Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Wood Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Zac Goldsmith]

There is no doubt that illegal activities continue. They are well documented and often secure widespread coverage on social media in particular, and they cause outrage among the population. Those activities are already illegal: they are against the law. Digging up setts, bashing fox cubs on the head and breeding foxes to feed to hounds are illegal as well as abhorrent. The challenge relates to enforcement and prosecution. As I mentioned, we are committed to maintaining levels of funding for the National Wildlife Crime Unit, and we are encouraging other Government Departments to play their part as well.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

2. What steps she is taking to prevent animal cruelty.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Theresa Villiers)]

May I join others, Mr Speaker, in thanking you and your chaplain for your service to the House? You have been particularly kind in enabling me to raise from the Back Benches many issues that really matter to my constituents, and I am profoundly grateful.

The Government have introduced a range of measures to improve animal welfare, including a rigorous ban on the ivory trade and mandatory CCTV in all slaughterhouses. We are considering proposals to tighten the welfare rules for animals in transit, including a ban on unnecessary and excessively long journeys to slaughter.

[Mike Wood]

A year ago, a Dudley magistrates court convicted a teenager of abducting, torturing and killing a pet cat. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to protect the welfare of all cats?

[Theresa Villiers]

We will be pressing ahead with the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill so that horrific crimes like that can meet with the appropriate punishment. We are consulting on compulsory microchipping for cats to ensure that lost pets can be reunited with their owners, and we have also banned third party sales of kittens and puppies.

Environment Bill

Mike Wood Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Sue Hayman]

I really think that I need to make some progress.

Let me now say something about the independence of the proposed Office for Environmental Protection. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) has said, the only reason the Government have made any movement on waste, landfill and air quality is the threat of EU fines, so it is disappointing that the OEP will have no powers to issue such fines. Will the Secretary of State agree to consider enabling it to do so, in order to give it real teeth? I welcome the change enabling it to conduct investigations on its own initiative, but we should like it to be empowered to conduct broader inquiries into systemic issues, to make recommendations, and to issue guidance.

Greener UK has said:

“The bill includes several measures which could seriously undermine the water environment”.

Another hon. Member who has now left the Chamber mentioned abstraction. The proposed new powers for the Environment Agency to revoke abstraction licences would not come into play until 1 January 2028, although England’s water supplies are already under severe pressure. There are also no water efficiency commitments, although British water consumption is the highest in Europe. Can the Secretary of State explain how that omission can be in line with the Government’s pledge in their 25-year environment plan to reduce water use and halve water leakages by 2050?

I am pleased to see that the Bill includes a commitment to nature recovery networks, but it passes more powers and duties to local councils without attaching adequate funding.

Rivers Authorities and Land Drainage Bill

Mike Wood Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 15th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

I shall speak extremely briefly in support of this sensible Bill. There can be few Members of this House who represent constituencies that have not been impacted by flooding in recent years. In some cases, such as the flooding in Somerset, it has been on a devastating and life-threatening scale and has featured in headline news around the country and sometimes around the world. In other cases, the flooding will have been much more localised, but still with an enormous impact on those whom we represent. In my own constituency, localised flooding caused the closure of a local primary school for a while, with everything that results from that. It sometimes causes significant damage to property and possessions, sometimes large financial costs and at other times very large damage to items of sentimental if not necessarily financial value.

If the measures set out in the Bill and the new rivers authorities can ensure that preventive work can be done to reduce the risk to people’s lives, properties and possessions, this legislation will make an enormous contribution to many families up and down the country. In some parts of the country, it is obviously appropriate that the work is done by new rivers authorities, covering either a single or multiple local authority areas. In others, the work can be done at least as, if not more, effectively by existing bodies, whether the lead is taken by the larger local authorities, particularly unitary authorities, or by a city region or combined authority.

As the effects of climate change become more apparent, with adverse and unusual weather patterns occurring on a much more regular basis than they did even a few decades ago, and as building and development patterns mean that, in the last generation or two, more and more properties have been built in areas that we now see being particularly prone to flooding, it is even more important that we do everything we can reasonably do to safeguard areas from the effects of flooding. This Bill is an important step towards achieving that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Wood Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is very good to see the hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood). I understand why he was delayed, but it is good to see him here in the Chamber.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. We know that 82% of the beer that is drunk in our pubs is brewed in the UK. Jodie Kidd and other publicans will be presenting a 105,000-signature petition to Downing Street today to back the Long Live the Local campaign on beer duty. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that the Chancellor is fully aware of the contribution that our beer and pub sectors make to British farming, as well as to the wider economy and society?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend does brilliant work as the chairman of the all-party beer group, and he is absolutely right to say that we must look at beer duty. In particular, a case has been forcefully made for looking at duty relief for small brewers in order to maximise growth in that sector, so that we can all enjoy great British beer.

Air Quality

Mike Wood Excerpts

Thursday 22nd February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

We all have the opportunity to breathe clean air in here, thanks to the excellent work of the House. The hon. Lady talked about the aviation noise authority. I am not a Transport Minister, so I am not aware of the issues that she raised, but there is no doubt that we want to continue to want to reduce emissions from aviation. That is why we are already working with other countries; I have instigated some elements on that. With regard to what is happening in Scotland, she will be aware that, in the Glasgow area, compliance with the legal limits is not predicted until 2026, so yet again, the money that we are investing in England has consequences for the Barnett formula. That will help the Scottish Government to achieve some of the outcomes that she wants. I will have to ask her to contact Transport Ministers to discuss the other matters that she deliberated on.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s proactive work on air quality, including in Dudley, and I urge her to work closely with local authorities to ensure that our air is clean and safe.

[Dr Coffey]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. Dudley is one of the areas that has been named. I have already been in conversation with Andy Street, the Mayor for the west midlands. He is very ambitious on the plans to make these improvements and I look forward to meeting the leader of Dudley Council next week to discuss further specific issues.

Neonicotinoids on Crops

Mike Wood Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Ben Howlett]

I would not possibly speak on the Government’s behalf, but I hope the Minister will answer that question by explaining the criteria that will be under consideration.

The EU allows member states to authorise the usage of the banned neonics products to deal with emergency situations that are temporary, limited in scale and controlled, in order to address a danger that cannot be contained by any other reasonable means. The Government granted permission for their use on oilseed rape where the crops are in greatest risk of pest damage. The area that was granted permission, which extends across Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, represents just 5% of the UK oilseed rape crop area. The Government rejected two earlier applications that would have covered 79% of the crop area. I am pleased that the Government accepted the application only for a far smaller area, but I am still concerned about the potential impact of neonics on the bee population in that area.

Field studies have suggested that the levels of exposure experienced by bees in the wild are not sufficient to cause any negative consequences for the pollinators. The problem with relying on that assertion is that there have not been experiments of a significant scale to provide definitive evidence on which to base our approach to neonics. The usage currently authorised by the Government provides a good chance to ascertain on a bigger scale what their impact might be.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and join others in wishing you a happy birthday, Ms Vaz. Is my hon. Friend familiar with the study by the European Academies Science Advisory Council that shows that, even at sub-lethal doses, the impact of neonicotinoids on pollinators can be such that the reduced crop yields actually offset any benefits from using them as a pesticide in the first place?

[Ben Howlett]

Yes, I have seen that report, and I agree with my hon. Friend about its findings.

The Government have frequently and rightly stated that they will base their future policies on scientific evidence. They admirably said that decisions need to be ruled by science, but if they are committed to that, then proper data must be collected from the crop areas that have been granted permission to use neonics. Because neonics are absorbed so well by plants, residues are found on the pollen and nectar, which consequently affects pollinators. Evidence about the effect of such residues is crucial for future conservation work, so I encourage the Government to consider using approved plots to help to shape future decisions.

The high number of signatures on the petition shows how concerned the public are about the harm that neonics cause to bees and other pollinators. I urge the Government to gather more scientific evidence from the EU’s research and from sites that currently use the banned neonics. I also urge them to consider other types of neonics that are currently authorised but may have a detrimental effect. Since 1990, the UK has lost about 20 species of bees. We cannot afford to keep losing those crucial pollinators.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Wood Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

The hon. Lady knows that that information is commercially sensitive, but what I can say is that two applications are being considered by the Health and Safety Executive, and before any decision is taken we would take the advice of our expert committee on pesticides.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

T5. The black country’s canal network is an important part of our industrial heritage, supports a variety of wildlife and hosts many leisure facilities. Will the Minister update the House on what is being done to clean up our inland waterways?

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

I could not agree more strongly with my hon. Friend on the importance of waterways. Nearly 10,000 miles of rivers and internal waterways have been cleaned up; phosphate pollution is down by one fifth and ammonia down by one sixth; and water companies will be investing £3.5 billion over the next five years in improving our water quality.