Oral Answers to Questions
Mary Creagh Excerpts(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
Our ambition is to be the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than we found it, and I am proud that that was in our manifesto. The Government are pleased to be supporting the COP21 Paris initiative to which the hon. Lady refers to promote a 0.4% average growth rate of carbon storage in soils worldwide. Opportunities are rather limited for most UK soil types to increase carbon stores, except for peat land, of which the UK has a high proportion. Our focus therefore is their restoration through Government funding and support for private sector initiatives, in which we are investing millions of pounds.
Mary Creagh
I thank the Minister for that reply and welcome her to her new role. Soil is a Cinderella ecosystems issue, yet it is vital for growing food, preventing floods, and capturing and storing carbon. The Environmental Audit Committee’s recent report welcomed the Government’s commitment to increase soil carbon levels by that 0.4% a year as part of our Paris climate commitments, but we could not find any evidence of Government policies to support that goal. With the environment plan and the carbon plan delayed, can she set out as a matter of urgency specific, measurable time-bound plans to improve the nation’s soil and peat lands?
Dr Coffey
I thank the hon. Lady for her welcome. I agree that soil health is absolutely critical and I note the inquiry of the Select Committee. The 25-year environment plan, which I hope will be out shortly—or at least the framework of it—will provide an opportunity for people to contribute to that. Meanwhile, the Government are investing in research to understand better how we can work more closely with farmers to improve soil health in the forthcoming years.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mary Creagh Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
Nuclear power is a vital part of our work to build a secure, affordable and clean energy system to keep the lights on in the decades ahead. The Westinghouse facility in my hon. Friend’s constituency has a crucial role to play, providing the fuel that powers our nuclear fleet, as well as employment to many in his constituency.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
12. What assessment she has made of the effect of the outcome of the EU referendum on investor confidence in the UK power sector.
Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
16. What assessment she has made of the potential effect of the outcome of the EU referendum on levels of overseas investment in the UK energy sector.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Andrea Leadsom)
The Government have engaged extensively with investors since the EU referendum, sending a clear message that the UK remains open for investment and business. I am very clear that the UK is an attractive environment for investment in energy. My Department will continue to take the steps needed to deliver secure, affordable and clean energy for families and businesses across the UK.
Mary Creagh
As one former leadership contender to another, I commiserate with the Minister over the events of the past week and wish her well in the reshuffle today.
The manufacturers organisation the EEF told the Environmental Audit Committee, which I chair, that the decision to cancel the carbon capture and storage competition in the autumn statement came as a huge shock and damaged investor confidence in the industry. We also heard from Siemens, which has invested £160 million in the wind industry in Yorkshire, that the referendum result means it is facing a whole new set of unanswered questions. What steps is the Minister taking to bring confidence to investors in low-carbon industries?
Andrea Leadsom
In fact Siemens has recommitted to its investment in Hull, which is great news for that area. I had a meeting a few days ago—it seems like a year ago—with the Offshore Wind Industry Council to talk about confidence in investment. Its members all remain committed to the UK, and EDF has reaffirmed its commitment to the UK.
Specifically on CCS, as I have said many times in this Chamber, we remain committed to looking at what our future strategy for CCS will be. The fact that the competition did not make the cut in terms of taxpayer value for money at the last spending round does not mean that we are ruling out CCS. We believe that it continues to play an important role in the future of our decarbonisation strategy.
EU Referendum: Energy and Environment
Mary Creagh Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Amber Rudd
I thank the hon. Lady for her question; I was going to talk about investment anyway. She is absolutely right to mention the importance of investment in securing our clean energy. Like her, I appreciate the impact that the European Investment Bank has had on supporting clean energy in this country and I would hope that our membership of it will continue. I cannot give her any commitments, however. I shall wait to see how this emerges as part of the negotiations, but I share her view on how important it is.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
I commend the Secretary of State’s decision, in the midst of the post-Brexit turmoil, to publish the fifth carbon budget. I congratulate her on that. The Environmental Audit Committee has heard this morning from the National Audit Office that a 10% achievement gap has already opened up in the fourth carbon budget between 2023 and 2027. Will she acknowledge that the Treasury’s decision in the last spending review to cancel the carbon capture and storage competition will do little to encourage investor confidence in that area?
Amber Rudd
The hon. Lady is right: we have always known that we had an issue with the fourth carbon budget, and there is more work to be done. That is why it was a reasonable achievement to get cross-Government approval for the fifth carbon budget, and I thank her for her comment on that. There is still a lot of work to be done. There are policies to be decided on, and we will bring forward the emissions proposals by the end of this year in order to address those policies that are going to be needed in the 2020s.
Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in today’s debate. Oppositions, being Oppositions, often fire questions at Governments and this is a particularly difficult time for a Government to answer all the questions. We are about to change Prime Minister, there will probably be a substantial reshuffle in the Government and Ministers will then get down to dealing with the consequences of what the British people have decided.
Many of the points made by the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) were, “What’s going to happen with regulations?” and, “What’s going to happen with things we have signed up to?” I do not believe this Parliament is going to go through every piece of European legislation we have passed over the past 40 years and decide whether we want to keep it or not. The most likely outcome is enabling legislation that rolls everything we have agreed with the EU into UK legislation, with this Government and future Governments at their leisure then being able to pick through what they want to do. That is the most sensible approach. It may mean that we get rid of some legislation in some areas and in others we strengthen it. Whatever the outcome, this Parliament will make sure it picks what is best for our country. We must bear in mind that quite a lot of the legislation has been agreed with 27 other states. Some of it may not be that applicable or relevant to us, but there may be things where we want to improve standards. As my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) said, our environmental record on clean air and everything else predates our joining the EU, and the UK has often been more vociferous in these areas than many EU states.
Mary Creagh
The hon. Gentleman said that most of our air quality legislation predates the EU, but of course the Clean Air Act 1956 was all about stopping people burning things in London and creating the big smogs—it made no mention about diesel particulate matter, because diesel cars had not been invented then.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Poole (Mr Syms).
We have heard today that environmental problems do not respect borders. I would like to posit an alternative argument to the one just advanced by the hon. Gentleman, who said that everything was pretty much okay. I say that things are not that okay and that Britain’s membership of the EU has been instrumental and crucial to the improvement of UK air quality, the cleaning up of water pollution, the management of waste, and the protection and enhancement of biodiversity. It has also given us a global platform on which we can show global leadership in tackling climate change.
Earlier this year, the Environmental Audit Committee, which I chair—I can see several colleagues from it dotted around the Chamber here today—carried out an inquiry into the effects of EU membership on UK environmental protection. We heard from a wide variety of witnesses, including business people, academics, politicians and non-governmental organisations. The overwhelming majority told us that the environment was better protected as a result of our EU membership.
We do not have to look too far to find examples of that protection. In the 1970s, the Thames was biologically dead. It may not look any cleaner from the Palace of Westminster than it did in the ‘70s, but it serves as a great reminder of how EU membership has cleaned up our environment. We can now see seals and dolphins—I have yet to see one from my window. Otters are now in the high end of the Thames. That success story has been repeated up and down the country, as once dead rivers have been brought back to life. Where once it was dangerous to swim, now it is safe for people and wildlife alike. The EU water framework directive has cleaned up our beaches and our rivers, and the marine strategy directive has encouraged us to set out that ecologically coherent network of marine protection zones. It has not been an easy task and I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), for his work in this area.
Geraint Davies
Does my hon. Friend and colleague agree that one of the things that we found in the Committee’s study was, in essence, that the European Union is a union, which therefore has minimum standards that are ratcheted up? It does not allow individual members to undercut other members on the environment, which means that there is a platform across Europe, and across the globe as well, of best practice.
Mary Creagh
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, but of course the setting of those minimum standards does not prevent individual member states from going above and beyond them. Vitally for business, it also provides a common baseline and a harmonised market for products. That is absolutely crucial for UK businesses as we move forward into the uncertainties of a Brexit world.
EU membership is also key for air quality. Successive Governments have dragged their feet on this very difficult issue. Since 2010, the UK has been in breach of EU legal air quality limits in 31 of its 43 clean air zones, and one of those is in my constituency of Wakefield. Although London tends to get all the attention—as a cyclist in London I am certainly aware of the very high pollution levels—constituencies such as Wakefield with the M1 and M62 crossing by it have severe burdens of cardiovascular disease and lung disease as a result of the breaching of those limits.
EU legislation has allowed UK campaigners to hold the Government to account. The High Court has ordered Ministers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to come up with new air quality plans. In April, those Ministers were back in court over allegations that their plans were still insufficient to bring the UK’s air quality in line with EU minimum standards. There is a series of question marks about what will happen to air pollution standards in the brave new Brexit world.
On biodiversity, the nature directives have preserved some of the most treasured places, plants and species in our country. Many of our best-loved sites, such as Flamborough Head, Dartmoor and Snowdonia, are protected by the EU.
Caroline Lucas
The birds and habitats directives are the real jewels in the crown of our environmental protection. Does the hon. Lady agree that, even if we do keep them in British legislation—as I hope we do—what we must do is ensure that there is a proper enforcement mechanism? That is what the EU has provided us with, and we will need to create a new enforcement mechanism that is as rigorous as possible.
Mary Creagh
I do not think that anything can be guaranteed in this world. The first step is to hear from Ministers, but it is said that today is like the last day of term. I wish the Under-Secretary well in whatever future role he is called on to play in the Government. He has been an excellent Minister, and he has appeared before the Environmental Audit Committee many times. I do not think that anything should be taken for granted. As a passionate pro-remain campaigner, I took part in many debates during the EU referendum campaign, and I heard many different versions of Brexit depending on whom I was debating with.
In an interview with The Guardian, the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) described the birds and habitats directives as “spirit crushing”. He said that if we voted to leave, “they would go”. We will have to see whether his version of events is the same as that of the new Prime Minister. He also said that leaving the EU would free up both common agricultural payments and up to £2 billion in “insurance and incentives” for farmers. Nowhere in that do I hear anything about the need for protecting species, wildlife, and plant life. There is no mention of the vital services provided by soils and bogs or of the need for the restoration of bogs and peatlands, which we recommended just a month ago in our excellent report on soil, and which was echoed this morning by the Adaptation Sub-Committee report of the Committee on Climate Change. So, we have seen otters, hen harriers and bitterns making a comeback, and the referendum result could put all that progress at risk.
The EU has also played a key role in promoting investment in sustainable businesses and technologies. Investors need clear policy signals emanating from strong legislative frameworks, and, to be fair, those frameworks are provided by the Climate Change Act 2015. However, our Committee has received some mixed messages from the current inquiries into both the Department for Transport and the Treasury. In particular, I posed a question on the cancellation of the carbon capture and storage competition, which has had a massive debilitating effect on investor confidence. We do not want to get into a position where consumers are not spending and investors are not investing, because that is absolutely disastrous not just for the economy, but for the UK’s environmental progress.
Twenty years ago, in 1997, the UK sent almost all of our household waste to landfill. Now we recycle almost 45% of it, although I was disappointed to see those numbers slightly dip last year. The Treasury introduced the landfill tax escalator in response to the EU landfill directive. Over the past five years, according to the Environmental Services Association, the waste and resources management sector has invested £5 billion in new infrastructure thanks to this long-term policy signal. Those policy signals are vital as is the need to keep investing in infrastructure if we are to meet those 2020 waste targets—if they still apply in UK law. [Interruption.] A sip of gin to keep me going. A slice next time, please.
I shall end on the topic of microplastic pollution. The Committee is concluding its inquiry into microplastics—tiny particles of plastic, which can come from larger particles of plastic that are broken down, or from products such as shaving foams, deodorants, toothpastes and facial scrubs. Unfortunately, it seems to be the higher-end products that have not been cleaned up as quickly as the mass volume scrubs. We are finding that the particles have washed down the sink, passed through sewage filtration systems and ended up in the sea. Anyone who has had a dozen or half a dozen oysters recently will have consumed about 50 microplastic particles. For those of us who like seafood, that is something to reflect on. Bon appétit.
Over a third of fish in the English channel are now contaminated with microplastics. As an island nation we must take the problem of microplastic pollution seriously. The way to solve the problem is to work with our partners in the EU. Those are not my words. It is what the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs told our Committee when he gave evidence just before the referendum on 23 June. If the EU takes action to address an environmental problem, it creates not only a level playing field for businesses, but an opportunity to market environmental solutions.
Brexit raises a series of questions. There is the issue of the circular economy package, which is the EU’s drive to get us to reduce waste, recycle more and have a secure and sustainable supply of raw materials, such as paper, glass and plastics. That would have driven new, green jobs in the UK economy. The decision to abandon all that has left investors reeling.
We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), the shadow Secretary of State, about Siemens’ decision to freeze its investment in the wind industry in Yorkshire, Hull and the Humber and we face a protracted period of uncertainty. When the Under-Secretary of State appeared before our Committee as part of that EU inquiry, he told us that the vote to leave would result in a “long and tortuous” negotiation. That has not even begun yet.
The period ahead is fraught with risks. The UK risks not being regarded as a safe bet, and investors may no longer wish to invest their cash in UK businesses. Significantly, contracts are no longer being signed in London because the risk of London no longer being part of the European single market means that people want contracts to be signed in a European country so that if something goes wrong, contract law will be enforceable across all the countries of the European Union. That will have a very big effect on our financial and legal services.
Geraint Davies
Does my hon. Friend agree that in the emerging recycling market across Europe, with us being at arm’s length and possibly facing tariffs, regulations and so on, people will invest in Europe rather than in Britain?
Mary Creagh
That is the point I was making. When looking at where to put new foreign direct investment, investors will look again and go to the area of least risk. Those risks are reflected in the economy.
We found out from our inquiry that the environment and the UK’s membership of the EU had been a two-way street. It forced us to take action much more quickly on waste and on water, but it also acted as a platform from which we could project our own British values, particularly in relation to climate change. DECC Minister Lord Bourne told the Committee that the UK’s voice was louder in Paris because we were part of a club of 28 countries. I worry about the global agreement reached at Paris and the possible damage to achieving those climate change targets as a result of our withdrawing from the European Union.
In the 1970s the UK was the “dirty man” of Europe. Economically, we were the “sick man” of Europe. Since then we have cleaner beaches, we drive more fuel-efficient cars, we have more fuel-efficient vacuum cleaners, and we can hold the Government to account on air pollution. Environmental problems do not respect borders, and require long-term solutions—much longer than the five-year term of a Government or, in some cases, the two-year term of a Treasury Minister.
EU membership has allowed the UK to be a world leader in tackling environmental problems with our brilliant science base and our pragmatic civil service to provide good nuts-and-bolts solutions to many of the challenges we face, and created British business as a world leader, whether through its retrofitting diesel buses in China or helping the Indian Government with water management for the Ganges delta. These are knowledge and services that our country can export proudly because we have been clean in the European Union. The result of the referendum has caused a great deal of political and economic uncertainty. I hope we will get some reassurances from the Government about the threats that it poses to our common home, and the actions that any new Government will take to ensure that we leave a better future for our children.
Flood Defences (Leeds)
Mary Creagh Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
We heard in the meeting with Leeds City Council’s leaders that, had the flooding happened on a weekday, 27,000 office workers would have been trapped in the city centre with no road or rail exits. Does my hon. Friend agree that we would not tolerate that lack of resilience in any other large city in the country? It is totally unacceptable for this country’s third-largest city to be left so vulnerable.
Rachel Reeves
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.
I want to turn now to the economic effects on Leeds of the floods. The workforce in Leeds total 470,000 people, with a huge number travelling into the city from the surrounding areas every day. If the flood had happened on a working day, thousands of people would have been unable either to get to work or to get out of the city, resulting in huge amounts of congestion and countless working days being lost. The disruption to mobile telecoms infrastructure was bad on Boxing day, but it could have been worse. Significant risks have been identified at key infrastructure sites, including the Vodafone site off Kirkstall Road, which provides important communications to the council, the police and the national health service, and the power substation on Redcote Lane in Kirkstall, which powers 50,000 properties. Both were disrupted on Boxing day and for days afterwards. Leeds is also the regional centre for emergency and specialist healthcare, hosting the largest teaching hospital in Europe, and it relies on that infrastructure on a daily basis. For that reason as well, the city needs to be accessible by road and by rail.
Flooding
Mary Creagh Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
May I begin by paying tribute to the council workers, police, fire officers, Environment Agency staff and the Army who sacrificed Christmas with their families to protect other people’s families in the grip of flooding? May I pay particular tribute to the Penny Appeal, a charity based in my constituency which, with boxer Amir Khan, brought much needed biryani to Cumbria and the lake district before Christmas?
We know flooding is the greatest risk that climate change poses to our country. Those are not my words; they are the words of the Committee on Climate Change. The 2015 national security risk assessment says that flood risk is a tier 1 priority risk alongside terrorism and cyber-attacks, so I want to look at the Government’s record on flood defence spending, outline the impact of flooding in my constituency and look to future resilience.
The 2007 floods were the largest civil emergency since world war two. Tragically, 13 people lost their lives and 40,000 homes were flooded, 1,000 in Wakefield. The Labour Government commissioned Sir Michael Pitt to ensure the lessons of those floods were learned, and his key recommendation was that flood defence spending should rise by more than inflation each year. We acted on that recommendation, and in three years flood defence spending rose from £500 million in 2007 to £670 million in 2010. As Labour’s shadow Environment Secretary from 2010 to 2013, I watched in horror as the coalition Government cut flood defence spending by nearly £100 million in 2010—a 27% cut in capital funding.
I asked the House of Commons Library to research what the impact of that decision was over the last five years. It calculated that, had spending continued as Pitt recommended from that 2010 baseline, flood defence spending should have been £3.468 billion over the last 5 years, but under the coalition Government it has been just £3.228 billion. That is a flood defence funding gap over those five years of £240 million.
Despite what colleagues on the Conservative Benches are saying, the consequences of that funding gap are stark. In Leeds, the UK’s third largest city, a planned flood defence scheme was cancelled in 2011. That scheme covered the Kirkstall area of the city, which was under water two weeks ago. We have a smaller scheme that will be ready in 2017 and will only protect against a one-in-75-year flood, not the one-in-200-year event under the original plan. So when the Prime Minister said at Prime Minister’s questions today that no flood defence schemes were cancelled, he was wrong.
There is a north-south divide when it comes to funding to deal with flooding. The annual budgets of northern metropolitan councils have been disproportionately cut. Cuts to Wakefield council alone between 2011 and 2016 are predicted to reach £149 million. Maintenance of highways and bridges and drain and gully clearance have all had to be cut—invisible cuts but very visible when the waters rise.
I am very pleased that after the 2007 floods I got £15 million for flood defences in Wakefield. Thanks to that investment we were not impacted by these recent floods, but flooding did hit a number of houses and businesses in Calder Vale and Horbury Bridge. When I visited them on Saturday, people told me they were concerned about the availability and affordability of flood insurance, and they were not claiming on their insurance because they were worried they would not be able to get insurance in the future—and some were simply uninsured.
The deal, or statement of principles, we had with the insurance industry was based on flood defence spending rising by more than inflation each year, as recommended by Sir Michael Pitt. The new scheme does not cover businesses or homes built after 2009. This needs to be looked at urgently.
If flooding is a part of a national security risk, we need to see the resilience review the Minister is going to undertake, reporting to the Intelligence and Security Committee.
Flooding
Mary Creagh Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Elizabeth Truss
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work as floods Minister. He is right, and the same paper from Dieter Helm arrived in my inbox today—I have read it and I think it makes some excellent suggestions. We have appointed Dieter as chair of the Natural Capital Committee for another term so that he can look at catchment-specific solutions. That is a very important part of how we become more resilient as a country.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
In 2011, the £180 million flood defence scheme that was planned for Leeds which would have protected businesses in Kirkstall was cut by the Secretary of State’s predecessor. The new scheme planned for Leeds, which will be completed by 2017, will protect only the city from a once-in-75-years event, and will do nothing for businesses on the Kirkstall Road. Will she look again at that resilience review, and ensure that the £60 million scheme for the Kirkstall Road is included?
Elizabeth Truss
I thank the hon. Lady for her question, but I point out that the Labour party’s proposal going into the 2010 election was to halve the amount that it would spend on capital spending. We increased spending on flood defence from £1.5 billion to £1.7 billion in that period. I have already said that I will look at the Leeds scheme to ensure that it is sufficiently resilient for the new conditions that we are facing, and I am happy to meet the hon. Lady and her colleagues to discuss that further.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mary Creagh Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Elizabeth Truss
I am certainly very happy to look at that, and today I have launched plans for clean air zones in five cities outside London to make sure we are in compliance with air quality limits.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
One reason why emissions are so high in this country is the systematic fitting of defeat devices—the cheating software—by Volkswagen. Enforcement action is under way in the United States. Can the Secretary of State update the House on what action the British Government— her Department, the Environment Agency or the Department for Transport—are taking in this area?
Elizabeth Truss
The hon. Lady is right to say that the American authorities are taking action. My right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary is looking carefully at this, as well as ensuring that vehicles are appropriately tested. We have reached agreement at European level to ensure that what is being emitted from cars are the real emissions. That will help us to deal with our air quality issues.
Climate Change and Flooding
Mary Creagh Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Kerry McCarthy
I agree with my hon. Friend, as I often do. I want to say a little more about what I saw in the constituencies, and then I will answer his point.
Anyone who has been to Carlisle and Cockermouth or seen the television coverage will have been dismayed at the horrific scenes. We have seen people out on the pavements with their entire belongings, people’s homes saturated, people in temporary accommodation. There is an issue with the availability of temporary accommodation in the area. Some have been lucky enough to move into holiday cottages, but there is not much in the way of private rented accommodation to move into. We spoke to people about their massive flood insurance bills, and the thing they raised with us time and again was the excess on their policies. Now that more floods have happened, their premiums are going to go up, or they might not be able to insure their homes at all.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the Government’s new Flood Re scheme does not cover the insurance costs of businesses, and does she share my regret at the lack of solidarity in that scheme?
Kerry McCarthy
I agree with my hon. Friend. Small businesses mentioned that to us. The Government’s logic was that businesses could shop around in the market, but those that were hit by flooding in 2005 and 2009 and have been again now will struggle to find insurers. It is enough to put them out of business or at least force them to close for renewal and refurbishment for several months at a time.
Kerry McCarthy
I am not sure that was worth waiting for. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman needs to talk to the Environment Secretary, who acknowledged in last week’s statement that there was a risk. Obviously, individual episodes do not make a pattern, but a clear pattern is emerging of extreme weather events in the UK and abroad.
Between 1997 and 2010, flood defence spending increased by three quarters in real terms, but in the 2010 spending review, the coalition Government announced a 20% real-terms cut. Flood spending was slashed by £116 million in 2011-12 and again the next year, and it was lined up for further cuts in 2013-14, before floods in the Somerset levels forced on the Government the realisation that they had gone too far. After those floods, the Prime Minister assured us that
“there will always be lessons to learn and I’ll make sure they are learned.”
But he has not shown many signs of having learned those lessons. Last year, flood and coastal erosion risk management expenditure was above £800 million, but this year it has been cut to less than £700 million—a 14% real-terms cut of £115 million. How quickly those images of the Somerset levels faded from his mind.
Mary Creagh
My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Does she share my regret that, although the Prime Minister said money was no object, as soon as the television images of the Great Western main line under water had faded from public consciousness, money actually was an object?
Kerry McCarthy
I entirely agree. It seemed that money was no object in the short-term clear-up exercise, although there were delays in people getting the money promised to them. The Government are trying to speed up that process this time, by giving the money to local authorities, but council leaders have raised concerns that they simply do not have the resources and staff for that administration. I hope the Environment Secretary will provide some clarity on that.
Last week, the Environment Secretary was still assuring the people of Cumbria that the Government would learn the lessons, and the Prime Minister, on a fleeting visit up north, told them:
“After every flood, the thing to do is sit down, look at the money you are spending, look at what you are building, look at what you are planning to build in the future and ask: ‘Is it enough?’”
I am not convinced that it is enough. In June, the Committee on Climate Change gave flood adaptation a double-red warning, and the Environmental Audit Committee gave the Government a red card for climate adaptation. The Prime Minister did not have to wait for the floods to ask, “Are we doing enough?” The experts had already provided the evidence that we were not.
Elizabeth Truss
I can confirm that, as the Chancellor said in the autumn statement, we will increase our current maintenance expenditure of £171 million a year in real terms. In a climate in which we are having to reduce Government budgets, we are increasing, in real terms, both flood capital spending and flood maintenance spending. That shows where our priority lies.
Mary Creagh
In his report following the devastating 2007 floods, Sir Michael Pitt said that flooding was the greatest risk that our country faced from climate change, and that flood defence spending needed to rise by more than inflation each and every year. Can the Secretary of State explain why, in real terms, we will be spending exactly the same in 2015-16 as we were spending in 2009-10?
Elizabeth Truss
The reality is that between 2005 and 2010 Labour spent £1.5 billion on flood capital, whereas between 2010 and 2015 we spent £1.7 billion, which is a real-terms increase and not a cut. In this Parliament, we are investing £2 billion, which is a real-terms increase and not a cut.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mary Creagh Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Heath
We have to get the balance right between land that is used for energy, which we need—let us not get away from that—and land that is best used for food production. Those decisions are often best taken at local level. Nevertheless, I am conscious of the need to make full use of good agricultural land for food production.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
The Minister’s complacency and definitional hair-splitting on the issue of food insecurity, at a time when half a million people were fed in this country by food banks will go down very badly outside this place. This week, his ministerial colleague in the other place said it was difficult to make the causal connections between the benefits squeeze and the soaring use of food banks, yet the Trussell Trust says that 45% of the people who need the help of its 300 food banks have come because of benefit delays or benefit changes. Which of those statements is true?
Mr Heath
I am sorry that the hon. Lady fails to understand the terms that she obviously fed to her Back Benchers to ask me about. Food security is a well understood concept. We are talking about feeding the world. We are not talking about food prices in the UK, but food prices in the UK are a very serious issue and not, I think, a matter on which to try to score political points. I am grateful to the various charities which help those who find themselves in difficulties. It is important that we support that in every way we can. I notice that the hon. Lady, with some fanfare, issued a policy review last night, “Feeding the Nation”, which supports virtually all our policies. I give her just one word of advice. If you are going to mention one of our great British cheeses, get the name right: it is single Gloucester, not single Gloucestershire.
Common Fisheries Policy
Mary Creagh Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
Before I begin, I am sure the whole House will wish to join me in congratulating the shadow environment Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker), and his wife Lucy. He celebrated his first father’s day yesterday with the arrival of a beautiful baby daughter.
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement, and congratulate him on his real achievement in reforming the common fisheries policy, 2014 to 2020. The deal was the culmination of three years of difficult negotiation and I congratulate him on surviving what he calls the “darker moments” of that process. We on the Opposition Benches have consistently called for ambitious reform of the CFP. These reforms are a good start. They end the disgraceful practice of discards, they decentralise and regionalise the CFP and allow member states to support small-scale fisheries, such as those in Devon and Cornwall, Kent, Norfolk and Suffolk; and they take a scientific approach to setting sustainable fishing levels away from the discredited system of total allowable catch with a transfer to maximum sustainable yield by 2020.
We welcome the time scale for banning discards starting with pelagic fish on 1 January 2015, but the package still allows for exemptions to the discard ban of up to 5% in certain circumstances. How does the Minister see the discard ban working in practice? We also welcome a firm time scale to implement maximum sustainable yields by 2020 at the latest, and by 2015 “where possible”. Will he assure the House that the UK will adopt the earliest possible implementation date, and when will that be?
We welcome the requirement for the Commission to report annually to the Council of Ministers and European Parliament on progress towards delivery of maximum sustainable yield. Given past criticisms of the CFP, transparency is important.
The reforms acknowledge the need for further work on marine protected areas, particularly in biologically important areas. The final document states:
“In order to facilitate the designation process, Member States should identify suitable areas, including areas that form part of a coherent network, and, where appropriate, they should cooperate with one another, preparing and sending joint recommendations to the Commission.”
Has the Minister had any contact with any other EU member state on a joint marine conservation zone? If he has not, does he anticipate co-operation with any other member state on such a zone to ensure maximum ecological benefit for both countries from the designation? Will he tell the House what contact he or his officials have had with the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries on the establishment of the UK’s marine conservation zones?
The reforms contain provisions to support small-scale and artisanal fisheries—a measure that he and my Labour colleagues in the European Parliament lobbied hard for. Small-scale fishing vessels make up 77% of boats in UK waters, but they have access to only 4% of the quota. What changes will the reforms bring to those small-scale fleets and their communities? Will they help to achieve smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, and contribute to direct and indirect job creation in our coastal areas?
In a Westminster Hall debate in December 2012, the Minister assured Members that he would publish the details of who owns the UK’s fishing quota. When will the list be published? What steps does he envisage the EU taking to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing to ensure a level playing field between the EU and third countries?
This is a good day for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, campaigning groups and the 860,000 people who signed up to Channel 4’s Fish Fight campaign. I again congratulate the Minister and his team, and devolved Ministers, on the long hours they put in. I congratulate the fishing industry on its co-operation. After three years of negotiation, we look forward to these good reforms being implemented at last.