. I disagree with the Minister’s argument that the current wording makes things difficult. Indeed, we have to face up to the difficult truth around fishing and sustainability—if fishing is not truly sustainable, there will not be a fishing industry in future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the wording proposed by the Lords would tie the hands of Ministers as they go to the annual fishing negotiations? Stocks are determined within a particular zone, and we could end up with the UK not being able to fish some of that stock because we could not take back to the UK the agreement that we would have made had we not been so encumbered.

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for setting that out. Let me be clear: a Labour Government would not set total allowable catches above the maximum sustainable yield. Telling our European friends that we want a sustainable fishing industry is not giving the game away or betraying our fishers. It is setting out, clearly for all to see the fact that we manage our fish stocks sustainably and that we want a sustainable fishing industry, economically and environmentally. That is the level that we would approach this at. That is really important.

The right hon. Gentleman mentions the move to zonal attachment, rather than relative stability, which he knows Labour supports in relation to this. It is therefore important that we set the tone and the objective that our own fisheries waters need to be sustainable at that level. That is what the amendment to the Bill sets out—fisheries sustainability is the primary driver of fisheries management.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the amendment is entirely unnecessary, given that the people most invested and most keen on maintaining sustainable fisheries are the fishermen engaged right now? By virtue of the fact that they need that industry to survive, and therefore need fish to reproduce sustainably, they are most keen on maintaining sustainability in our oceans. The amendment was therefore entirely unnecessary in the first place.

[Luke Pollard]

I agree that Government amendment 1 is entirely unnecessary, and I wish that the Minister would withdraw it. I fear that the hon. Gentleman was suggesting that the Lords amendment was unnecessary, but to save his blushes I will correct him on that. However, I agree that Government amendment 1 is unnecessary. [Interruption.] I will make a wee bit of progress before I take any more interventions.

Opposition Members are pleased that the Government have included a new climate change objective in the Bill, which was discussed when the last Fisheries Bill was in Committee. At that time, the arguments against that were that it would be unnecessary and would make decisions more difficult in future. I am glad that, on reflection, those arguments were shown to be unnecessary themselves. I believe the same should be said about this Government amendment, because we are sending a poor message to fishers, our coastal communities and all concerned about there being more plastic than fish in our oceans if we say that fishing sustainability is not the prime objective of fisheries management, because that needs to be front and centre.

That is why the Opposition support the Lords amendment to the Bill. Indeed, we note that it was passed with near cross-party support, with many Conservative Lords speaking in support of it. This is not only a view held by those on the left—it is a cross-party view held by those with a concern about the future of our fishing sector. I am concerned about the Government’s attempts to water down commitments to sustainability, kicking the climate crisis into the long grass with vague long-term objectives and no reference to any dates. Worryingly, while the Lords amendment guarantees that the environmental standards are not compromised in the long or short term, Ministers are seeking to remove that part of the Bill and replace it with reference only to the long term.

We need to send a clear message. Ministers have been clear in sending a message on their headline political objectives for fishing, but they have not extended that clarity to their headline sustainability objectives. Sustainability should be our prime watchword in the short, medium and long term. It should not be kicked into the long grass with the vague wording, “in the long term”. Our oceans are being irreparably damaged as we speak. We know that there are fish stocks under real pressure in UK waters. We have a wonderful mixed fishery in the south-west, as the Minister acknowledged. It is a real inheritance for our children that we have such diversity in our waters. Preserving that is important.

The Minister mentioned several items that I want to pick up in relation to Government amendment 1, before I turn to the subsequent amendments. I want our European friends to know that our objective is sustainable fishing. I want our European friends’ objective to be sustainable fishing. Setting that target along with the move to zonal attachment could be a profound statement of our future fisheries management intention.

The Minister mentioned the Richard Benyon review of highly protected marine areas. I appreciate that the first part of that report was pushed out before. I am concerned that we will not see the second part. I would be grateful if the Minister would set out what comes next. In making the case for highly protected marine areas, Richard Benyon—formerly of this parish—has made a strong case for delivery of the UN 2030 target, the oceans treaty, which the Government have signed up to. Labour argued that the Government should sign up to that. We were pleased when the former Secretary of State made that announcement.

It is important, but neglected, that that treaty says that by 2030, 30% of our waters should be fully protected. The phrase “fully protected”, rather than just “protected”, is important. It relates to the importance of sustainability as the prime directive, because “fully protected” means no-take zones. It means that we are not removing biomass from those waters. I do not believe Ministers have properly explained that to the fishing community. There needs to be greater clarity. Setting that target—to great aplomb and applause form all, including ourselves—dictates clarity as to how we achieve that.

We are just over nine years away from 2030. The plan to achieve that target is important. That is why sustainability must be at the forefront, as must the recommendations from the Benyon review, suggesting that the livelihoods of fishers must also be taken into account in setting any targets. I am not here to suggest policy to the Minister, particularly on that matter, but I would like to suggest to the Minister that her Department needs to set out what that road map is, if it is not to be a report that sits on a shelf as 2030 draws ever closer.

On amendment 73, the Minister mentioned our desire to achieve net zero for fishing. I raised this point on Second Reading at the Dispatch Box, as did several Labour colleagues. Having set a net zero target of 2050—although I disagree with the 2050 date and would rather it were closer to 2030—it is important that we have a road map as to how we decarbonise every part of our economy.

Amendment 73 requires that

“fish and aquaculture activities achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2030, including in particular through efforts”

in relation to a certain number of items. I am a 2030 believer, as someone who is red on the outside and green on the inside. The important thing is that I want the Minister to set out clearly the plan to decarbonise the fleet.

In Fishing News and other fishing publications there are wonderful examples of modern and fuel-efficient forms of propulsion in our fishing fleet, but there is no plan to decarbonise our entire fishing fleet. Indeed, some of our smaller vessels, which tend to be our oldest vessels, can use thousands of litres of diesel for a single fishing trip.  We need to make a case for having a plan to enable those fishers to afford to replace their propulsion with a cleaner method by 2030, rather than by the Government’s target of 2050. The lifetime expectations of propulsion, and particularly fishing boats, is currently within the planning horizon of many of our fishers.

If the Minister disagrees with that part of amendment 73, I challenge her to tell us what the plan is. Where is the plan? If no plan exists, when can we expect one and how will fishers be involved? There is enormous concern about how we replace propulsion within fishing, which is a really difficult challenge. There is no easy option or easy answer, but we know it must take place. The challenge is how that will be delivered.

The plan to phase out fossil fuels, which is mentioned in proposed new clause 1(10)(a)(iii) in amendment 73, is an important part of that. There is not the same focus on fuels across the full range of maritime uses as there is in the debate on the aviation sector, where there is greater focus on transition fuels, hybrid and other parts. We need to look at where that can be. The Minister will probably say that that is a matter for the Department for Transport rather than her Department, but the financial health of the fishing sector will be a matter for her Department. How fishers invest in that technology, and what technology they are encouraged to invest in, is an important part of that.

I disagreed with the Minister when she said that amendment 73 would only restrict efforts to focus on decarbonisation and the environmental performance of our fishing ports, but let us focus for a moment on the importance of improving the environmental performance of our fishing ports. In some cases our ports could do with investment in the efficiency of ice plants and the market infrastructure, given the importance of decarbonising those efforts. The amendment does not specify that they would be the only parts that Ministers could focus on; indeed, it says “including” those parts. I suggest that they give just a flavour.

[Mr Goodwill]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that there is a certain contradiction between what he is saying now and later amendments that he has tabled, which would indicate that fish destined for, say, the European market should be landed in the UK and then transported on trucks to their main market, rather than being landed closer to the market where they are going to be sold?

[Luke Pollard]

No, I disagree. I dislike the Conservative position of favouring landing fish in European ports, because we could be creating jobs in British ports. It is bad for our ports, and it betrays the promise that many people made during the Brexit referendum. It is something that we need to reflect on. We should land more fish in our ports, creating more jobs in our communities and, as a corollary, eating more of our own fish. We will return to that in future, but I do not feel that landing more fish in our ports and achieving net zero in fishing are in any way contradictory. Actually, both are necessary to have a fully sustainable fishing industry in the future, because sustainability needs to be economic and environmental—they go hand in hand.

Amendment 73 sends a really simple message: we want to see fishing achieve net zero, and we will require the Government to prepare a plan and to have an idea about how to achieve that. I hope the Minister has a plan for fishing achieving net zero, but I fear that this part of the debate has been wholly absent over the past few years. Outwith the larger debate about every single sector, but specifically on this sector, how will they work? We all know that fishing is not one sector but dozens of sectors operating within the wider remit, with different fishers catching different species of fish with different gear at different times of the year in different fishing zones. How does the plan to achieve net zero work for each of those sectors? There will be different approaches, especially with the carbon impact of certain boats.

I turn to the other amendments in this group, 74 to 79. I will talk only briefly, so that other speakers can contribute. On amendment 76, I suggest to the Minister that one thing she should take from this debate is that Ministers need to act faster than they have to date. In part, our sustainability work by Ministers, as a country, has been too slow and too passive. I hope that the Minister and her officials are hearing loud and clear from the Opposition that we want to see Ministers act faster on this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brendan O'Hara]

On a point of clarification, amendment 76, to which the hon. Gentleman was referring, is about the elimination of incidental catches in all circumstances. Anyone who has been a recreational fisher, or even guddled about in a pool, will know that incidental catch or bycatch is almost inevitable and almost impossible to eliminate. Surely we should be asking that commercial fishing businesses do an awful lot more to innovate and upgrade their equipment to avoid it. Is he seriously asking us to support an amendment that calls for the elimination of the bycatch in all circumstances? That seems to be an impossible ask. Surely we should be looking at a more innovative solution.

[Luke Pollard]

One of the difficulties of having so many amendments grouped together is that we cannot get into each one individually. That is a probing amendment to find out what the plan is. I will return to species in a moment, but to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question on bycatch, the discard ban was introduced with good intentions—to borrow the Minister’s phrase from earlier.

There is a real crisis of fish being discarded over the side of boats because people do not have the quota to catch that fish. Fishers are being put in a difficult position by existing regulations—regulations that Ministers themselves may decide on, even if under an EU directive on how things work. In mixed fisheries—which I believe is what is around Scotland, and is certainly around the west country, which I represent—for fishers to target specific species is difficult, resulting in an inevitable bycatch. The difficulty is that the discard ban states that a fisher cannot catch that, discard it or land it.

That poses questions about how a reformed discard ban would work under the new freedoms that the Minister has set out. Greater quota pooling, for instance, might be one way, especially for smaller boats, to make sure there is sufficient quota within a pool to ensure that bycatch is adequate there. There needs to be a greater understanding of the need to allocate more quota for some of those things, especially in mixed fisheries, to cope with that. The fundamental point—which I think the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute was getting at, and to which I hope the Minister will respond in the spirit in which the amendment was tabled—is that the discard ban currently does not work for our fishers and certainly does not work for our environment. The intention behind it is good. We need to preserve that intention, but also ensure that the fish our fishers are catching get a good price and are preferably landed at their local port.

The hon. Gentleman also noted at the start of his intervention, in relation to the difference between commercial fishing and recreational fishing, that there is a real challenge, which we will come to later, in applying restrictions to recreational fishers who are not taking the volumes of fish out of the water that some of our commercial friends are. There is a tendency to regard the two slightly differently, which I think he hinted at in his intervention.

To briefly return to the amendments, I am grateful to hear the Minister say that the Government have declared a climate emergency. That is very welcome news. My recollection of the debate is that the Government did not oppose the declaration but did not support it either. I am very happy to hear that the climate emergency declaration is now Government policy and not just parliamentary policy. The subtle distinction is important, because if it is a Government declaration of a climate emergency, the Minister has made a bigger announcement today than perhaps she wanted to. It is important, because we are in a climate emergency and there is a climate crisis that affects our fish stocks.

One area that the Minister hinted at, which is important and why Government amendment 1 needs to be looked at again, is the changes in fish and where they reside. As the Minister knows, fish do not follow international boundaries. Laws that seek to govern fish to follow international boundaries are problematic. The Minister set out how she hoped to ensure that those fish with high survivability are returned to the sea and not landed dead —I think she mentioned that in relation to amendment 78. I agree with her, but the Minister’s statement is at odds with DEFRA’s decision not to grant the bluefin catch-and-release fishery in the south-west, because bluefin tuna, bless them, have very high sustainability and can be caught time and again. The experience for the fish might not be one that many of us would like, but a fish in the sea is worth so much more to our recreational fishing sector that charters boats to recreational anglers than it is from being landed and eaten in our food supply chain. I agree with the Minister when she talks about high survivability and hope she will respond to that point.

The bluefin catch-and-release fishery was something that I mentioned in my remarks, and the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann) also made a powerful case in support of it. The catch-and-release bluefin fishery would not only enhance our scientific understanding of the changes causing these wonderful creatures to enter more of our British waters, or to return after a great absence to our British waters, but could create an enormous number of jobs across the west country, and they could in due course appear in the North sea, where tuna was present before the decline of fish stocks.

I have taken up enough time on this. Suffice it to say that Labour Members disagree with Government amendment 1. We would like to see sustainability as the primary mover of sustainable fisheries. The message that removing that sends to all those that care about our oceans is a poor one. Fishing should be sustainable economically and environmentally, and we should be unafraid of saying that sustainability is the primary driver of fisheries management. If we do not have sustainable fisheries, we will not have jobs in fishing or the fish in the sea that we need. To pre-empt what you might be about to say, Mr McCabe, the amendments sandwiched between that and amendment 73 are designed to probe the Minister for an explanation of the position on each of those points—which she has done in part, with the challenges that I have posed. However, amendment 73, which concerns net zero and decarbonising our industry, is absolutely critical to the future of the sector. I hope the Minister will set out the Department’s, and indeed the Government’s, plans to decarbonise the industry. She needs to be under no doubt about how seriously we take the importance of hitting net zero for fishing.

[Mr Goodwill]

I rise in support of Government amendment 1. Nobody so far has talked about the role of the courts. I suspect that if the wording proposed by the Lords stays in the Bill, there will be a field day for the courts and well funded environmental non-governmental organisations, which will be fighting every step of the way to ensure that the prime fisheries objective of sustainability is taken to the nth degree. We have seen that already in how the courts have been used with general licensing.

For example, at the annual fisheries meeting with other independent coastal states such as Norway, we may well decide that, as a one-off, to take account of choke species and mixed fisheries, perhaps some stocks would be fished above maximum sustainable yield, as a short-term measure to sustain our fishing industries. That additional quota could be assigned to the Norwegian waters and EU waters, but the British fishing Minister would say, “I’m sorry, but although there’s more quota on offer, we cannot take it because we would be shot down in the courts.” There are many other situations in which the suggestions made by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport about being flexible and working with the sector would be tracked every inch of the way by environmental NGOs, which would be keen to take them to court.

[Luke Pollard]

The right hon. Member raises a hypothetical about total allowable catches being set above MSY. He knows well that total allowable catches are routinely set above MSY levels. It is not a once-in-a-moment opportunity; it is a regular occurrence, and it is leading to a decline in fish stocks. Therefore, sending the message to our fisheries that we will have sustainable fishing in our waters is not a bad one, because we are ultimately saying to those fisheries that if we do not set at MSY levels, there will be fewer fish in the sea for the future. Whether we set levels above MSY in conjunction with our European friends or otherwise, that contributes to a decline in fish stocks. Does he agree with that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Prentis]

I agree, in fact, with a great deal of what is being said. I reiterate that the Government are absolutely committed to leaving the natural environment in a better state than we found it in. There is no watering down of our commitments to sustainability, which are clearly stated in the Bill in the first objective in clause 1. However, I do not feel that the amendment helps to take this further. I am worried that putting the primacy of sustainability in the Bill might—inadvertently, I am sure—cause unnecessary suffering to coastal communities.

To focus on the MSY issue for a moment, I am not going to stand here and suggest that the current position is one we should be proud of. We have undoubtedly made progress on fishing at MSY. We are now fishing at about 67% of MSY. In 1990, we were fishing at 10% of sustainable stocks, so there is no doubt that we are where we want to be, although we are moving slowly in the right direction.

The Government hope that the fisheries management plan, set out in the Bill, will work locally and holistically to make the situation much better, fast, as we must do. However, I am concerned that if we put in the clause which makes the sustainability objective prime, there will be some really serious unintended consequences for coastal communities.

I will give three examples on MSY in particular. If we followed the zero TAC advice for whiting in the Irish Sea, it could close the nephrops fishery that has critical economic importance for Northern Ireland, where landings averaged about 15 million a year over the past five years. Another example, following the zero-catch advice on plaice in the Celtic Sea would close the very valuable anglerfish and megrim fishery and could displace those boats into a more intensely fished area elsewhere, which could also displace even worse environmental harm. Out at Rockall, latterly, there is a very low quota for cod, although the quality of the scientific advice there has been questioned. Following the advice on cod would close the valuable haddock fishery that might itself be taking some of the pressures off the fishery in the North Sea.

I have been asked repeatedly by Opposition Members for further clarity on the plan. I refer them politely to the fisheries White Paper 2018. Our Secretary of State is particularly proud of this document, having worked on it a great deal himself. It sets out very clearly the direction of travel that the Government are determined to follow as we leave the common fisheries policy and are able to take further steps. We are committed to environmental sustainability, and I hope that working together when this great Bill becomes law we will be able to move forward much more quickly than in the past.

I turn briefly to some of the points raised by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport. I remind him that, while this is a framework Bill and touches all areas, it does not, in fact, deal with the Benyon review or some of the specifics that he mentioned. However, I do want to be as helpful as possible. The Benyon review was pushed out on World Oceans Day, which seemed an appropriate time, despite the pandemic. It is important that we get on with this important work. The Government are considering their response at the moment. I think it would be wrong and that this is not the place to go much further than that, but I am happy to take this up with the hon. Gentleman outside the Bill as soon as he likes. We are in a great deal of communication on this at the moment, and a lot of work is being done.

On decarbonising the fleet—I am glad he enjoys Fishing News as much as I do—fishing accounts for about 10% of the domestic shipping CO2 emissions. I am not in any way downplaying that significant amount. The grant-making powers in the Bill could well be used to give grants which would encourage vessels to move to more sustainable types of fuel.

[Luke Pollard]

Is there a plan?

[Victoria Prentis]

There is no plan, but there is a very good clause which enables the plan to be made. It is something that should and will be done at local levels, but I would be amazed if decarbonisation of the fuels that vessels use was not the sort of thing to be considered.

Fisheries Bill [Lords]

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Ways and Means resolution & 2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st September 2020 Commons Chamber

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

It gives me great pleasure to respond to the Bill on behalf of the Opposition on its second outing in the Commons. Our fishers risk their lives every day to bring home food for us all. It is not a profession that comes without risk, and I join the Secretary of State in taking a moment to remember the six fishers who did not come back after their trips to sea last year.

Fishing matters to me. It matters to the people of Plymouth who I represent, with 1,000 jobs in the city, and to coastal communities across our four nations. Fishing is knitted into our national identities and our culture, our local flavours and, of course, our coastal economies. Recreational fishing—now larger than commercial fishing in GDP terms—matters to even more people. Labour will be supporting the Bill, defending the enhancements made in the Lords and proposing further necessary provisions.

[Peter Aldous]

The hon. Gentleman touches on a good point when he mentions recreational fishing. I think we have all received representations from the Angling Trust, but does he agree that, with the pandemic and more staycations, the opportunity for sea angling to bring real benefits to our coastal communities is crystal clear?

[Luke Pollard]

I do agree. There is a real opportunity in the waters around the south-west for a catch and release bluefin tuna fishery, for instance—it is a shame that DEFRA did not quite agree with me on that one—and there is certainly a real case for more support for the charter boat sector, which has been denied much of the support that it should have had throughout the coronavirus.

Fishing is a policy area where up to now soundbites have often triumphed over substance and where dogma has often won out over detail. That must end now, because fishers in our coastal communities cannot feed their families on soundbites and vague Government promises. Fishing needs to be more sustainable, both economically and environmentally. We need not only a fishing net zero approach and better management of lost fishing gear to stem the plastic pollution that it causes; we also need a replacement plan for dirty diesel engines, and better science to inform better quota decisions to protect fish stocks and jobs. Fishing needs a strategy to widen employment, to make fishing a career of choice for more young people in our coastal communities. It needs new methods and quota allocation to encourage new entrants, and a firm focus on viability and sustainability.

We know that coronavirus has hit fishers hard. The closure and disruption of export markets, the throttling of imports, the closure of restaurants and cafés and the huge drop in prices have made going to sea unprofitable for many of our fishers. The help for fishers that Labour argued for eventually came, but it took too long to come, and sadly it excludes some of the most innovative projects, such as the brilliant Call4Fish initiative that I have spoken to the Secretary of State about. DEFRA needs to learn the lessons here. It needs to look again at how it raided fishery support funding pots to pay for those schemes and at what the long-term cost to the industry will be of those pots having been raided.

Just as fish do not respect national boundaries, so our fishing sector is cross-border too. I support the move to zonal attachment from relative stability, which is an outdated method. There is a real case for that change. We import two thirds of the fish we eat and we export two thirds of the fish we catch. We do not eat enough locally caught fish, and our diets have been calibrated over decades to eat more of what is caught around Iceland and Norway than the wondrous ocean harvest of our own waters. We need to change that. That is why there can be no new delays at the border, no new burdensome customs checks and no new expensive Government red tape in implementing these and any future trade deals. We need to ensure that we can import and export as well as celebrating the fish in our own waters.

[Mrs Murray]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be promoting a link between a trade deal and the share and access to our waters. Is that what he is actually saying?

[Luke Pollard]

I thank my neighbour for that question. I know this is a point that she raises frequently, but it is probably one that she needs to raise with the Government rather than with the Opposition. We want to see our fishers supported, and I want to ensure that they get a greater and fairer share of quota.

Compared with the previous version, this Bill has thankfully been much improved, in part by Ministers adopting many of the amendments that Labour proposed in Committee during the Government’s first attempt at this legislation. I am glad that Ministers have taken the time to reflect on their decision to vote down those Labour amendments, and I am glad that this time round the Bill includes as much Pollard as it does pollock. I am sure we can agree that it is a good demonstration of constructive opposition.

I also want to note the improvements to the Bill that were passed by the Lords and in particular to thank Baroness Jones of Whitchurch for her efforts in the other place. The question now, which the Secretary of State has answered, is whether he will see fit to accept those amendments that improve the Bill. It is especially sad that he is choosing to reject the sustainability amendments and those that would generate more jobs in our coastal communities.

[Jim Shannon]

I respect the hon. Gentleman greatly, and he knows that, but does he not accept that the fishing sector wants a sustainable industry for the future, and that to achieve that, we need the co-operation of the sector? Does he acknowledge that the sector does not want the amendments that have come from the House of Lords?

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that mention. I think he is choosing to call the fishing sector one single sector, but he knows as well as I do that the fishing sector has multiple sectors with different catches, different gears and different fishing approaches in different parts of our coastal waters. I know that not all fishers share the view that he has just put forward, because they have told me so.

This Bill is a framework Bill, so it is necessarily light on detail, but it does offer a centralisation of powers with the Secretary of State and does not deliver the coastal renaissance that it should have done. Ten years of austerity have hit our coastal communities hard, and now covid-19 means that we are standing on the precipice of a new jobs crisis, the likes of which we have not seen since the 1980s. The decline of fishing ports is a story told the nation over, but it does not have to be this way. Even before we see whether the promise of more fish from the Government will be delivered, more jobs could be created if Ministers were to use the powers they already have. I believe in British fishing. Growing the fleet, making fishing more sustainable and creating more jobs can all happen with improvements to this Bill.

Let me turn to the jobs in coastal communities amendment—clause 18—which the Secretary of State says he wishes to remove. I believe that if we catch fish under a British quota, Britain should benefit from that fish in terms of jobs and trade. I want to back our British ports to create more jobs and land more fish in Britain. Labour’s jobs in coastal communities amendment, which passed with cross-party support in the Lords, would establish a new national landing requirement, whereby two thirds of fish caught under a UK quota must be landed in UK ports. That would mean more jobs created in Grimsby, Plymouth, Newlyn, Portavogie, Brixham and Fleetwood, to name but a few. There are 10 jobs on land for every one job at sea, so landing more fish in Britain is a jobs multiplier.

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

Does the hon. Member agree that making it essential that people have to land their fish in the UK is actually detrimental to the industry, because UK fishers in the industry need to be able to land where they will get the better price?

[Luke Pollard]

I hear that argument, but I also hear that it is not in support of British ports when landing more fish could create more jobs, and I think we need to think about what benefit will be gained from leaving the common fisheries policy. If there is an argument for only supporting those with fish caught under a UK quota and landed in foreign ports, creating jobs in foreign ports, that is an argument the hon Member is free to make, but it is not one that will be made by the Opposition.

Labour’s jobs in coastal communities amendment is designed to ensure that whether the boat is Dutch, Spanish, French, actually British or just flagged that way, boats fishing under a UK quota would be required to land the majority of their fish in British ports. This would create a jobs boom for fish markets, processers, fuel sellers, boat repairers and distributors. With the virus, the recession and the consequences of austerity, could our coastal communities not do with more jobs? I hope the Government will agree with that, not continue to support fish being landed in foreign ports and not creating jobs in our communities.

[Mr Goodwill]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Luke Pollard]

No. I am going to make some progress, because I have gone on for some time.

The backbone of British fishing is our small boat fleet. These boats and businesses are the ones the British public want to see benefit most from our exit from the common fisheries policy. While industrial fishing has its place, I make no apology for wanting a fairer share for our small fishers. With just 6% of the quota, the small boat fleet has two thirds of the jobs, and I think it could have more quota. Reallocating quota along social, economic and environmental grounds, even if just 1% or 2% of the total catch were to be reallocated, could increase what small boats can catch by 25%. This is the second jobs multiplier that Labour has proposed in this Bill. It would be huge for our small boat fleet, helping give them a platform to invest in new gear and boats and to hire more crew.

Such rebalancing could easily be absorbed by the big foreign-owned boat operators within the current range of variation of total allowable catch, yet this is a policy yet again opposed by the Conservative party. I know the largest fishing companies, mostly foreign-owned, are strong supporters of the Conservative party, but, to borrow a phrase, Labour’s policy is for the many fishers, not the few. I hope Tory MPs will not be looking at their feet as the Whips demand total loyalty to Downing Street and require them to vote this amendment down when the time comes, because our fishing communities need a strong voice in Westminster, not just more Whips’ instructions at the expense of coastal towns.

Labour will be tabling an amendment to ban supertrawlers pillaging Britain’s marine protected areas. The Greenpeace campaign on this issue has attracted the signatures of a number of Ministers, but, sadly, of not a single DEFRA Minister. Labour will table an amendment to ban supertrawlers of over 100 metres fishing in marine protected areas. Britain has not one supertrawler of over 100 metres, so Ministers and Conservative Members have an easy choice to make: whether they are on the side of British fishers or foreign-owned industrial supertrawlers, harvesting huge quantities of fish and plundering the very habitats that Britain regards as special. I hope that would be an easy decision, but we will have to see.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

My understanding was that the Secretary of State has already said that the whole purpose of this Bill is to ban supertrawlers, because supertrawlers are actually allowed under EU law, not laws that we want to introduce.

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the hon. Member for that. I am not sure it is the main purpose of the Bill, but it is certainly a power that the Secretary already has. One of the key things about the amendments that Labour has tabled is that they are about using powers that the Minister already has. Whether or not there is more fish from any negotiations with the EU in the future, these are powers that the UK Government—the Conservative Government—could use today if they chose to do so. They do not need to wait until after 31 December or for the passing of this Bill. It is in requiring them to use the powers that they have chosen not to use that we are making our case for this provision. There is a good case for banning supertrawlers of over 100 metres from fishing in marine-protected areas; Ministers should have acted already, and there is an opportunity to put this in law here.

[Peter Aldous]

rose—

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

rose—

[Luke Pollard]

I am going to make some progress, because I only have limited time and I do not want to take time away from people at the end of the call list; apologies.

On safety, progress is being made towards making fishing safer, but much work still needs to be done. I want to see fishers wearing lifejackets all the time that come as standard with personal locator beacons which take the search out of search and rescue when boats go down or fishers are washed overboard. I want more work on stability, especially for smaller boats when they change gear. Remote vessel monitoring and CCTV on board—another amendment won in the Lords—will help to ensure that fishing stays within the law, but will also incentivise fishers to wear a lifejacket and come home safely to their families after each trip. I know that this is a cross-party concern, and I commit Labour to working constructively to help to save more lives, as we have in recent years.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I endorse what the hon. Gentleman says with regard to safety at sea, but there is another aspect to this issue that has become apparent to me recently, through the activities of the “Persorsa Dos”—a Spanish gillnetter that was quite reckless in its conduct off the shores of Shetland recently, endangering the lives of the crew of the “Alison Kay”. The UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency was powerless to investigate that incident because it happened outside the 12-mile limit. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me, and will he support in Committee moves to extend the jurisdiction of the MCA to a 200-mile limit?

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the hon. Member. I recall during the last Fisheries Bill Committee making the case that foreign boats in UK waters should be adhering to the same safety standards as UK boats. That is an argument that we can pick up in Committee this time around.

I want briefly to look at the quota allocations. In support of zonal attachment rather than relative stability, we need to recognise that this is a complex case. There are fishers with complex historical catch records; that needs to be looked at. That is why we need to make a clear case about how the fishing quota will change over time. Labour has proposed a phased draw-down period, not a rush to reallocate quota. That would give British fishers the chance to invest in new gear and recruitment, as well as giving time—if there is transfer from our EU friends—for those boats to be decommissioned and the workers retrained. Allocating quota in contested waters where there are complex fishing records is difficult, and it is an issue that will require careful negotiation with our EU friends. I want to flag to the Minister that British fishing needs continued access to distant waters to preserve current activities, because it is worth nothing that not all British fishers fish in British waters.

I realise that my time is running out, so let me briefly say that to achieve any of these grand promises made to fishing—not just the ones that have already been broken by Ministers, such as the solemn pledge that fishing would not be in the transition period—we need Ministers to keep to their word and stick to their timetables. Today the Government are a whole two months late on the new fisheries agreement. It was meant to be concluded by 1 July, according to the boasts of their so-called oven-ready deal. We know that the Government think that there are serious concerns about

“illegal fishing, border violations…violent disputes or blockading of ports”

in the event of no deal. What additional resources has the Minister discussed with the Ministry of Defence for allocating to the Royal Navy to protect our fishers, and why is there nothing in the Bill to express the concerns around enforcement?

I want to see more fish landed in British ports, more of it processed here and more of it eaten here. I encourage Members to set an example by buying, eating and promoting local fish. Will the Minister tell the House whether zero tariffs will continue to apply to fish imported from Iceland, Norway and the Faroes? If so, what additional support will be given to our domestic industry?

What are the Government’s plans to incentivise processors to process more UK-caught fish? How will they encourage the biggest players—the supermarkets—to put more British fish on their shelves? I would like to see Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, M&S, Waitrose, Asda, Lidl, Aldi and the Co-op selling more British fish. I read out their names deliberately because I would like them to write to MPs to set out how they will sell more British fish, because that is a decision that they can take. We do not need Ministers to take it for them; that can be done by supermarkets and there is a case for their doing that.

Labour will support the Bill while proposing and defending the necessary improvements. It is a shame that the SNP is, with its amendment, playing politics with the Bill. Mock constitutional outrage will not feed the families of fishers in Peterhead or Fraserburgh, and nor would blocking the Bill at this stage help to put in place the legal certainty necessary after 31 December. I say to the SNP that the Government are quite capable of messing this up all by themselves; they do not need the help of the SNP’s amendment. For that reason, Labour MPs will not back the SNP amendment this evening.

On behalf of the fishers I represent in Plymouth and those for whom I speak in my shadow Cabinet role—the fish processors, distributors, merchants, chefs and scientists—I say that we need a Fisheries Bill that is focused on sustainability, viability and a better future for our coastal communities than we have seen for the past decade. We will not oppose the Bill, but we will argue strongly to defend the improvements made to the Bill in the Lords, to insert a new focus on creating jobs in fishing and to ensure that fishing is truly sustainable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

The hon. Lady makes reference to media speculation. I am sure hon. Members will understand that I cannot give a running commentary on our discussions on a future trade agreement or comment on such media speculation, but I will say that there are many ways, through a trade deal, that a country can agree with another country how to protect food standards—both food safety and animal welfare.

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

The public do not want our British farmers to be undercut by food produced to lower standards abroad. Research by Which? published today shows that eight out of 10 people are worried that trade deals will risk our high animal welfare standards. With the National Farmers Union petition now on 1 million names, it is clear that Ministers are on the wrong side of the argument here, so does the Environment Secretary need any more help convincing the International Trade Secretary to put the Conservative manifesto promise into law?

[George Eustice]

The International Trade Secretary and I are both absolutely committed to delivering our manifesto commitments, but we also have a manifesto commitment to expand the number of free trade agreements that we have, and it is also the case that the UK farming industry has offensive interests, particularly in dairy and in meat such as pork, lamb and beef, in other countries, particularly Asian markets. We want to expand the number of free trade agreements that we have to create opportunities for our industry but also to protect our standards, and that is exactly what we will do.

[Luke Pollard]

I think we all know that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs ministerial team are part of the eight out of 10 who are worried about animal welfare in trade agreements, but may I press the Secretary of State on a slightly different issue related to food standards—the outbreaks of covid-19 in food processing plants across the United Kingdom? This is serious. Any outbreak needs to be contained. Food standards matter, and standards for the people who work in those plants also matter. What assessment has the Environment Secretary made of whether meat processing plants and food factories are especially at risk, and what assessment has he made of the low level of statutory sick pay that forces many people to work in those plants instead of staying at home because they simply would not earn enough money to pay their bills if they did so?

[George Eustice]

I pay tribute to all those working in our food sector, including in manufacturing, who have worked very hard to keep food on our plates during these difficult times. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We have heard now of three outbreaks linked to meat plants. They have been picked up through the testing and tracing approach that has been adopted and we are reviewing the guidance. We suspect that these outbreaks might have been linked either to canteens or, potentially, to car-sharing arrangements in those plants. We will be revising guidance to ensure that businesses have the approach that they need to prevent further outbreaks in future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

We recognise that, as a result of the coronavirus crisis, the financial vulnerability of households has also increased. That is why, last week, the Government announced a new £16 million fund to support food charities, including refuges and homeless hostels. The food will be distributed by our existing partners in FareShare.

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

Food bank demand is surging, up on average by between 60% and 80% from pre-virus levels. Now, unemployment is soaring, up by nearly 70% last month. It is clear that we need measures that match the scale of the crisis. Last week, the Secretary of State whipped his MPs to reject Labour’s sensible proposals for an emergency coronavirus food plan. With The Times reporting that the Prime Minister is now keen on a food plan of his own, dealing with obesity and coronavirus, will the Secretary of State confirm that the Government’s urgently needed food strategy, which must include a coronavirus focus, will be published before the recession bites?

[George Eustice]

The food strategy that is being developed by Henry Dimbleby, one of our non-executive directors, will involve an initial report in the autumn setting out the approach and the nature of the challenges, and the final report is expected in the early part of next year.

Agriculture Bill

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 13th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State, Luke Pollard, who is asked to speak for no more than eight minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will speak to the amendments that stand in my name and that of the Leader of the Opposition. Food policy has been overlooked and sidelined in our politics for far too long. Empty shelves, crops underwater in flooded fields, food bank growth and the growing obesity crisis demand that it enjoys more of our focus in the next decade than it had in the last. I want to see a greater focus on the quality and resilience of the food that we eat and the quality of the air that we breathe. Our new focus on food is for life and not just for coronavirus.

I place on record my heartfelt thanks to all the food heroes—the hidden heroes—who have kept the nation fed throughout the coronavirus crisis. From the fishers and the farmers, the distributors and the drivers, the processers and the pickers, to the shelf stackers and the supermarket workers, these people are finally getting the recognition that they deserve as key workers. The pay, conditions, pensions, protections and political focus on them must now follow. In declaring my interest, may I remind the House that my little sister is one of those key workers, as a sheep farmer on her farm in Cornwall?

At the very heart of this debate today is a very simple question, which the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) mentioned in his opening remarks. What kind of country do we want to be—one where farm standards are a pawn in a trade deal with our values traded for market access, or a nation that says Britain is a force for good in the world and upholds our high standards for food grown locally and food imported alike? At a time of climate crisis, we must choose to rebuild a better, greener, more sustainable and fairer Britain than we had before.

The path ahead of us is uncertain, but we must learn the lessons of those who came before us. We must not trade away the values that make us British and make us proud to be British: high environmental standards in food production; decent pay for those who tend our fields—at least, they should be paid well; animal welfare standards that increase, not slide; and a determination that we will never, ever again be held hostage by our inability, by choice or natural cause, to feed ourselves.

The Agriculture Bill is not a trivial matter; nor is food production. The Bill will fundamentally change the system of farm support, so it deserves our attention. However, an Agriculture Bill without a focus on food is an odd beast. It almost entirely omits food, and therefore does not even begin to solve all the problems that the virus has both caused and revealed. I would wager that the Environment Secretary and the farming Minister did not have the whip hand in the timing of this Bill, and that it is down to Downing Street and its free marketeer agenda, seeking to see off a rebellion of Tory MPs rightly unhappy and uneasy about leaving the door open to imports of food produced to lower standards, that we are here today on a contentious piece of legislation in the middle of a national crisis.

The new clauses in the names of the Chairs of the two Select Committees—the hon. Members for North Dorset and for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish)—and those in the name of the Leader of the Opposition and me all seek to do one very simple thing, which is to put Government promises into law. The promise from the Conservative manifesto says:

“In all of our trade negotiations, we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards.”

These words are meaningless unless they are backed up by law. The amendments today reflect a cross-party concern that the promises of high standards will not be kept unless they appear in black and white in the Bill. The right place to deal with farm standards is a Bill about farming. Indeed, the Leader of the House has just said from the Dispatch Box that he is about delivering on the manifesto and that this is essential. I agree on this point: those standards are essential, and they must be delivered on in law.

I suspect the Minister will shortly say that the subjects of these amendments would best be dealt with in the Trade Bill. I disagree with her on that and, unfortunately, so do her own Government. It seems the Government’s trade team are arguing that the Trade Bill is actually not for setting up trade architecture. They argue that it is a continuity Bill for rolling over existing agreements that Britain is a party to as part of the EU, so we will need another trade Bill that has not been published, written or designed yet to deal with matters such as democratic oversight of trade deals. There is zero chance, as the Minister knows, of such a Bill appearing or passing before the 31 December deadline, so we come to the necessity of this issue being dealt with in this Bill, where it can be discussed and implemented ahead of the 31 December deadline. It must not be parked or lost in the long grass of future Bills that have not yet appeared.

These amendments are being opposed, to my mind, simply because they would make it harder to have a trade deal with nations for which lower food and farm standards are the norm. The inescapable truth of Ministers refusing to put these sensible amendments into law is that allowing British farmers to be undercut by cheap imported food is part of the Government’s plan, and it should not be. Labour has tabled the amendments because we will not allow British farmers to go out of business because they are being undercut by cheap imports that would be illegal if they were grown or produced in the UK.

There is no urban-rural divide on high farm standards or on animal health and welfare, no divide when it comes to wanting high environmental standards preserved and no divide between feeders and eaters when it comes to food safety and food quality. This Bill is, by and large, a reasonable Bill.

DEFRA officials and Ministers have worked hard to get the detail right, but the political handcuffs placed on the Environment Secretary and his Ministers to tie them to oppose these reasonable, sensible, necessary and essential amendments betray the bigger political agenda at play here. Both the Environment Secretary and the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), who has responsibility for farming, have good agricultural pedigree, and I am reassured that those with experience are at the helm of the Department, but if orders are coming from the Department for International Trade, they have my sympathy for being caught in the invidious place of choosing between what is right and what they are told to do.

Remote Division Result: Amendment 39

Luke Pollard Excerpts

3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 13th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

Labour will not allow farmers to go out of business to secure a trade deal with Donald Trump. It is unusual for any party to vote against Third Reading of a Bill, but we will vote against this Bill because the issue of farm standards for our food is not a technical one; it is fundamental to what kind of country we are. We support high standards for our British farmers, and we demand that all food imported into our country after our Brexit transition periods ends adheres to those same high standards that our British farmers have to adhere to.

Two hours and fifteen minutes having elapsed since the resumption of proceedings on consideration, the debate was interrupted (Order, this day).

Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

It is very important to note that we have significant resilience in our food supply chain, in that food manufacturers are used to coping with increases in demand, not least every year during Christmas. There is not a shortage of food. The challenge we have had is getting food to shelves in time when people have been purchasing more. That is why we have taken steps including setting aside delivery curfews so lorries can run around the clock, and relaxing driver hours to ensure that deliveries can take place more frequently. We are in discussion with Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government colleagues about other support that we would deliver locally to get food to those who are self-isolating.

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

I thank the Secretary of State for meeting me and the rest of the shadow DEFRA team this week to discuss concerns about the national crisis and food availability. I urge him to go further on some of the measures he has set out. I hope my questions are seen as being asked in a constructive spirit.

People are worried about how they will feed their family, especially if they are self-isolating, have had their income slashed to statutory sick pay or have lost their job. However, millions are already in food poverty, and this is an immediate family emergency for many of them. With food banks running low on food, and given that many food bank volunteers are over the age of 70 and will soon need to self-isolate, what steps is the Secretary of State taking to assist those in genuine hunger today?

[George Eustice]

As I have said, we have taken a number of steps to ensure that we can get food to supermarkets. I have been in daily calls with the food supply sector. Those have included discussions about food banks, and we are in dialogue with supermarkets to ensure that they get access to the supplies they need. I welcome the constructive approach that the shadow Secretary of State is taking. We are also working on specific proposals to help the most vulnerable—those with clinical problems—to ensure that we can get food to them should they be self-isolating.

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. I think he will need to provide more detail for those who are in genuine hunger today; the hope of detail in the future is not reassuring people at the moment. If I may press him further on supermarkets, we discussed the so-called grey hour, when elderly people can shop before the rest of society goes into the supermarkets. Will he press the Department for Transport to relax the times for free bus pass use to ensure that people can get to the supermarkets? Will he also ensure that every supermarket, not just the Co-op, is still contributing food to food banks and organisations such as FareShare? I suspect that he and his colleagues will want to ensure a private sector-led solution wherever possible, but I press him on this issue, because we will not get through this crisis unless there is Government intervention to support those people and ensure that food supply chains remain open.

[George Eustice]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that there is a role for the Government. We must take action to set aside any obstacles to making the food supply chain operate in a way that ensures that people have food. On food banks, as I said, we are in discussion with supermarkets. We have also had discussions with them about competition law, and we will take whatever action is necessary to ensure that they can jointly plan their approach to these matters. For the most vulnerable, we are working on proposals that my colleagues in MHCLG will announce shortly.

Sentience and Welfare of Animals

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 Westminster Hall

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

It gives me great pleasure to respond to this very good debate on behalf of the official Opposition. There is cross-party support for enshrining animal sentience in law, and I want to express Labour’s full-hearted support for the effort to do so. We have heard powerful speeches today, but there are also community groups in each of our constituencies who engage in advocacy and campaign for 21st-century animal welfare laws. We know that what we do will make a difference to animals—domestic animals, animals in agriculture, and others—if measures are put in place correctly.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) for her unrelenting campaigning on this area. She has a good position on the Petitions Committee, which gives her a new platform, and will continue to use that with force, ferocity and cross-party support for as long as Ministers fail to listen to her arguments. She made a good argument today.

I congratulate the Minister. This is the first time since she has been in her new role that I have had the opportunity to speak from the Bench opposite her. I am a big fan of cross-party working, and for most animal welfare legislation there is a lot of cross-party support. Sometimes the only thing that holds us back is the ambition to achieve what cross-party support has the potential to deliver. In relation to animal sentience, we have an opportunity.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

On the basis of cross-party working, will my hon. Friend please push the UK Government to end the barbaric practice of puppy smuggling across the UK, which hurts so many domestic pets and families?

[Luke Pollard]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue and, if the Minister has not yet read Labour’s animal welfare manifesto from the general election, it is very good and well worth reading. Puppy smuggling is dealt with under point 10. It is horrendously cruel, on an epic scale. There is huge public support for dealing with the cruelty that organised crime gangs perpetrate on those tiny little dogs.

The debate shows why Parliament’s online petitions are good: the fact that 104,000 people signed and 43 organisations back the petition shows that there is public support for enshrining animal sentience in law. I thank everyone who clicked on the link, then went to their email inbox to find the email and clicked the confirmation link to make sure their name could be added. I thank them for participating in earlier petitions as well as the present one, because the arguments have not changed. There may have been a slight adjustment as to which faces are around the table, but the importance of animal sentience remains.

The petition states:

“EU law recognises animals as sentient beings, aware of their feelings and emotions.”

That is enshrined in the Lisbon treaty and the Government chose not to move that provision over in Brexit legislation. There was an outcry at the time and Ministers have been dragging their heels ever since, trying to make the case that although the issue is important, enshrining it in law is not really necessary. I say that it is necessary and important, and that there is cross-party support for doing it.

To be fair to the Government—I regard the present and previous Governments as one continuous Conservative Government, although I know they like to think of themselves as fresh, since December—in 2017 they introduced a Bill. They withdrew it in 2018, but we are yet to see any signs of the crucial legislation since then. However, in the intervening year, a prominent and successful Conservative Back Bencher wrote in The Guardian:

“There is currently a cross-party consensus that we should enshrine the recognition of animal sentience in statute to underpin all our existing policies and inform new ones.”

The writer was, of course, the brand new Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, during his brief sabbatical from the role of Minister. One reason I have a lot of time for the Environment Secretary is that initially when he was freed from the clutches of office he made a bold, clear case for changes in agriculture, fishing and animal welfare. I hope that now he is thrust back into ministerial office—in the Cabinet, no less—the same independence of thought that he demonstrated on the Back Benches will come into play.

In the same article in The Guardian he said:

“One option might be to suggest that the US introduce a similar piece of legislation at federal level to drive the modernisation of its own laws. We could even send British advisers to Washington to help them do it as part of our trade negotiations.”

I am not certain that the US President would take kindly to British trade advisers advising him on animal welfare standards, but there is something important there: the people with whom we want to do trade deals must not undercut our animal welfare standards, in relation to agriculture, domestic pets or any element of the high levels of animal welfare we enjoy at the moment.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I assume that my hon. Friend is referring to the same Guardian article that I mentioned in connection with the Agriculture Bill. It is hard to believe that the Secretary of State would have written for The Guardian twice during his brief period of freedom. Did he not go on to say that we should protect animal welfare and other standards in future trade deals by enshrining them in law—in the Agriculture Bill, for example?

[Luke Pollard]

My hon. Friend is dead right. There is an amazing amount of good political meat in publications by the Environment Secretary from the time when he was on the Back Benches. It feels as if the Opposition do not need to remind him of them, because I am sure his officials have churned through those plentiful publications, and the amendments he tabled to an earlier Agriculture Bill. Sadly, his new batch of Ministers recently voted against those proposals, but they include things for which there is a lot of support, and there is cross-party support for what we are discussing today.

I do not think British diplomats in Washington instructing President Trump to raise his domestic animal welfare standards to get a trade deal with the UK would work, but it is important to maintain high levels of protection in law, so that during negotiations the people we are negotiating with know the strength of feeling of the British people and Parliament: that we will not accept any lowering of standards or undercutting of them in any trade deal. That is why we need the animal sentience legislation to be implemented before the end of the implementation period. We cannot allow our animal welfare standards to fall behind those of the EU, especially after the plentiful promises of Conservative Ministers.

The animal sentience legislation that I hope the Minister will announce needs to apply to all policy areas and all sentient animals. If an animal is sentient, they are sentient no matter how they are being used by humans or where they are living. The law needs to confer an active duty to respect that sentience on all aspects of government. Simply having a function within DEFRA to advise the rest of Government is insufficient because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East said, there are other Departments that need to reflect the importance of animals in their day-to-day work and that might not, as standard, take animal sentience on board. That is why an independent monitor is such a good idea.

The legislation should require the Government to publish an annual report detailing how the duty has been acted on, including the policy options considered and what animal welfare impact assessments have been undertaken. It also needs to recognise that decapods and cephalopods—that is, crabs and lobsters, octopuses and squids—are sentient animals. In Labour’s animal welfare manifesto, which, again, is a very good read and still available on the website, we make the case that lobsters experience anxiety, crabs use tools, and octopuses have been known to predict the results of football matches—at least, that is not quite in the manifesto, but the sense of it is.

That is why, in our manifesto, we talk about not allowing those precious creatures to be boiled alive, for instance. We know that if you put a lobster in a boiling pot of water, it experiences pain. The pain may be lessened by the experience of being slowly heated, but it is pain none the less, and there are better ways of doing it.

The petition calls for a new body to support the Government in their duties to animals, which I referred to briefly, to ensure that

“decisions are underpinned by…scientific and ethics expertise.”

It has been proposed under a few names. The experience of Scotland was mentioned by the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald), and the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Allan Dorans) spoke about how Scotland has already got there. In Scotland, it is called the animal welfare commission, but it could also be an animal welfare advisory council. In our manifesto, we talk about an animal welfare commissioner. Regardless of the name or the precise format, the function is the same: to support and critically analyse, to advise Ministers and Government to make the right decisions, and to ensure that the effects are truly understood.

My party prides itself on being the party for animal welfare. At the last election, we were the only party to publish a manifesto exclusively on animal rights. In it, we set out how we would appoint an independent animal welfare commissioner to operate in England and in collaboration with the devolved Administrations. Now that the UK is no longer a member of the European Food Safety Authority, we need to establish a body that can advise DEFRA and all of Government independently, and to represent the wealth of scientific, ethics and animal welfare expertise available in the UK.

We know that at the moment there is no specific body that is under a statutory duty to enforce the welfare requirements of Labour’s landmark Animal Welfare Act 2006, which my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) mentioned. That needs to be placed on a statutory footing, and an animal welfare commissioner would help to achieve that. I recommend that the Minister cut and paste that from our manifesto into her Department’s work plan; if she did, it would enjoy the cross-party support that we have seen from the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) and my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), who were united in the same effort here.

The commissioner would be responsible for gathering the latest scientific evidence on animal sentience and welfare, to ensure that there is the most up-to-date, evidence-based understanding across Whitehall, and to ensure that our nation maintains its top ranking in the animal protection index. Working alongside Government, the commissioner would assist in the promotion of best practice in animal welfare internationally because, although we pride ourselves on the legislative framework, Britons care about animal welfare both at home and abroad. To see that, we need only look at changes that the tourism industry has made to remove animals from so many of the products sold to British tourists, because that is not something Brits support.

Ministers are often found saying that the legislation that has been proposed now that we have left the EU is world leading, but time and again the evidence does not support that high-falutin’ soundbite. The Bills that have come out of DEFRA recently on agriculture and the environment have, I am afraid, been disappointing, at a time when many of us—including many of the “greenies” from across the parties and across the divide here—had high hopes that they really would deliver on that promise.

We cannot be world leading without an animal welfare commissioner. We are not even leading in the UK, because Scotland already has an animal welfare commissioner. England is already lagging behind. That matters as well. My little sister is a sheep farmer in Cornwall and, if she were to move north of the border, the animals that she now keeps in Cornwall would have a different legislative framework and different protections. That does not quite seem right for the same sheep, and I think there is an option to look at that again. I am not advocating taking sheep out of the Secretary of State’s own county along the way, for fear of offending him, but having those standards across our islands is important when it comes to animal welfare.

As I conclude, I will mention briefly the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell), who said in his remarks that he was exasperated by the language around chlorinated chicken. Indeed, many people in this place are, and the answer is very simple: put it in the Bill. That would prevent our standards from ever being undercut. If the hon. Gentleman believes the words of Ministers—they are said so very often—there is no reason for that not be put in a Bill, because those words are already on record. The thing is, I do not believe Ministers when they say that. There is an important element of building trust in these areas.

[James Daly]

Can I ask a very simple question? What shred of evidence does the hon. Gentleman have to back up what he has just said?

[Luke Pollard]

The difficulty when we sit on the Opposition Benches, where our job is to scrutinise rather than to support, is that we look for evidence of the words. There is a genuine risk that standards could be undercut.

It is important to make a distinction here, because this is frequently lost in interventions, although I hope that will not be the case with the hon. Gentleman. It is not that we think the Government will somehow lower our standards immediately, but by signing trade deals that undercut our standards and permit food produced to lower animal welfare standards or with negative environmental impacts, we will be allowing in produce that undercuts our own farmers and our high animal welfare standards, and that creates an incentive to lower regulatory pressures in the UK—or protections, as the Opposition like to think of them.

That is not something that is supported. It is not supported by Labour, it is not supported by the SNP and it is not supported by many Conservative Members, nor is it supported by the National Farmers Union and other groups. There are elements of cross-party support for keeping standards high and keeping that in law; it is one of those areas where we can come together on a cross-party basis to say that animal sentience should be in law. If we did, it should be a simple Bill with good scrutiny—the Minister knows that there are many experts in this House who would happily advise her for free along the way—because it is important that we get it done. At the moment, far from getting done, it is just getting delayed.

I hope that the Minister, when she gets to her feet, will give a boost to the petitioners—all 104,000 of them, in nearly every single parliamentary constituency of the country—and reassure them that this petition will not only enjoy warm words from Government, but see Government action before the end of the implementation period at the end of this year.

Flooding

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move,

That this House notes the damage caused by Storms Ciara, Dennis and Jorge and expresses thanks to workers from the Environment Agency, emergency services, local councils and volunteers; and calls for Ministers to set up an independent review into the floods, including the Government’s response, the adequacy of the funding provided for flood defences and prevention, difficulties facing homes and businesses with getting insurance and what lessons need to be learnt in light of the climate emergency and the increased likelihood of flooding in the future.

It is a pleasure to move this motion on flooding on behalf of Her Majesty’s Opposition. Flooding has devastated our communities after three successive storms—Ciara, Dennis and Jorge—each compounding and deepening the damage caused by the storm that preceded it. I start by paying my respects to those who lost their lives as a result of these storms. I also thank all those involved in mitigating and fighting the floods: our fire and rescue service, police, local councils, the Environment Agency, and all who have helped to protect homes and businesses, rescue people and animals from rising flood waters, and reinforce flood defences. The motion thanks them for their service.

The motion also pays tribute to the work of the BBC in keeping communities informed about flooding incidents, diversions and emergency measures. BBC local radio, in particular, but BBC Online as well, have been invaluable lifelines to those communities under water. I hope the Secretary of State will add his voice to mine in thanking them when he gets to his feet.

It would be very easy to dismiss the recent flooding as a freak accident, an act of God, and leave it at that, but we need to take a difficult step and recognise that more could have been done. As the climate crisis produces more severe weather more often, we will be having more flooding more often, so we need to learn the lessons.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

As the climate emergency produces more and more flooding, so flooding will become more frequent, and yet the resources for the Environment Agency have been severely cut over the last decade. Does the hon. Member agree we need long-term, not just short-term, funding for the Environment Agency?

[Luke Pollard]

The hon. Member pre-empts my speech. It is important that we have a long-term plan for flooding with long-term funding attached to it so that we can protect communities at risk of flooding.

We know that more could have been done to ensure that our fire and rescue services were fully equipped to deal with this national emergency; that more could have been done to put in place long-term flood defences; and that more could have been done to slow down the impact of the climate emergency.

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

I recently visited a natural flood management project in the Wychwoods, in my constituency, a partnership project with local councils, Wild England and many others, involving flood diversion, wildlife creation, habitat, leaky dams and so forth. It has been very valuable in protecting the villages of the Wychwoods. Is this something we could see much more of elsewhere?

[Luke Pollard]

Having more natural solutions to flooding is part of the solution; it is not the sole solution, but it is a very important part, and I will come on to that in a moment.

Our motion makes a very simple ask—one that I am amazed but not surprised that Ministers are running from: that we have an investigation to learn the lessons from the floods, an investigation that will seek to protect more homes and businesses in the future, an investigation that will look at the difficulties people encounter in buying affordable insurance for their homes and businesses and in receiving timely pay-outs, an investigation into what measures are required from Government to fund flood protections and upstream catchment management measures and to resource emergency responses.

When choosing the wording of the motion, the Opposition had two choices: we could have chosen wording that went hard on a part-time Prime Minister who was missing in action throughout the floods, a part-time Prime Minister who refused to call a Cobra meeting and unlock the scale of funding necessary for flooded communities, a part-time Prime Minister who failed to show national leadership when it was required; or we could choose wording that could unify the House in a sensible effort to learn the lessons, calmly and sincerely, from this disastrous series of floods. Labour chose to rise above that partisan debate, which is why every single Member of the House should feel able to support our motion. How is learning the lessons from an incident—in a review of what actions took place, what actions did not work as well as was hoped and of where improvements could be made—not a sensible and proportionate step to take after a national emergency such as the recent floods?

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I represent the most flood prone constituency in the country—my constituents are presently under 400 million cubic metres of water. How does the hon. Member envisage this inquiry working with the section 19 inquiries already commenced in my area and in many other flooded areas, given that their purpose is to determine exactly those things.

[Luke Pollard]

There will be local inquiries and there will be different agencies looking at their own responses, but we need an overarching investigation into the whole response—the consequences of austerity, the flood prevention measures that could and should be taken, the fact that flooding will become more frequent, and so on. That is what is on the table in the motion today and what I hope hon. Members on both sides will vote for.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

In light of the fact that places such as the Calder Valley have had three 100-year floods in the last seven and a half years, does the hon. Member not think that another review would only cost more money and waste more time? We need action. We already have this information. We know exactly what happened in the floods. We had four times the monthly average rainfall in 24 hours.

[Luke Pollard]

I agree we need action, but it was action we did not get during the floods. It was action we required from the Prime Minister to call a Cobra meeting that we did not get. It was action to unlock the necessary funding that we did not get. I agree we need action and hope he will support this motion so that we get a lessons learned review that helps Ministers to make better decisions next time and get the action he desperately wants.

The review we are asking for would look at how we learn lessons as a country, how the Government learn lessons and how the work and innovations of local communities can be recognised, but the Government’s amendment seeks to do only one thing: not learn the lessons of the flooding. It would delete the lessons learned review and silence the voices of flooded communities. I want the voices of those communities under water heard in the review we are proposing. I want to hear from the small business owners in Telford whose shops have been flooded about the difficulties they face replacing stock when insurance companies refuse to insure them. I want to hear from the farmers next to the River Severn who fear that their crops will have been destroyed by the water damage in their fields. I want to hear from the homeowners in west Yorkshire who have yet again had to wash dirty water from their homes, wash the smell of sewage from their homes, replace their furniture and carpets and worry about whether the insurance will pay out and how much the premiums will be next year, if they are to be covered at all. I want to hear the voices of the emergency services who have had their numbers cut and cut again by years of Tory austerity. I want to hear from the Welsh coal mining communities who are now living in fear of a landslide from water-sodden spoil tips.

I want to hear from all of them in this review, and yet Ministers have proposed an amendment that says they will not have a lessons learned review, will not look at what worked well and what did not, and will not ask communities what works for them. Every Tory MP who votes against our motion will be doing something very simple: refusing to listen and learn the lessons of the flooding and refusing to improve their response to flooding in a calm and independent manner. Those under water communities, many of which are represented by Conservative MPs, will wonder what happened to their Members of Parliament. When given an opportunity to get the voice of those communities heard, they will have decided to turn against that—that is not leadership.

[Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

The hon. Member talked about the role of insurance companies. I chair the all-party group on insurance and financial services and work quite closely with Flood Re. Since it was launched in 2016, Flood Re has been a great example of the Government and the insurance industry working together: 300,000 more properties have now been insured and four out of five properties with previous flood claims can now get insurance at half the price it was before. I am sure he will welcome that fact. It is a great example of the Government working with the industry to help solve this problem.

[Luke Pollard]

Flood Re has resulted in some improvements—the hon. Gentleman is right about that—but it does not insure homes or provide cover for homes built since 2009, and he will know that it does not include support for small businesses, so there are huge holes in the scheme that need to be filled. We need a scheme that works. At the moment, Flood Re is not delivering as was originally intended for all affected communities. The Government are carrying out a review of the Flood Re scheme, and I urge Ministers to encourage it to report quickly, because we need the Flood Re scheme to work properly to ensure that there are no gaps in it.

The reason that we are calling for a review today is that the flood waters will, we hope, soon subside and the camera crews will pack up, but as the media agenda moves on, the damage, disruption and destruction of the floods will remain for those communities that have been affected. It will take many months for those communities to recover, but we know from past floods that it will actually take many years for the damage to be undone, for payments to be received and for the mitigations to be put in place. That is why a lessons learned review is so important.

We know that the Prime Minister was missing during the floods, but he now has an opportunity to create a lessons learned review to learn the lessons of what has happened. However, he has decided against doing that. We know that the Conservatives’ political choice to implement a programme of brutal austerity over the past 10 years has made the fight against the climate crisis so much harder. The Environment Agency has again and again asked for extra money—£1 billion a year just to mitigate the impacts of floods and defend our communities. We need long-term structural change if we are to combat future floods, including restoring nature in uplands, ending the rotational burning of peatlands, implementing proper catchment area management strategies and building proper flood defences where appropriate. All these changes need genuine funding and a long-term plan.

But it is not just the Environment Agency that has been cut; our local councils have too, and our fire and rescue services. There is a regional disparity in the cuts for fire and rescue services as well. Across England, 23% of our firefighters have been lost in Tory cuts since 2010, but West Yorkshire, where some of the most severe flooding has happened, has lost over a third of its firefighters in austerity cuts. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) has raised this issue directly with Ministers before, but I would like to invite the Secretary of State to look again at whether fire and rescue services need a statutory duty around flooding, as they have in Scotland and Wales.

It is also important that we look at the effect of the flooding on our farmers. That includes considering short-term actions such as a derogation of crop diversification and a reinstatement of the farming recovery fund to mitigate the damage that flooding has caused. The Secretary of State came unstuck at the NFU conference and answered concerns about the three-crop rule very poorly, but there is now a genuine opportunity to help farmers by using the powers that he already has to support them. In the long term, we need to ensure that our farmland is used sensibly to prevent flooding and to restore the ability to keep more water upstream.

We also need to recognise the need for change on match-funding. I have raised this matter before. Poorer communities should not be asked to match the same as wealthier communities, because we know that in that situation the wealthier communities have their flood defences funded and the poor ones do not. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) has raised this in relation to her city time and again, but she has still not had a satisfactory answer. The Budget next week is an opportunity for Ministers to fund flood defences properly. I would like to see the Budget used as a climate budget to recognise the true scale of the climate crisis and have funding directed accordingly. I suspect we will not have that, but I hope there will be some mention of flooding. I hope that funding will be directed at those communities that are currently under water and that a long-term plan is put in place in relation to this.

We have our criticisms of the Government, and the Prime Minister in particular, for failing to act with the seriousness that the climate emergency requires, but setting that aside, we have before us in this motion a modest proposal to learn the lessons of the three storms and to conduct an independent review into what happened. We owe it to those communities that are currently under water, those that have been flooded and those that are repairing the damage from the storms to listen to them and to do everything in our power to learn the lessons to ensure that it does not happen again.

I say to every Tory MP whose communities are under water and who votes against this modest ask that I wish them well on their return to their flooded communities. I wish them well in explaining why a review into the lessons learned will not be happening and why they voted against it. I wish them well in explaining to the people whose homes and businesses were flooded why they are denying them a voice. I wish them well in that, because they have the chance today to vote for such an independent review, and for those flooded communities, that will be a very modest ask as they scrub their floors to clean up the sewage that has come through the pipes, as they repair their homes and as they work out how to restore the stock in their businesses that have been so damaged. For them, this is a modest ask, and it is something that should be supported by everyone in this House. I hope that Tory MPs will reflect on this before they back the Government’s amendment to not learn the lessons of the flooding incidents. I hope that, as a Parliament, we can come together on this. I hope that the warm words that will be no doubt come from the Secretary of State at the Dispatch Box in a moment can be added to with the action that is so desperately needed. I commend this Labour motion to the House.