Oral Answers to Questions
Nick Timothy Excerpts(3 months ago)
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Mary Creagh
I visited a fly-tipping site in Lichfield where people have been trapped in their homes. Fly-tipping blights communities, harms wildlife and places huge costs on taxpayers and businesses. Councils dealt with over a million incidents in 2022-23, up 10% on three years ago. I do not believe that the waste carriers, brokers and dealers regime is fit for purpose, so I have asked officials to look at how we strengthen that regime to crack down on waste criminals.
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Thoroughbred horses are high-health, high-welfare animals, and they should be treated as such to allow cross-border travel without physical border checks. Can the Minister commit today to recognise their high-health status, put welfare first and reduce this barrier to trade?
The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Daniel Zeichner)
My near neighbour raises an important point—this is a very high-value sector. A commitment was made to designate thoroughbred horses as high-health animals as part of the border target operating model, and we will provide an update on the timeline for implementation by the end of the summer.
Budget: Implications for Farming Communities
Nick Timothy Excerpts(6 months ago)
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Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
Farming families in West Suffolk feel deep anxiety, in common with those in other constituencies, as hon. Members from across the House have explained. When those families hear the Minister say that they do not understand the detail, or that they should listen to commentators who agree with the Minister but not them—commentators who probably have nothing to do with farming in the first place—they will be furious with him. Will the Minister apologise to those people? If it is not such a big deal, will he explain why more than 130,000 people have already signed the NFU petition telling him to change the policy?
Daniel Zeichner
At no point did I say that farming families did not understand the detail. What I asked was for Members on the Conservative Benches to look at the detail, because when they look at the detail, they will find the truth.