Rural Communities

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend and county neighbour. What Labour does not seem to understand is that rural areas are not against building more homes and infrastructure. They just want them in the right places, and for them to go with the grain of the community, not against it. At least the Prime Minister is being consistent in this one instance. In the election campaign, he said that he was happy to make enemies of the people who oppose his plans. Well, that is a rare example of an election promise that he has kept. Just as Ministers do not understand business because none of them has ever run one, they do not understand the quintessential quality of rural life—that sense of belonging, of being part of a community. It is about people coming together, be it at the parish church, the local riding stables or our local pubs.

Rural sports, which were mentioned, are an example. They are a key part of the rural way of life for participants and non-participants alike. They are responsible for 26,000 full-time equivalent jobs, and perform vital conservation work across the countryside. Wander down a rural high street and you will see shops selling clothing and equipment for rural sports, as well as farriers, gun makers and saddlers, and there are others dotted around the countryside. A careless policy on rural sports will have wide-reaching impacts across our rural communities.

We rightly have some of the strongest gun laws in the world. The intent to strengthen those safeguards further is understandable, but we urge the Government to pause and work with the shooting community on their serious concerns that current proposals will have grave and unintended consequences, including causing further delays in vital medical assessments for licence holders.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Is the shadow Secretary of State aware of the great concern in Shropshire among the rural community, in particular farmers, that the Government are conflating lethal firearms with shotguns? Of course, shotguns should be controlled, but they are already strictly controlled, and they are a vital part of rural life, especially for farmers controlling vermin, or those undertaking other rural pursuits. I appeal, through the shadow Secretary of State, to the Minister to look again and disregard the consultation. The changes have not been called for and are unnecessary.

[Victoria Atkins]

As I say, we urge the Government to pause and work with the shooting community. We all understand the intent behind the proposals, but the Government have to get them right, because they could have grave ramifications.

Trail hunting, which we will hear about this afternoon, is long-established, and was specifically permitted by the previous Labour Government under the Hunting Act 2004 as a humane alternative to fox hunting. It is rightly a criminal offence to break the terms of the Hunting Act, and any such criminal offences should be enforced rigorously. Indeed, there have been 416 convictions in the past 15 years. Labour MPs need to be able to say why they propose imposing a blanket ban instead of tackling those who actually break the law. If there is to be intellectual consistency, do they advocate banning driving, on the basis that some people speed? Of course not. There should be effective enforcement of the criminal law brought in by their predecessor Labour Government. I wish, for example, that the Government would prioritise stopping the egregious crime of hare coursing, which we suffer from very badly in Lincolnshire, or organised rural crime or fly-tipping—all terrible crimes that seem to be increasing. Under this Government, sadly, police numbers are falling, including in rural areas. Rather than tackle the issues of policing and enforcement, the Government want to impose a blanket ban. Let us be clear-eyed as to why they are doing this: their Prime Minister is weak, his Cabinet is circling and his Back Benchers are revolting. [Laughter.] The Government need to throw them some red meat, so they are coming after lawful rural sports.

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[Dame Angela Eagle]

I will give way to the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard).

[Mark Pritchard]

It is humid in here. I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. She is talking about important subjects for all our communities, including infrastructure, SMEs and transport. We can differ on who is to be praised or not. On the Government’s legislative priorities—many of these things require legislation or have already had legislative time spent on them—why are the Government going to spend so much time on banning trail hunting? Is she aware that, if that goes through, in Shropshire alone we will likely see the death of at least 300 hounds? That will impact on many rural SMEs.

As the Minister has been in the House a very long time, she will know that I have had at least three animal welfare Bills in the House—[Interruption.] That was long before the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) even set foot in the Chamber. My record on animal welfare is long and established. Today, I stand up for all the people in the hunts who do not want to destroy all those dogs as well as jobs.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

First, I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman’s record on animal welfare; I think everyone across the House respects it. Secondly, I was in the House when we voted to ban hunting in the first place. I was actually in the Chamber when it was invaded by hunt protesters, who did not show much attention to the law when they ran into this place—they were so surprised that they had arrived here that they did not quite know what to do. I therefore take no lessons on any of that.

The ban on trail hunting was in our manifesto, and we are consulting on how to put it into effect. I certainly hope that the right hon. Gentleman will take part in that consultation.

[Mark Pritchard]

I will vote against it!

[Dame Angela Eagle]

The right hon. Gentleman may vote any way he likes, but I hope that he will take part in the consultation so that we can have a proper debate about these things.

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

I am grateful to have the opportunity to close this debate. I have to say that even in the deep, bleak midwinter, I do not recognise the gloomy, barren landscape that Conservative Members have been describing. They describe a litany of disasters. If only they had been in government for the last 14 years and been able to do something about them. As I go round our countryside, I see a quite different picture; I see millions of people in rural communities who were taken for granted and underserved by the Conservatives. That is why they kicked the party out at the last general election. We Labour Members are laser-focused on encouraging growth, and Labour is now the party of the countryside. The Conservatives should stop talking the country down and get behind our drive for growth.

Let us look at the inheritance that the Conservatives left local communities: broken public services, boarded-up post offices, crumbling schools and sky-high NHS waiting lists. They have learned no lessons, offered no apologies and shown no contrition, and that is why they were booted out of government. They had a Liz Truss mini-Budget that crashed the economy, sending mortgages, rents and bills soaring. And who was the Financial Secretary to the Treasury when food inflation hit 19%? It was the shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

[Mark Pritchard]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mary Creagh]

I am not giving way, because I have only eight minutes to respond to the debate.

The Conservatives’ former Prime Minister explicitly said that there was a deliberate policy of taking money away from deprived inner-city areas and giving it to rural areas. This Government are cleaning up the mess that they made, and we have stabilised the economy.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers) is not in his place, because I cycled the 25 miles there from the New Forest during the covid lockdowns. He talked a lot about the 61 bus, but he did not mention anything about the rail fare freeze. His constituents will enjoy the freezing of rail fares, as well as the freezing of prescription charges, £150 off energy bills and the driving up of wages. What did the Conservatives do on each of those issues to help people in rural communities? They voted against each and every one of those measures. They left the health service on its knees, our schools were crumbling and they crashed the economy. We have done more in 18 months than they achieved in 14 miserable years, including delivering cheaper mortgages and new rights for workers, and lifting half a million people out of poverty.

I want to come back to bus routes, because under the Conservatives and Lib Dems, bus routes in England declined by 50% after 2010. Some 8,000 services were slashed on their watch. We have taken immediate action through the Bus Services Act, which includes provision to support the socially necessary bus services that are so important in rural areas. I am grateful to have the bus Minister sitting next to me, and we have maintained the national £3 bus fare cap. [Interruption.] Members are shouting from a sedentary position, but there was no cap under the Conservative Government.

We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) about the problems of rural crime. During the 14 years of Conservative Government the recorded crime rate in rural areas of England and Wales increased by 32%. Our rural communities paid the price for the Tories being asleep on the job, and the 20,000 police officers that they and the Liberal Democrats cut in 2010. We are ensuring that rural communities will be better protected from the scourge of rural crime, such as equipment theft, livestock theft and hare coursing, which we know devastate communities, farming and wildlife. That is why we have collaborated with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Home Office to deliver a renewed rural and wildlife crime strategy, which was published last November.

My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd) asked about waste crime, and I have visited the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) to see the fly-tipping there. We know that waste crime blights our rural communities and undermines legitimate businesses. The last Government let waste gangs and organised crime groups run riot, with incidents rising by 20% in their last five years, but we have announced what are we going to do.

Independent Water Commission

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. We are currently going through a dry spell and seeing hosepipe bans in many parts of the country, yet in the winter it rained very heavily. The reason we have hosepipe bans is that we do not have the reservoirs to catch the rain when it falls and then use it in drier periods, which is because we have not built a new reservoir for 30 years. That changes now: these plans include the intention to build nine new reservoirs. To speed up the planning process, I as the Secretary of State am taking control of consents for reservoirs, so that they can be approved much faster and go ahead to provide the country with the clean drinking water we need.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

The Environment Agency estimates that there are 4 million regular and occasional anglers throughout the United Kingdom, with 1.2 million getting fishing licences last year. Angling across the country is worth about £3 billion to the economy and it is the favourite pastime in this country, as the Secretary of State will know. Will he give an undertaking to all the anglers throughout this country that they will be fully engaged by the new regulator?

[Steve Reed]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. Anglers are quite rightly furious about the level of pollution, which is destroying fish and other life in our rivers, but also about the impact of abstractions, particularly from chalk streams, so the new regulator will be engaging with them. Sir Jon has proposed new mechanisms for volunteers and campaigners to engage with the system that were not available previously. We will consult on those in the autumn, and move ahead with legislation following that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Thursday 8th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The previous Government cut resources for regulation in half, and that is one of the ways water companies were able to get away with so much pollution. We have changed the law to allow regulators to recover prosecution costs so that they can carry out further prosecutions and stop those who have been polluting our waterways.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Can I make an appeal to the Secretary of State, and indeed his whole Front Bench, not to make farmers a scapegoat in any water reforms? Clearly, where farming and farmers are involved in bad practice, they should be penalised, but social industrialists, other employers, and indeed those in the public sector, might also pollute rivers. Water is a critical part of the food supply chain and agriculture. Farmers look after the environment on all our behalf—in the right way most of the time. My appeal to the Secretary of State is to please get the National Farmers’ Union and farmers involved and not let them become scapegoats.

[Steve Reed]

I of course agree with the right hon. Member. We are supporting farmers, many of whom were affected by very severe flooding recently, with the farming recovery fund. I am engaging constantly, and will be again today, with the National Farmers’ Union about those issues and many others.

Foot and Mouth Disease

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner]

We constantly keep under review the resources that are available to enable us to tackle all these issues. On the basis of a number of questions today, I shall be happy to visit Weybridge at the earliest opportunity.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Unfortunately, as the Minister will know, foot and mouth disease looms large in the memories of many Shropshire farmers. Talking of visits—this is a genuine point—I wonder whether the Minister, and indeed the Secretary of State, would consider visiting Harper Adams University in my constituency, which, as he will also know, is the top agricultural university in Europe. I mention that because it has veterinary experts with specific expertise in this disease and others.

As we heard from the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Dr Hudson), more than 6 million pigs, cattle and sheep were lost in 2001 and 2007. The Minister mentioned biodiversity. Can he update the House on illegal meat imports and checks at the border, and the implementation of the border target operating model?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his invitation; I shall add him to my list. The border checks involve a complicated set of issues, but one of the Brexit benefits, if you like, is the existence of those checks, and I am satisfied that they are providing a level of security that should give people confidence. As I said in an earlier answer, we have strengthened the controls on personal imports. It is always a challenge to protect any area, but we are in a better position than colleagues in mainland Europe.

Water Companies: Regulation and Financial Stability

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. Let me make a few housekeeping points. We will have an informal three-minute limit, but if colleagues intervene a lot and we are running out of time, I may have to make a formal ruling from the Chair, which will mean that any interventions add a minute to the time of the Member who is speaking.

Can I just say that when colleagues attend debates in this Chamber, or any other debate, they really should wait for the end of at least the first speech, having intervened, before leaving? The person who left the Chamber is not here to hear that ruling, but I offer it as a gentle reminder for other colleagues. Also, when Members make a speech, they should remain in the Chamber until they have heard two other speakers before leaving.

My final observation from this debate is that if colleagues come in—[Interruption.] Order. Forgive me, but the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Mr Amos) might want to hear this. If an hon. Member comes in halfway through the opening speech, they should not expect to intervene, having not heard at least the introduction and some of the preamble to the substantive points.

I hope that is helpful. I share it from a point of weakness, having myself made all of those mistakes and many more over many years. We will have an informal limit of three minutes to start. I call Grahame Morris.

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[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

As the Opposition Front Benchers will know, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson and shadow Minister will get five minutes each and the Minister will get 10 minutes. The debate is due to finish at 4 pm; we were going to put a time limit on speeches, but some Members have left this debate early and some did not speak as long as expected. If Members who have not spoken want to make a brief intervention, you can do so over the next few minutes, but I ask you to please be brief. I think that is fair, given that I hinted at a voluntary time limit and that the debate has been well attended.

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[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. Before I call the Minister, I should say that I allowed the Front Benchers to speak a little longer given that we have some time. If the Minister wishes to take interventions, she can, although she does not have to. I remind her that if she so chooses she can give time at the end—just a couple of minutes—to the mover of the motion Tim Farron.

Before I call the Minister, I hope that the hon. Member for Hexham will forgive my mentioning that it is a procedure of the House—a courtesy—to be in the whole debate and not come in after 65 minutes of a 90-minute debate and then make an intervention. It is not really the way to add to a debate or get the most out of it. I am sure he will take note of that. I call the Minister.

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[Tim Farron]

Mr Pritchard, she’s a good ‘un. I thank the Minister very much indeed; I appreciate that.

Finally, I thank everyone who has contributed to the debate, but I also thank you, Mr Pritchard. That might sound a bit smarmy, but you and I go back a long way. I wish that when I first started here I had a Chair of Westminster Hall debates who talked us through the process as well as you have today. I am very grateful to you, and indeed to everybody else who has been here for this debate.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

You will definitely be called first in the next debate, that’s for sure. [Laughter.] You have been here a long time; you know how to work the system. So, there we are. No—there is no system to work; we are neutral in the Chair. But thank you for your kind comments.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the regulation and financial stability of water companies.

Importation and Sale of Foie Gras

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Giles Watling]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I raise the matter here today precisely because I do not think enough action has taken place since that previous debate.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. There is a Division in the House. We will suspend for 15 minutes for the first vote. If there are subsequent votes, it will be 10 minutes. Then, as soon as the mover of the motion and the Minister are here, we can proceed, so I ask hon. Members to go quickly as possible, please.

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[Rebecca Pow]

Am I allowed to take an intervention, Mr Pritchard? I am not sure whether I have time.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Yes, you have time.

[Rebecca Pow]

I will be generous and take another intervention.

Marine Management Organisation

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

I will call Giles Watling to move the motion and will then call the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as he will know is the convention for these shorter, 30-minute debates.

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the effectiveness of the Marine Management Organisation.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I am thrilled to have this opportunity to stand up for coastal communities, particularly my own in Clacton—a place that I have been a part of and lived in for over 55 years and have represented both locally and nationally since 2007. I have seen at first hand what works in our environment and what does not. Our extraordinary coastline has existed for hundreds of thousands of years. It is home to a Ramsar site and is a site of special scientific interest; it is a salt marsh, with superb beaches, cliffs and backwaters.

Recently, I tabled a private Member’s Bill that seeks to put in place a pilot to devolve many functions of the Marine Management Organisation to local authorities. The MMO is a group that I have increasingly come to see as not fit for purpose. It lacks experience and is flippant in respect of the needs of local communities. Indeed, I have been told that we once had turn up to look at a marine development in the backwaters two officials from the MMO who seemed to be surprised about tidal range and direction.

More recently, the Naze Protection Society waited 13 weeks for a licence from the MMO to undertake vital coastal works that involved protecting a sewage farm from incursion by the sea. Every tide that came and went and every storm that happened made those works more difficult and more expensive. The Naze Protection Society contacted me in desperation, as it had the money, the materials and the contractors standing by but was held up for want of a simple licence from the MMO. I made a couple of calls to the Minister and the Secretary of State, and the licence was issued almost immediately. It should not take a call to an MP to get this simple stuff done.

In my opinion, the MMO is failing. For that reason, I have worked with my excellent local authority, Tendring District Council, which has offered to put in place a pilot that it will run, absorbing and discharging the licensing and management duties. I want to see that happen for three core reasons, which also illustrate why I felt this debate was needed. First, it seems rather odd to me that we allow the MMO so much centralised power. We have seen planning and licensing become core parts of local authorities’ action plans. Councils are accountable and, by their very nature, have a deep understanding of local issues and the local scene. We need to look to a slimmer MMO, more devolution and a non-executive directors board of experts with real-life experience, holding the MMO to account.

Secondly, we should really be moving past all these organisations with people who just seem to collect non-executive directorships. We have spoken a lot in this place about how expensive distant and unaccountable quangos can be.

Microchipping of Pets

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

We are still in the hybrid setting, as hon. Members will have noted. Mr Speaker has asked me to remind all colleagues that they are expected to remain for the entire debate. I also remind Members participating virtually that they must leave their camera on for the duration of the debate and that they will be visible at all times, both to one another and to us in the Boothroyd Room. If Members attending virtually have any technical problems, they should email the Westminster Hall Clerks at their email address, which is [e-mail]. Members attending physically should clean their spaces before using them and before leaving the room. I remind Members that Mr Speaker has stated that masks should be worn throughout a Westminster Hall debate in the Boothroyd Room. Members who are attending physically and are in the latter stages of the call list should initially use the seats in the Public Gallery and move on to the horseshoe when seats there become available. Members can speak from the horseshoe only where there are microphones. There can be no interventions virtually; they can be made only physically. Thank you for your attention.

Moorland Burning

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of moorland burning.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I am grateful for the opportunity to debate the important issue of moorland burning. I hope no one in this House would dispute that we are in a climate and nature emergency. That means we have not only a moral imperative to ban this destructive practice, but environmental, ecological and existential imperatives to protect and restore our precious peatlands.

The UK peatlands contain an estimated 3,200 million tonnes of carbon, more than the forests of the UK, France and Germany combined. There is no way that the Government can tackle the climate crisis without ensuring that our peatlands continue to store that colossal quantity of carbon. It would be a catastrophe if it were released and, yet that is exactly what is happening.

While upland peatland should be a net carbon sink, continued mismanagement means that the UK’s peatlands are a net source of emissions. When they could and should be being used for carbon sequestration to safely store carbon, our peat bogs are instead releasing huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds reports that that is equivalent to the amount of carbon dioxide released by 140,000 cars a year. The cause is moorland burning.

Between the 1940s and the present, there has been a sevenfold increase in burning on peatland in England alone. In Great Britain, between 2001 and 2011, burning increased at a rate of 11% per year. The more we allow that to continue, the greater the acceleration in the climate crisis we will see before our eyes. We will also see impacts on our environment.

Britain’s blanket bogs make up 10% to 15% of the world’s entire resource. Burning peat bogs dries out peat soil and lowers the water table, changing the flora and fauna to advantage species such as grouse, and transforming these rich, biodiverse habitats into distorted ecologies suitable for only a few animals and plants. We have a duty to preserve their vast biodiversity.

The dried peat soil also negatively impacts our water quality by releasing soil carbon into watercourses, which degrades their quality and increases the expense of cleaning our drinking water. That is because the burning harms the sphagnum mosses, which hold water in the peatlands. While the mosses recover, grasses and heather replace and out-compete them, which means that the water runs off down the hills, taking carbon from the peat with it and leading to polluted water. Burnt bogs are consequently less able to slow water flow, which leads to heavier flooding after rainfall.

I am sure my South Yorkshire colleagues will remember the terrible flooding our region suffered last year: 90% of the homes in the village of Fishlake near Doncaster were flooded last November, and, unfortunately, over a year on, some still have not been able to return to their homes. Funding for flood defences is a pressing issue, particularly when the south-east gets double the funding per person of Yorkshire and the Humber and more than five times that of the north-east. We need the Government to deliver fairer funding for flood defences, but we also need to move the debate away from mitigating the effects of the climate and environment emergency to tackling the causes. That means locking carbon in the ground by restoring our upland peat bogs, slowing the water flow, soaking up heavy rainfall and preventing the next flooding crisis before it occurs.

Peatlands also play a vital role in UK water security and must be protected to preserve the UK’s water supply in the coming years. Researchers at the University of Leeds estimate that 72.5% of the storage capacity of reservoirs in the UK is peatlands-fed water. That demonstrates the crucial role that peatlands play in our water security.

In January, the Committee on Climate Change recommended that peat burning should be banned by the end of 2020. The Government have routinely committed to ending the burns, but we have yet to see any legislative progress towards that. Instead, the Government have asked landowners only to sign voluntary agreements not to burn, and they simply are not working. For the sake of our environment, the Government must announce an immediate ban on this destructive practice and restore our peatlands to their natural bog habitats, so that they can deliver for biodiversity and carbon sequestration.

But that is only the first step. Announcing a ban is not the same as enacting one. For example, in my constituency, the moors at Stanage and Strines are both sites of special scientific interest, which means they should be protected areas, yet both regularly see burning. Due to the lack of proper resourcing and maintenance, too many of our protected areas are protected in name only. This Government’s record on maintaining existing areas of environmental protection shows a sustained failure to protect those protected sites.

In 2010, 43% of SSSIs in England were in favourable condition; by 2020 that had dropped to 39%. The condition of SSSIs in England is actually worse in our national parks and areas of natural beauty than outside them. That is a direct consequence of under-resourcing and underfunding conservation—yet another devastating consequence of the last 10 years of austerity. The Government’s own figures show that public sector spending on biodiversity in the UK fell from £641 million to £456 million between 2012 and 2017—a drop of 29%. The RSPB argues that the Government’s approach to achieving nature targets has completely failed due to

“neglect of basic monitoring and compliance, a reliance on voluntary approaches and unwillingness to regulate, and dwindling public resources for action”—

a damning summation.

As well as committing to banning peatland burning and giving a firm date on which that will come into effect, Ministers must commit to properly resourcing conservation bodies so that they are able to monitor and clamp down on any illegal burning and ensure that peatlands are rewetted and restored. That is why I am so pleased to support Labour’s plan for a national nature service.

An expansion of spending on maintaining or restoring our peatlands is vital if we are to maintain our zero carbon commitments, but it is also a way of providing the employment stimulus we need in the wake of the pandemic; protecting and maintaining our peat bogs and our natural environment in all its diversity goes hand in hand with creating good-quality public sector jobs.

We should take inspiration from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps between 1933 and 1942, whose workers planted 3 billion trees and paved the way for America’s system of national and state parks, which were also a central part of the new deal. The national nature service should be at the heart of the green new deal for workers, creating a zero carbon army. We need to manage our moorlands effectively and to lock CO₂ into the ground. At the same time, that would provide a host of secure jobs and benefit many people, including young black, Asian and minority ethnic workers, who have been hit hardest by the employment crisis. It would also help to diversify the conservation sector.

Nobody in this debate supports the deregulation of moorlands. The idea that setting fire to large swathes of our countryside is a responsible form of regulation and management is completely incredible. It releases millions of tons of CO₂ into the atmosphere, making the climate emergency worse. It destroys habitats and damages the ecosystem and ecologies. As fires rage on our uplands, they increase the threat of floods from our lowland rivers.

We cannot rely on the good will of landowners to stop the burning—just ask the residents of Hebden Bridge and the Calder valley. We all saw on our TVs the damage done to those communities by last year’s flooding, and many now attribute those floods to heather burning on Walshaw moor. Instead, we need to restore and re-wet our peatlands, using them as one of the many natural solutions to the climate crisis. To do that, we must end the year-on-year cuts to spending on the environment and set out a plan for investing in nature. That means having a national nature service to create well-paid, secure, unionised jobs. We need to lock CO₂ into the ground and to protect biodiversity and our natural environment’s fragile ecologies. We also need to ensure that those who seek to burn protected peatlands face the full weight of the law.

I hope the Minister will take this opportunity to outline the timetable for bringing forward legislation. It is time to end the fires, floods and climate chaos. It is well past time we banned the burn.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

May I remind colleagues that there are five minutes for the Opposition Front Benchers and 10 minutes for the Government. This debate is due to finish at 17.32 pm. I am not putting a time limit on speeches, but we have eight other speakers apart from the Front Benchers and the mover of the motion at this point. Please bear that in mind.

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

Two thirds of the North York Moors national park—that glorious countryside that many of us will have seen on the television programme “Heartbeat”—lie in the Scarborough and Whitby constituency, and 79% of the North Yorkshire moors and Pennine special protection areas are managed as grouse moors. It is vital—I agree with the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake)—that we preserve that peat.

The North Yorkshire moors are not, in the main, blanket bogs. They are dry heathland peat, and different ways of management need to be conducted on different types of moorland. It is also vital that we preserve these fragile habitats, and if we are to preserve them, they do need managing.

Heather moorland is rarer than rainforest, and 75% of Europe’s heather moorland is in the United Kingdom. Of the upland SSSIs, 60% are on moorland, which has, for decades, been managed in traditional ways.

I remember, as a child, crossing the North Yorkshire moors and seeing people cutting peat for fuel. Indeed, the legendary Saltersgate Inn had a fire that never went out, because, apparently, a Revenue man was buried under the fireplace and it was the only way of preventing him from being discovered. Sadly, the Saltersgate Inn is no more.

It is important that we look at all ways of managing peat, particularly in terms of arable degradation—as a farmer myself, I understand that. We should also look at the way horticultural peat is harvested and—the Republic of Ireland is phasing out its power stations—at how we do not use peat for power.

I must make the point that the North Yorkshire moors are not a natural environment. They are a fragile environment. In the middle ages, the moors were covered in trees, which were cut down for fuel and used to smelt the iron stone found under those moors. Only in the Victorian era did management systems come in that encouraged sheep farming and grouse. That involved cool burning the heather in the winter period, between 1 October and 15 April, when the fire was unlikely to get into the peat itself. That involves burning small patches of the moorland to create a patchwork of different stages of heather, some of it very tender and young. It is the tender, young heather that the sheep and grouse can feed on. The old, woody heather is no good for the grouse and is certainly no good for sheep. It is also no good, by the way, for ground-nesting birds such as the golden plover, the lapwing and the curlew.

If the hon. Lady wants to come and see what happens to moors if they are not managed in that way, she should come to Troutsdale moor just outside Scarborough, which has not been managed as a moor for about the last 30 years and has reverted to scrubland. There are none of the birds that we want to preserve on the North Yorkshire moors. If there were no sheep, who would mend the stone walls? According to her, it would be a unionised army of nature service people, but the farmers are the people who should be farming on the moorland and managing it.

If we did not manage the moorland in the way we do, we would see wildfires. Burning creates firebreaks. We have seen in the United States and Australia how, when they stopped back burning, fires got out of hand. In 2019, there was a record number of wildfires. In 2020, that record was broken, with 110 fires.

Indeed, Saddleworth moor—a moor that has not been managed in the traditional way that we use in the North Yorkshire moors—had three weeks of fires, which produced the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide as 100,000 car years and cost £20 million. That fire got into the peat, as such wildfires do, which is what damages it. I must make the point that controlled burning does not burn the peat; it burns the vegetation and allows the sphagnum moss, which forms more peat, and the young heather to regenerate.

Mowing is not practical on most of the moorland because of the topography and the amount of stones; indeed, that encourages the growth of sedges, which can release large amounts of methane, which has a carbon factor 96% higher than CO₂. That is recognised by the North York Moors National Park Authority, for which it is policy to support the traditional rotational cool burning of heather to maintain the moorland in the way that wildlife, and economic activity such as grouse shooting and sheep farming, need.

I say to the Minister that we need more science before we make any decisions. The science is unfolding. We also need to understand that some people are against the burning of moorland because they are against grouse shooting. That is a perfectly respectable position to have, but they should not use it to destroy the very fragile environment of the North Yorkshire moors. If we do not have a managed moorland, we will have no grouse, no sheep, no lapwings, no curlews and no birds of prey.

When the Minister responds, I hope she will understand that we need to do more work. We do not want to destroy this very fragile managed environment, which has been kept this way for many years, and sacrifice it for some political campaign that is to do with a lot of other things, not just managing moorland.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Hon. Members know that I try to avoid formal time limits, so I will edge towards an informal time limit of four minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) for securing the debate. She spoke passionately, much as she did in her maiden speech, about the impact of peatland burning on the climate, the local environment and flooding.

Labour is calling on the Government to restate and act on their commitment to the legislation that they promised over a year ago. It is imperative that rhetoric on climate leadership is more than simply rhetoric, and they have an opportunity to put words into action. As part of our plan for nature, Labour is calling on the Government to help restore degraded peatlands to their natural state by ending the harvesting of peat and the burning of moors or blanket bog. A comprehensive independent review into habitats and fire risk caused by grouse shooting management arrangements, with a view to new regulatory controls, has been a long time coming.

We have had a very good debate, and there are obviously a wide range of different opinions, from those of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) to those of the right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), who spoke with characteristic expertise about moorland management. As my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) mentioned, Natural England recently published its position statement, which restates its commitment to end burning and to restore our upland peatlands in order to conserve wildlife and carbon. The restoration of those areas to bog habitats is also supported by the RSPB, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the majority of academics, environmental non-governmental organisations, and many northern councils and Mayors.

My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) mentioned that peatland also plays an important role in water and flood management, and I commend her for all the work that she has done on this issue. Our peatlands form a significant and vital part of the UK’s carbon storage. They contain more carbon than the forests of the UK, France and Germany combined but, through the burning of peat bogs, we are releasing huge amounts of CO₂ into the atmosphere each year—the equivalent of driving over 140,000 cars a year. In January, the Committee on Climate Change recommended that peat burning should be banned by the end of 2020 as a “low-cost, low-regret” action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

We are facing a great challenge ahead of us. We need immediate and decisive action to ensure not only that we meet our international obligations, but that we are world leaders in the efforts to tackle the climate emergency. Research by the University of Leeds has found that the burning of grouse moors not only releases climate-altering gases, but degrades peatland habitat, reduces biodiversity and increases flood risk. The Government have implicitly acknowledged the damage that burning is causing by including the restoration of peat and moors in the flood and coastal erosion risk management policy statement, and rightly so. Peatland prevents flooding downstream. It absorbs and holds back large amounts of water when there is heavy rainfall, and it releases water during times of drought.

In conclusion, we need to better manage our natural environment, not just oversee its decline. We need to improve biodiversity and reduce our carbon emissions, and we need to protect our communities that are increasingly under the threat of flooding. The Government must follow through on their commitments. It is not enough to state good intentions; we need action.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

The debate will finish at 5.32 pm. If time allows, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) might want to respond to what the Minister says.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

Mr Pritchard, do I have time to take an intervention?

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

There are two minutes.

[Jim Shannon]

I am sorry, I did not realise the time. I just want to ask the Minister very quickly whether she might have conversations with the likes of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation and the Countryside Alliance to gauge the opinion of those who manage the moors, to come up with a policy that everyone can agree on.

[Rebecca Pow]

Thank you so much for raising that. I do talk to all those people. I have been out with gamekeepers to look at the land. We have to get this right; we do not want to make enemies. We have to work together. There have got to be ways. We will release our peat strategy soon and there will be some detailed information in there. It will cover all things relating to peat and these other sections, as well as the land managers. The Government have made a commitment to do something about this. We do have to do something about climate change, do we not, Chair?

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

I am neutral.

[Rebecca Pow]

Yes; sorry. And we have to do something about our carbon storage, our wildlife protection, our clean water and our flood control.

I will wind up now. I thank the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam for raising the topic and I thank everyone for their input. It is a fiery and a heated topic, and there will be more water coming under this bridge.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

For the purposes of the record the Chair is neutral in all debates, but without telling anybody, of course we need to tackle climate change. I have probably broken the rules.

[Olivia Blake]

I thank everyone who has taken part in today’s rowdy debate. I want to quickly clarify a few points, if I may, about the body of scientific evidence. I will quote from the International Union for Conservation of Nature peatland programme’s position statement. The first point states:

“The current body of available scientific evidence indicates that burning on peatland can result in damage to peatland species, microtopography and wider peatland habitat, peat soils and peatland ecosystem functions.”

The second point, which is what I have been getting at, states:

“Healthy peatlands do not require burning”

to be maintained. I am not saying for one moment that our moorlands do not need to be maintained, but that the practice of burning creates a self-reinforcing circle. We burn the heather, it comes back, then we burn it and dry it out, and then it comes back. That is why the number of fires has been increasing year on year. Finally, just on identity politics—

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions. Have a good evening.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point. That is why earlier this week we had a detailed workshop with both retailers and food processors to identify what they would like to do and what changes to competition law we would need to consider and implement. We are working on that right now.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Telford and Wrekin Council will now have to deliver 5,000 free school meals a day without being able to do so through schools, except for key workers’ children. What more can the Government do, given that many volunteers and people working in charities who might offer to backfill where support is required may be self-isolating or may have been encouraged by the Government to self-isolate? There really is an issue with logistics.

[George Eustice]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is working on a national volunteer project to co-ordinate the many offers of volunteer help that we have had. In the context of food, we have been working very closely with supermarkets to expand their click-and-collect services to make it easier, where possible, for them to expand their delivery capacity to homes. We continue to work with other groups to identify how we can get food to people at this difficult time.