Oral Answers to Questions
Mary Creagh Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Richard Benyon
I have met, and do meet, the ABI, and we do talk about such matters. I need do no more than recommend one of the great legends, Mary Dhonau—[Hon. Members: “Maradona?”] No, Mary Dhonau. She runs the National Flood Forum, and her home has frequently been flooded. The last time she was flooded she made no claim because she had taken precisely the precautions that my hon. Friend mentions. I hope that more households will learn from her experience.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
There was a bit of confusion from the Secretary of State earlier about the figure of 145,000. The figures are in DEFRA’s 2009 annual report, and I will happily send the link to the Secretary of State’s office so that she can see the delay that the 27% cut has caused.
The Minister says he is consulting on new flood defence proposals. The new system would remove the Environment Agency’s role in deciding who gets flood defences, and communities would be expected to pay a flood tax in order to receive central Government funding. Will this new system not disadvantage people from poorer parts of the country who cannot afford a new flood tax?
Richard Benyon
Oh dear—another own goal, I am afraid. The hon. Lady really must read the consultation documents. She will then see, first, that that is one of Sir Michael Pitt’s recommendations, which she and her predecessor were very keen the new Government should continue to put into effect, and secondly, that payment for outcomes is not a flood tax. It is not compulsory; it is an additionality, and it provides clarity for communities that for too long have failed to get their schemes above the line. The hon. Lady’s point will be very unwelcome if that is her party’s future policy, on its blank sheet of paper.
Mary Creagh
One of the key recommendations of the Pitt review was that investment in flood spending should rise above inflation year on year. No matter what dodgy DEFRA maths the Minister tries to put before the House he cannot disguise a 27% cut in flood defence spending. We increased it by 38% over three years—that is the difference. That gave communities and the insurance industry certainty. He has increased the risk that the insurance industry could walk away from universal flood insurance after 2013. He has already mentioned speciality brokers; does he agree that we will need a new statement of principles in 2013 to make sure that flood insurance is universally available?
Richard Benyon
We will certainly need a new relationship with the ABI post-2013, but the hon. Lady must be careful with the numbers that she bandies around before the House. The right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) had spoken of 50% cuts in capital for the Department that she now shadows if Labour had been re-elected, and she cannot now decide that that was a pipe dream and was not mentioned. Of course this issue is important: it is about people’s homes and flooding. Some 5.2 million homes in this country are at some risk of flooding, and the Government have made this issue a priority. That is why we have protected this budget out of all proportion to other budgets in the difficult round that has been forced on us by the previous Government.
Mrs Spelman
In 2009 the UK imported indigenous food—food that could be grown in season in the UK—with a total value of approximately £15 billion. Total imports of food, feed and drink in the same period were valued at £32.5 billion.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
The right hon. Lady’s colleague the Minister of State, who has responsibility for forestry, wrote to all MPs in October saying that he would consult the public on the sale of England’s forests before the end of the year. We now hear that he has postponed that consultation until the new year—yet in a parliamentary answer to me he revealed that he is busy meeting forestry companies on this very issue. When will the public get their say on the future of England’s forests?
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)
The hon. Lady is getting a bit carried away. The consultation will start in January, and it is perfectly reasonable for us to discuss with experts in the field the possible implications of all the things that we are thinking of doing before we firm up the ideas that we put to the public for consultation. The hon. Lady must be extremely careful on this subject, because we have just discovered that the previous Labour Government sold 12,000 hectares of forest without any form of sustainable protection for any of it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mary Creagh Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
May I begin by thanking the Secretary of State for welcoming me to my new role and for the briefing that she gave me on Nagoya? I am sure that the whole House will join me in welcoming the new fund that the Government have pledged in order to deliver international biodiversity benefits through international forestry.
On Government plans to maintain biodiversity at home, however, we have seen a series of deeply worrying moves from the right hon. Lady over the past three months. The Government plan to sell off or simply give away 140 national nature reserves; our national parks, which a Labour Government began in 1949, will suffer a catastrophic 30% cut to their budgets, leaving park workers unemployed, our national trails abandoned and precious habitats neglected; and her Department has announced a review of England’s forests, seeing them sold to the highest bidder—asset stripping our natural heritage. Is it not the case that she preaches environmental evangelism around the world and practices environmental vandalism at home?
Mrs Spelman
That is a disappointing opener from the hon. Lady. She appears not to understand that her own party when in government would have had to make cuts, and there will be no credibility to her accusations unless she tells the House where she would have made savings. In any event, however, there is no suggestion that we are poised to sell off nature reserves. Can she not see that it is not necessarily for the state to do everything? The Wildlife Trusts welcome the opportunity to be more involved in the management of our nature reserves.
Mrs Spelman
The hon. Lady shakes her head, but I suggest that she ask them. As for selling off the forests, she just heard my explanation that it is wrong to confuse ownership with the quality of environmental protection, and I believe that the communities and charities that would like to be more involved in protecting and enhancing our forest biodiversity welcome our suggestions.
Mary Creagh
The truth is that the Government have reserved their most vicious spending cut for a 30% cut in environmental spending. We know that in the spending review, the right hon. Lady caved in early to the Chancellor’s pressure, and that she gave away too much too quickly. Why did she sell out the country’s environment to the Chancellor?
Mrs Spelman
The hon. Lady has to answer the question about where she would have made the cuts.
Mrs Spelman
The hon. Lady shakes her head, but her Government were committed to a 50% reduction in capital. Perhaps she would like to identify in the Department’s budget what she would have done. What I can tell the House is that, going into those negotiations with the Treasury, we took a strategic approach, because it was important for us to protect as much of the capital as possible. Her party, had it been in government, would have cut the capital budget by 50%, but we succeeded in reducing that to a 34% reduction, meaning that the bulk of our flood defence capital has been protected.
Mrs Spelman
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that the EU budget needs to reflect the straitened economic circumstances that all European member states are experiencing. Last weekend, the Prime Minister met the German Chancellor, Frau Merkel, and earlier this week he met President Sarkozy from France, to have important discussions about the realities of the size of the EU budget. Part of those considerations will be the allocation that goes to the common agricultural policy.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
We all know that a successful outcome to the common agricultural policy negotiations is vital for Britain’s rural communities. In an interview on “Farming Today”, the right hon. Lady said that the Treasury had conducted a regional impact assessment of the CSR, and that her Department had considered its rural impact. I asked her Department for a copy of that rural impact assessment, and the reply from the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), stated:
“DEFRA has not carried out a formal assessment of the impact of the spending review on rural matters.”—[Official Report, 1 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 606W.]
Once and for all, can the Secretary of State tell the House whether the rural impact assessment exists?
Mrs Spelman
As I am sure the hon. Lady will appreciate, it is not just the decisions made at DEFRA that have implications for rural communities. As the Government’s rural champion, DEFRA is therefore undertaking an assessment of the implications of other Departments’ elements of the spending review across rural areas. For example, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has made some positive decisions arising from the spending review, including the roll-out of superfast broadband in rural areas, that will have a positive effect on rural areas. The matter needs to be regarded in the round, and that work has been undertaken since the announcement of the decisions affecting all Departments was made on 20 October.