Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Gove and Lord McLoughlin

Thursday 18th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Yes, absolutely. Remedial action must be taken.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State ensure that lessons are learned from last winter’s disruption to water supplies for many communities? One of the great problems last year was the inability of the water companies to communicate to local residents what was actually happening. Will the Secretary of State ensure that those lessons are learned, and that that is not repeated should such a circumstance happen this year?

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point. Earlier this year, the Minister responsible had two roundtables with water companies to make sure that appropriate lessons were learned. In particular, Members of this House from across the divide made it clear that Thames Water in particular needed to pull its socks up.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Michael Gove and Lord McLoughlin

Wednesday 10th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The Chair of the Select Committee on Health and Social Care makes an absolutely important point. I have had the opportunity to talk to Dame Sally Davies, who has written a brilliant short book about the vital importance of dealing with antimicrobial resistance. I should also pay tribute to Lord O’Neill, who led work under Prime Minister David Cameron on this. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that the Bill contains provisions to provide support and payments to farmers who take the appropriate animal health and welfare measures to ensure that we can fight the overuse of antibiotics, which is both a threat to human and animal health, and an environmental danger.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

May I go back to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) about schedule 3, which gives specific powers to Wales? Is the Secretary of State telling the House that those specific powers are available to England as well?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Gove and Lord McLoughlin

Thursday 12th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Michael Gove)]

The future of food production has to be at the heart of DEFRA’s work. That is why I am very pleased that, in conversations I have been having over the past two weeks with our lead non-executive director, Henry Dimbleby, he says he is drawing up plans to envisage how a food strategy can operate across Government. I look forward to updating colleagues on the progress of that work.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin]

I very much welcome the appointment of Julian Glover to do a review of national parks. Will my right hon. Friend say when he expects that review to report? Does he agree that it is very important that national parks are not held back to become museums, but become thriving places for people to invest and develop houses in the right places?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s comments. He is absolutely right; Julian Glover is an outstanding individual who I know will conduct a superb piece of work, which we expect to publish in the latter half of next year. My right hon. Friend is also right to say that the reason our national parks are so successful is that they are not museums; they are active, working places, and individuals make sure that they are places of beauty that draw so many visitors, but are also places of food production and economic activity.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Gove and Lord McLoughlin

Thursday 7th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

We have already seen formidable action to embrace the opportunities that a deposit return scheme would provide and to ensure that we deal with the environmental damage the hon. Lady mentioned. I should take this opportunity to say that it is not just the Treasury that recognises the importance of acting, but our colleagues in the Scottish and Welsh Governments, with whom we have had collaborative successful discussions as well.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

Is it not true that this project need not cost the Treasury any money whatsoever, and that we should just get on with it?

[Michael Gove]

No one is keener on getting on with things, and indeed on saving money, than my right hon. Friend, whose own record in government is one of the most distinguished over the past seven years—and, in fact, beyond. He is absolutely right: in delay there lies no plenty.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Gove and Lord McLoughlin

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

That is a good try, but the hon. Gentleman knows that the stark contrast between the constructive approach of the Labour Administration in Cardiff and the obstructive approach of the nationalist Administration in Holyrood does not redound to the credit of the Scottish National party. The truth is that the SNP has only one policy, which is separation. Everything else is tactics and they are prepared to throw Scottish farmers under the bus—[Interruption]—or, indeed, the bandwagon in their desperate desire to elevate the destruction of the United Kingdom above the creation of wealth for the people of Scotland.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

9. What criteria his Department uses to appoint members to national park authorities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Gove and Lord McLoughlin

Thursday 25th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

One reason why our countryside is so admired and so respected by urban dwellers is the way it is looked after and managed by our farmers. When will the Secretary of State be able to build on his Oxford speech this month, and say more about long-term support for agriculture?

[Michael Gove]

When we think of admiration and respect, it is the admiration and respect due to my right hon. Friend. He has been an outstanding Minister and a fantastic constituency Member for the Derbyshire Dales, which is one of the most beautiful parts of England. He is absolutely right that, building on the speech I gave to the Oxford farming conference, more needs to be said and done to outline the framework for farming in the future. I hope to do so at the National Farmers Union conference, when I can celebrate our farmers, who are the best in the world.