Air Quality
Neil Parish Excerpts(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con) (Urgent Question)
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps her Department will take to improve air quality after her defeat in the High Court on 2 November.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
Improving air quality is a priority for this Government. We are determined to cut harmful emissions to improve the health of the people we represent, and to protect the environment. The UK currently meets the legal limits for almost all pollutants but faces significant challenges in achieving nitrogen dioxide limit values. We are not alone in that, as 16 other EU countries face similar challenges.
We have already achieved significant improvements in air quality across a range of pollutants, but transport is responsible for 80% of nitrogen oxides emissions at the roadside in areas where we need to act to reduce levels. That is why transport has been the focus of our action on air quality. We have committed over £2 billion in green transport initiatives, including supporting the early market for ultra-low emission vehicles between 2015 and 2020. The main reason for the difficulty in meeting NO2 limit values is the failure of Euro standards for diesel vehicles to deliver the expected reduction in NOx emissions in real-world conditions. Since 2011, we have been at the forefront of action in the EU to secure more accurate, real-world emissions testing for diesel cars.
The Transport Act 2000 gave powers to councils to introduce measures to help to tackle air pollution. The national air quality plan for NO2, published in December, set out an approach to improve air quality and achieve compliance. We are mandating five cities to introduce clean air zones, and targeting the oldest and most polluting vehicles. The consultation on this framework was launched last month to ensure a consistent approach.
Our plan was based on the best available evidence at the time. We have been pressing for updates to COPERT—computer programme to calculate emissions from road transport—emission factors and got them in September. We said that when we got the new factors we would update our modelling and that is exactly what we are doing.
I am writing to councils to ask them what they are doing to tackle air pollution. Our local authority grant fund was launched in early October and we are encouraging all local authorities to apply. We will shortly launch a consultation on policy options for limiting emissions from diesel generators. In addition, funding was announced last month to boost the uptake of ultra-low emission vehicles. We accept the judgment of the court and will now carefully consider it, and our next steps, in detail. However, legal proceedings are still ongoing, so I may not be able to answer every hon. Member’s question in detail.
I can assure you, Mr Speaker, that this is a top priority for me. It is a top priority for the Secretary of State. As the Prime Minister said yesterday:
“We have taken action, but there is more to do and we will do it.”—[Official Report, 2 November 2016; Vol. 616, c. 887.]
Neil Parish
I thank the Minister very much for that response. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is very much in the dock, but the whole Government need to take action. This is the second time the Government have lost in the courts on the issue of air quality in 18 months: they need to take this matter very seriously. The problem causes up to 50,000 deaths a year—more than 20 times the number killed in road accidents. It is a silent killer.
The Government’s current air quality plan has only five compulsory clean air zones, but more than 40% of councils breach air pollution limits. The Government need to take rapid action or they will be back in the dock again. In April, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report on air quality called for all councils to have the power and the funding to implement clean air zones. Will the Government make that commitment?
The Government have to look at getting the worst diesel vehicles off our roads quickly. Will the Department consider financial incentives, such as a scrappage scheme and changes to the vehicle tax system? Those changes would have to be made via the Treasury, because successive Governments have been encouraging diesels. That has to be reversed.
Some 70% of air pollution comes from road transport. Will the Department act now, with the Department for Transport, to promote electric cars and encourage taxi conversions from diesel to liquefied petroleum gas, which can reduce nitrogen dioxide levels by 80%? The court case revealed that the Treasury has been blocking stronger measures on air quality. I have sympathy with the Minister, but will her Department now commit to working with the Department for Transport and the Treasury to tackle this matter once and for all? Clean air should be a right, not a privilege. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Dr Coffey
My hon. Friend raises a wide range of issues. Let me try to pick up on them. In a parliamentary question, he rightly revealed the number of councils where there are issues. I take this seriously. In my constituency, there are two air quality management areas. That is why I want to work with local councils to do what we can to tackle action locally. Of course the Government will work on issues to tackle air quality nationally, but we need local action. Powers are already available, under the Transport Act 2000, for councils to take appropriate measures, and I will encourage them to do that. Again, that is why we are encouraging councils to apply for help from the air quality fund.
We are all aware of the issue with Volkswagen and diesel vehicles. We have been pressing for updated COPERT factors. The spreadsheet is exceptionally complicated. It is the biggest spreadsheet I have ever seen in my life. As I used to be chartered accountant, I can assure the House that I have probably seen more than most.
It is a complex situation, and we are working through it. We are coming up with what we can think of to try to tackle this issue, but I genuinely believe that we need targeted interventions rather than use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The Labour Government introduced fiscal incentives that encouraged people to move to diesel. I am not going to complain about that. We are where we are, and the Government and local government must all pull together because we care about the people we represent. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: air quality is the top priority, which is why it is my No. 1 priority in government.
Oral Answers to Questions
Neil Parish Excerpts(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
I certainly welcome the hon. Lady’s interest in this matter. As she will know, country of origin labelling is already mandatory for unprocessed beef, pork, sheep and goat meat, poultry, fruit and vegetables, olive oil, fish, shellfish, wine and honey. There are many additional voluntary schemes, which we are keen to support. As she points out, there will be further opportunities, as we leave the EU, to look at what more consumers would like to see from labelling.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
The dairy industry has not really been able to label properly the Great British cheese, butter and milk that is the best in the world. Can we now take this opportunity to ensure that we get the British flag and label on our dairy products?
Andrea Leadsom
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. He and I share an ambition for the strongest possible promotion of Great British food. He will be aware that the majority of dairy and processed meat products are compliant with the industry’s voluntary principles for origin labelling, but we can, of course, always do more, and we are working with the industry to look at what those options are.
Oral Answers to Questions
Neil Parish Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Elizabeth Truss
As I said, until we leave the EU those schemes will be in place, but when leaving takes place, after article 50 is triggered and the process is gone through, this will be a decision for the new Prime Minister. It is not a decision I can make at this stage.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
It is not only important to keep the basic farm payment going but vital that we get it fixed, because the Rural Payments Agency is still having big problems. Lots of the payments to farmers have not been ratified and not properly made. What is actually happening with the Rural Payments Agency?
Elizabeth Truss
I can tell my hon. Friend that 99.6% of farmers have now received a payment. This year, for the first time, the system has had prepayment cheques to make sure that we did not overpay farmers and then end up having to claw back the money. That means that there will be a reconciliation period when we make the adjustments—that is taking place at the moment—so that farmers who had a problem in their application will receive the extra payment over the next few months. We are fully on track for payment on time next year.
Oral Answers to Questions
Neil Parish Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
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George Eustice
My hon. Friend will be aware that in England we slaughter some 28,000 cattle a year. Last year, both England and Wales saw a slight increase in the prevalence of the disease, but that tends to move in cycles. In the previous year, we saw a slight reduction in the disease. I understand that the cattle movement controls we have put in place are frustrating for some farmers, but they are also a necessary part of eradicating this disease. We have to do all of these things—deal with the reservoir of disease in the wildlife population, improve biosecurity on farms and, yes, improve cattle movement controls so that we can reduce transmission of the disease.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
When will the Minister be able to give the scientific figures for the badger cull areas to show the reduction in the amount of disease in cattle?
George Eustice
As my hon. Friend knows, the randomised badger culling trials a decade or more ago found that the benefits of the culling of badgers were only seen some four years after the conclusion of the culls. The reality is that the programme is a long-term commitment and it will be several years before we can see the impact of the culls. From figures from last year, however, we know that perturbation, which several hon. Members have previously highlighted to me, was actually far less of an issue in years one and two of the culls in Gloucester and Somerset than people predicted.
Elizabeth Truss
More social tariffs are being introduced right across the country, but the key point is that everybody is seeing a reduction in their water bills overall, because we have a good regulator and an efficient industry, and we are introducing further competition.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
T4. Dairy farmers are suffering due to low prices—there is a lot of milk in the market. One of the markets that we still cannot get into is Russia. What is happening? Is there any chance that we can get back into that market? European and British dairy farmers are paying a high price for the ban on exports to Russia.
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
My hon. Friend makes the important point that the Russian trade embargo has exacerbated the challenges facing the dairy sector and others, such as the pig sector. However, we put in place sanctions against Russia because of its totally unacceptable conduct against Ukraine and its incursions into Ukrainian territory. It is important that we show solidarity with other European countries and do not accept how Russia has behaved towards Ukraine.
UK Dairy Sector
Neil Parish Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Ms Ritchie
I thank the hon. Lady for making that helpful point. She is on the same page as me in terms of retaining membership of the European Union.
Daniel Kawczynski
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention.
I want the Minister to remember what I am about to say and to have these figures indelibly imprinted on his mind, in perpetuity. In Shropshire in 1997, we slaughtered 47 cows because of bovine tuberculosis; last year, the figure was more than 2,000. It has gone from 47 a year to 2,000 a year. We have a bovine tuberculosis crisis in Shropshire. I have said this in previous debates and I do not mind saying it again. I have sat round a kitchen table with one of my dairy farmers, Chris Bulmer from Snailbeach, after his entire herd had been taken away. We sat together crying, such is the emotional drain on farmers and their families.
The biggest organisation in my constituency is the Shropshire Wildlife Trust. What is its symbol? A badger. I know that many people from the trust would like to hang me from the nearest lamp post because I advocate a cull. They would have difficulty because I am so tall.
Daniel Kawczynski
They would need an extra-high lamp post. There has been fury and blood on the carpet at the meetings I have had with the Shropshire Wildlife Trust. It has to understand that nobody wants the needless slaughter of animals, but when our fellow human beings—our fellow citizens—are going through such appalling financial misery, the time has come for the Government to act boldly and roll out the cull to other parts of the country.
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor recently announced in his Budget an extremely controversial measure on fizzy drinks. It is not universally popular, but he took a really bold move that is shaking the industry. Something of a similar nature must now take place to protect our dairy farmers. We cannot allow this vital industry to be decimated.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate, Ms Ryan. I thank the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) for securing this debate and keeping a spotlight on dairy prices. May I offer him a little solace? I think a previous Minister, David Heath, from his party, was a very good agriculture Minister. I want to put that on the record. We may not have agreed on politics, especially in our younger days on Somerset County Council, but I will not go into that.
Food and farming is a £100 billion industry. One in eight jobs are in food and farming, so it really needs to be taken seriously. Dairy farming is the backbone of most livestock agriculture. It has a knock-on effect on the beef industry because most of the beef industry comes from dairy. When a lot of cull cows come on to the market because of the poor price of milk, the price of beef is depressed as well, so the whole thing has a knock-on effect.
The situation is not simple. We have had a large over-supply of milk throughout the world, but New Zealand has now dropped production by 5%, which must be good news. We can see a knock-on effect across the world of an approximately 2% increase in dairy trade year on year, so if we can start to reduce production and increase the volume, we will get better prices internationally. In the meantime, we must concentrate on two fronts in particular. One is making sure that this country can get the best market possible for milk. We need to work with the retailers and say to them, “Not only offer a good price on liquid milk, but a good price on processed milk.”
Tesco and others are stepping up to the plate. As I have said before, I used to want to be able indiscriminately to shoot a retailer a day and feel much better, but I cannot actually do that because there are some good retailers out there. When supermarkets put in milk as a loss leader for perhaps 89p, we must make sure that they fund that themselves and are not funded by the processor and the farmer. I do not like milk as a loss leader because it downgrades the value of milk. All of us in this room would stand up and say that our produce from our county is the very best in the country—there is no doubt Devon’s is the best—but I say to the Minister that we have to get country of origin labelling. We have to make sure that it is not only country of origin but regional labelling so that we can compete with one another on cheese, on yoghurt and on dairy products in total. That is absolutely key to the argument, so let us make sure that Government procures everything that is British as well, and let us make sure that the health service and the schools that provide school milk serve up things that are British. I know the Government have done a lot of work on that, but we need to do even more.
On the single farm payment, let us ensure we do not have the debacle that we have had this past year where we still have 10% of farmers waiting to receive their payments. I welcome the fact that the Rural Payments Agency has, perhaps slightly belatedly, said that the last 10% will get at least 50% of their payment by the end of the month. This is very important. This is money the Government can actually produce and they can make sure that it gets through.
We have to make sure that we get export markets right. China wants more milk powder. China has decided to allow the country to produce more children and that is why there is a big market for baby milk powder. That is key. We have to make sure we have the processors and everything in place to take that up so that we have either Chinese money or European investment money. Let us get this industry moving so that we are able to get the best price for our farmers.
Several hon. Members rose—
Oral Answers to Questions
Neil Parish Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Elizabeth Truss
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that rural communities depend on food and farming, which face much more export barriers than other sectors. For example, we have been trying for 20 years to get UK beef into the US, and we are still trying to get poultry exported to China. We have on our doorstep access to a single market of 500 million people for our fantastic UK products. I think we need to build on that, rather than leave the European Union. No single country has full access for agricultural products without being a full member of the EU.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
The Secretary of State is quite right in saying that, after BSE in 1996, British beef went back into France and across Europe in 1999 because of single market rules. Twenty years on, we still cannot get it into America or China, so where are all the great markets going to be if we shut ourselves off from the EU market?
Elizabeth Truss
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. If we look at the UK lamb industry, we will see that 40% of all the lamb produced by British farmers goes to the EU. That supports not just the farmers but our rural landscape and countryside. The fact is that no single country that is not a full member of the EU has tariff-free, hassle-free access to that market. Norway has to pay tariffs and pay into the EU, and Switzerland has to pay tariffs. Canada has quotas and tariffs on agricultural products. We should not take that relationship for granted.
Draft Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2016
Neil Parish Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rory Stewart)
I beg to move,
That the committee has considered the draft Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2016.
The regulations are designed to simplify the permitting process and make more straightforward the way in which we deal with works in rivers. Previously, the process was governed by complicated legislation from the 1970s and 1990s that ensured that a bespoke permit requiring a detailed application and assessment was needed for anything that happened in relation to a river, whether that concerned bridges, culverts, outflow pipes or work on banks.
The new system is an attempt to move to a more straightforward procedure whereby in the highest-risk cases—around half of cases—a bespoke permit is still required, but for others there is a simplified process. For some excluded categories, there will be no need for anything at all. Simple, straightforward works, such as putting a ladder or piece of scaffolding in the river temporarily, will not require any form of permit.
The second type of procedure is an exempt procedure, for which all that is necessary is for someone to register the works.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
I am interested in the ideas that my hon. Friend the Minister is putting forward. Will the regulations make it easier or more difficult to get a permit if, for example, there was local management of a river and we wanted to do a little dredging here and there?
Rory Stewart
Provided that the dredging work being undertaken was in the category for a registered exemption, all someone would have to do for works under 1.5 km is register that they were doing them and ensure that they had fulfilled the conditions of the exemption. They would then be able to proceed with the work. In the past, they would have had to make a bespoke application with a lot of detailed plans and drawings that would be considered on a case-by-case basis. We believe, though, that in low-risk cases of agricultural dredging that are not in areas of special scientific interest, it should be possible for people to fulfil a simple registration, follow the conditions and proceed. An example would be regular winter dredging.
There are essentially four different categories. The first, which I touched on briefly, is the excluded category, for which no permit at all is needed. For the second—the exempt category—people simply register online.
The third category is the standard rule permit, which requires people to seek permission—it is not just registration—and they have to follow standard conditions. For example, if someone is running an electric cable across the river, the conditions relate to putting it 1 metre or 1.5 metres under the river bed, starting around 8 metres from the edge of the river. There is, though, still a requirement for the agency—in this case the Environment Agency—to check the plans and drawings to ensure that the person has complied.
The final category is where the bespoke permits remain in place, but they are reduced to around half of cases.
Oral Answers to Questions
Neil Parish Excerpts(8 years, 10 months ago)
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George Eustice
We ruled out Hilbre Island, following assessments by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, because the simple truth was that the features that people said were there were not there sufficiently for us to designate those areas.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
For farmers, farmgate prices are so low that the single farm payment is absolutely essential. Will the Secretary of State assure me that the Rural Payments Agency recognises that there are still too many farmers who have not received their payments, and that work is being done to ensure that, next year, we catch up so that we are not late in paying again?
Elizabeth Truss
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. A number of farmers are facing cash-flow issues, which is why we are putting as much resource as possible into the RPA. We are now up to 77%, and we have paid out £1 billion. The cases that we are now dealing with are the more complicated ones, including those involving common land and cross-border land, which take extra time. As I have pointed out, we are dealing with a very complicated cap. One of my main efforts is to try to simplify that cap and enable farmers to make claims online this year so that the system will be faster next year.
Flooding
Neil Parish Excerpts(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
More than 2,000 homes and up to 400 businesses in Leeds were hit by the floods, but what a fantastic, heroic job the emergency services, public sector workers and local volunteers did in Leeds, as they did around the country. Locally, we still await estimates of the financial cost of the flooding, but we know that in human terms it has hit people and businesses hard. We need to ensure that Leeds residents and businesses are properly protected, and we need an urgent review to put in place changes that prevent it from happening again.
Five years ago, the Environment Agency estimated that 3,000 properties in Leeds were at risk and that a major flood of the River Aire could cause £500 million of damage in Leeds city centre alone. Five years ago, given the estimates of the scale of the potential cost of flooding in Leeds, it proposed a £180 million flood defence plan, designed to deliver protection against a one-in-200-year flood event—the Government rejected it. Why? It was because of spending cuts. My Leeds East predecessor, George Mudie, raised concerns about the risk of flooding at that time—half a decade ago—as did Councillor Richard Lewis, Leeds City Council’s executive member for development, who condemned the Government as “short-sighted”.
We are now halfway through the construction of the smaller Leeds flood alleviation scheme, which is designed to deliver flood protection against a one-in-75-year event. That itself will now undoubtedly need repair work, and the Government review, working with Leeds City Council, must consider the following: whether the scheme, if it had been completed, would have been sufficient to prevent flooding in the city centre; whether it would have helped in any way in Kirkstall; whether it will be sufficient to protect against future floods; and whether that one-in-75-year figure is still appropriate and, if not, what further funding is needed for improved defences.
I welcome the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) is seeking a meeting for Leeds MPs and council representatives with the Minister, and I hope we can have that soon. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition asked the Prime Minister three times today whether he would commit to funding fully plans to give the whole of Leeds the protection that we need, and three times the Prime Minister failed to give a clear answer. People in Leeds and people across the country deserve better.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
May I thank the Secretary of State, the Prime Minister and the floods Minister for all the work they have done on the flooding in the north of England? We now need a fundamental review on floods, as they are occurring more often. In the past, there may have been a flood every 25 years or 50 years, but now there is one every five years or 10 years. The frequency may be down to climate change or it could be part of a pattern, but something is fundamentally wrong.
We must ensure that internal drainage boards have more powers, so that more can be done locally and that more dredging can be done. We must also learn the lessons from Somerset, where large pumps were brought in from the Netherlands. If we need pumps, let us move them around the country and ensure that we can pump out all the water. Rivers close to the sea and inland rivers are very flat and silty and tend to need dredging. My hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) was quite right to say that chalk streams and rivers do not need the same amount of dredging.
We must also look at land management. At the moment, farmers are given compensation only when there is a loss of earnings. We need to look at that land and say, “Why don’t you farm that land in a way that allows you to have an income from it?” I am talking about planting trees or retaining water in the peat. Farmers might then view managing flood protection in a much more positive way. If we can put all these things in place, we could slow down the amount of flooding that is happening, but if we have 13 inches of rain in 36 hours, it is very difficult for any flood protection scheme to protect everybody.
What the people of Cumbria were absolutely certain about today when they attended an Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee was that they have all worked so well together and that their communities and their emergency services have performed well. They were delighted that Ministers had turned out to support their local communities. It is essential that we work together to change what is happening and to put enough money in place.
I plead with the Chancellor to view flood protection as very much part of our infrastructure. If we are to build infrastructure, we need to protect it from inland floods and the sea. We need look only at the Netherlands to see that if we want to protect the country, we need sea and coastal protection. These floods have been a wake-up call.
My very final point is that if we look at the amount of spending on flood protection, we will see that it began very slowly during the last Labour Government, but then it started to rain and the flood money went up, and the same happened under the previous Government. Now we are seeing a bit of tit for tat between the Government and the Opposition, but what this Government need to do is put together a package that will ensure that we have the right funds in place to protect us.
Oral Answers to Questions
Neil Parish Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Elizabeth Truss
We will continue to work closely with Northern Ireland to tackle the disease throughout the United Kingdom.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile), and wish the Secretary of State and everyone else a happy Christmas.
In Gloucestershire and Somerset, there has been a very beneficial reduction in the number of cattle suffering from TB in the badger culling areas. When will the Secretary of State be able to release the figures that will show what is happening?
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend is right, and I am pleased to say that, thanks to our strategy, more than half the country is on track to be officially free of the disease by the end of the current Parliament. The Chief Veterinary Officer has made it clear that licensing of future areas is needed to realise the disease control benefits, and I am determined to pursue that recommendation.