Animal Welfare

Debate between Oliver Colvile and Neil Parish

Thursday 30th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish]

I certainly talk to Whips, but whether they listen is another matter, of course—although I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) listens to every word I say. The hon. Lady makes a serious point, however; it is not good to talk out such Bills, as there is a legitimate reason for increasing the sentence. If we took a straw poll of all MPs, irrespective of their party, I am sure the vast majority would agree that the sentencing is too low at present; we have to find a method of increasing that. I accept that the Government wanted to come back with some other ideas, and I would be very happy to listen to them, but the sentencing period must be much more than the current six months.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does he agree that we also need to make sure that children understand in school about the impacts of and problems with treating animals badly?

[Neil Parish]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. It is absolutely right to consider what our schools can do to teach young people not to treat animals cruelly.

I have been told that I have only 15 minutes and that I ought to get on with my speech, so I shall try to make a little progress. DEFRA has said that average sentences for animal cruelty are relatively stable, but I fear that that is a cop-out. Judges should have the flexibility to give higher sentences for the worst examples of animal cruelty, both as a well-deserved punishment and as a deterrent to other potential animal abusers.

Anyone who can seriously injure a sentient being such as a dog or a cat can do the same to a human. There is a growing body of evidence suggesting a link between the abuse of animals and violence against people. In the USA, the FBI has begun tracking incidents of animal abuse as part of its national incident-based reporting system, which collects data on crime. As part of our report on animal welfare, the EFRA Committee has recommended that a new abuse register should be established for those convicted of animal abuse offences, that those convicted of cruelty should never be allowed to keep animals again, and that the police should have access to those files in light of the link between animal and human abuse.

In addition to discussing sentencing for cruelty, the Committee went on to consider third-party sales of puppies. I believe that a ban on third-party sales will improve the condition of dogs sold in the UK. Unscrupulous dealers currently go to some lengths to pose as responsible breeders in order to sell animals to unsuspecting buyers. Buyers must see the puppy with its mother. Many dealers set up a false home, as a reassurance to potential buyers, which is then vacated so that they cannot be traced. The sad reality is that anyone who is selling a puppy indirectly, through a licensed pet shop, has no regard for the welfare of their puppies. A responsible breeder would never sell through a pet shop licence holder, because it has a negative impact on the welfare of puppies.

By allowing third-party sales, the Government are contradicting their own advice. They advise buyers to ensure that they see the puppy with its mother, yet buying from a third-party seller does not allow this. By banning third-party sales, the public would have to buy directly from breeders. This would allow buyers to assess the premises for themselves, which would drive up animal welfare standards. The Committee visited a puppy farm in Wales, and the conditions there were not good, to say the least. If buyers had to go there to get their puppies, I feel sure that something would be done about that. Also, the people producing those puppies were getting about £200 each for them, whereas the dealers in Birmingham were selling them for £700 to £800, and sometimes as much as £1,000. There is a real problem there, and I am extremely disappointed that the Government have rejected our recommendation for a ban on third-party sales. Since the EFRA Committee published its report, many more animal organisations have come out in favour of a ban on such sales. Pup Aid has always been a vocal supporter of a ban, and the RSPCA has recently changed its mind on the issue.

In February, the Government announced tougher new breeding licensing rules. These include making it completely illegal to sell puppies younger than eight weeks old, and requiring anyone breeding and selling three or more litters of puppies a year to apply for a formal licence. That is a good start, but it does not go far enough. In addition to increasing maximum sentences and banning third-party sales, the Government should consider a reduction in the threshold for licensing a breeder from three litters a year to two litters a year, and the introduction of a new national inspectorate to assist local authorities and give the new regulations a powerful enforcer. It is too easy for unscrupulous dealers to fall outside the regulatory regime. As I have stated, a new abuse register should also be established for those convicted of animal abuse offences. I also believe that the Government should look not only at dog breeders but at cat breeders, who are not currently licensed at all. Britain is a nation of animal lovers, and our pets deserve nothing less than the very highest animal welfare standards. I look forward to hearing the strong representations of my colleagues throughout the debate, especially those who have intervened on me.

Road Routes to the South-West

Debate between Oliver Colvile and Neil Parish

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish]

I could not agree with my hon. Friend more. We have talked about this for a great deal of time and we have put the money on the table, but people actually want the road built now.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

It is not just about the commitment to doing it; it is about physically seeing some of the work starting. We need some spades in the ground.

[Neil Parish]

We certainly do. Before I answer my hon. Friend, let me say to my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) that it is essential to get the tunnel built, but I want to ensure that we start building all parts of the A303/A30. We should not just hold up one part for another. We have to get on with it. To get down to Plymouth, we have to get through a number of counties. Plymouth is very much a driving force for the west country so it is essential that we get not only trains, but good roads to Plymouth.

Great Western Railway Routes

Debate between Oliver Colvile and Neil Parish

Monday 8th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Thank, you for calling me in this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I will try very hard to do that. I hope that if I do make a mistake, you might forgive me. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) on securing this debate. Obviously, he has something more important than I have, because I have tried for five years to get a debate on the future of the railway down to the south-west and have always failed; he obviously has something more alluring and has therefore delivered. Also, let me say that I hope I will not get accused of being a fat controller at the end of my speech. [Hon. Members: “No!”]

Last week, we had the unwelcome second anniversary of the Dawlish line being swept into the sea, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) has pointed out. That was a huge wake-up call to the Government and to all of us in the south-west region. Interestingly, we have all worked together to make one common cause: to make sure that the Government understand the importance of this issue. If there is one thing we have been successful in doing, it is in ensuring that we have spoken with one voice, as have done this evening. We need only look at what happened today, when trains on the line out of Cornwall were once again delayed, because of the appalling weather and the three trees that fell on to the line at Bodmin, to see how fragile our railway line is. As chair of the all-party group on south west rail, I am fighting, alongside my fellow Devon and Cornwall MPs, for better train and other transport links to the region. I have campaigned for that over the past 15 years, initially as a Conservative candidate and more recently as the Member of Parliament for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport.

[Neil Parish]

This is very much about the resilience of infrastructure into the west country, because we have not only the Great Western line but the Waterloo to Exeter line, where we could make big improvements by, for example, using loops around Honiton. We could also open Seaton Junction and bring back the trams to meet the service. This is also about carrying on from Exeter down into Cornwall with a second line, because although it is absolutely right to keep the Totnes and Newton Abbot line, we need that second line so that we have resilience. We seem to be having more and more bad weather, so the first line will get blocked and we have to have a second route into Cornwall.

[Oliver Colvile]

My hon. Friend is 100% right about the need to have that second line. My personal preference is for it to go through Haldon Hill, as that would be ideal, but I understand that it may be too expensive. We therefore need to make sure that we have one that has the potential to go through Okehampton and Tavistock, purely because we have to make sure there is increased capacity and we can put freight on the line, too.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot said, two years ago the line at Dawlish was washed away, and for the following six weeks there were no trains west of Dawlish to the biggest conurbation west of Bristol—Plymouth. Having lost our airport and our trains, the only way anyone from Plymouth could get to London and the midlands was by using the partially dualled A303 and the M4 and M5—we are talking about the only single dual carriageway at the moment. I very much welcome the Government’s commitment to dualling the whole of the A303. I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), would like to see it go through the Blackdown hills as well, but I may be being too greedy in that.

In the aftermath of the Dawlish disaster, the Prime Minister visited the Laira depot in my constituency, and I was very reassured to hear today, when I met people from Great Western Railway, that the company is going to be seeking to make full use of Laira and it is not going to be closing. The Prime Minister’s persistence ensured that the orange army worked tirelessly to fix the line before Easter 2014, which of course was the start of the tourist season. This time last year, the Prime Minister met my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter), the chairman of the local enterprise partnership and the leader of Plymouth City Council, and he warmly supported the setting up of the Peninsula Rail Task Force to undertake research into what needs to happen to deliver a resilient railway line. Although I understand that much progress has been made, I was slightly dismayed to learn two weeks ago that Network Rail did not have the money to deliver on the research into journey times and electrification. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to help me on that this evening and make sure that that work happens.

Last Monday, nearly all my fellow Devon and Cornwall MPs met the Chancellor and set out our concerns. We were all elected on a promise to try to make sure that we could deliver a decent railway line to and from the west country, and to improve other transport links. I am very grateful that he met us at such short notice and that he understands what our peninsula’s needs are. On Tuesday, we met the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry)—we hope she is soon to be our right hon. Friend—who is both responsible for rail and a south-west MP. She told us she would do everything she could to find the £300,000 for this work, and I am delighted that it seems she is going to be able to find that for us.

Let me remind the Minister what we in Plymouth and the far west want. She may be bored with hearing this, but I have been saying it for the past five and a half years and I am going to say it one more time. We want more three-hour train journeys from London to Plymouth and vice versa; and we want trains getting into Plymouth from London before 9 am, so that business people can do a full day’s work in Plymouth. We are the largest urban conurbation west of Bristol—bigger even than that in Wales—and it is important that we be an economic motor to deliver the growth that my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot talked about.

Never again must Plymouth and the far west be cut off from the rest of the UK. I was delighted when the Transport Secretary came to Plymouth before the general election and announced we would get the new high-speed Hitachi AT300 trains in 2018. It was very positive news. I am concerned, though, that it could be subject to further delays, given that the electrification to Newbury is delayed and over-budget. If I have got that wrong, perhaps the Minister will correct me.

We need more three-hour train journeys between Plymouth and London and more trains arriving before 9 am; we need to straighten the tracks and improve the signalling between Totnes and Cornwall; and we need an additional line to the one at Dawlish so that never again can the far west be cut off. Plymouth can only play a significant part in growing our economy if we have a decent transport system—and skills base. I am acutely aware, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), of the low-skills and low-wage base in our city.

In 2020, an important event will take place in Plymouth, when we commemorate the Mayflower’s leaving the city in 1620 to found the American colonies. To make that a success, people need to be able to get to Plymouth to see where that great ship sailed from.

Just in case the Opposition think they have got off lightly—as I slightly hold the Minister’s feet to the fire—I remind Labour that it does not have a particularly good record on delivering in the peninsula. It announced in its manifesto that it would cancel the dualling of the A358, which would move the bottleneck from Stonehenge down to South Chard. I am delighted that we are continuing with the dualling.

Without the south-west, the Government would not have an overall majority. We have done our bit to ensure a Conservative Government, whom I am delighted to support, so will they please help us deliver for them?

Dementia

Debate between Oliver Colvile and Neil Parish

Thursday 10th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) hit the nail on the head when she made the point that everyone knows somebody who has been affected by dementia or some form of Alzheimer’s. I have a stepmother who is very elderly now—she is 93 and is in a home. The last time I went to see her, she was woken up and she looked at me, squawked and went straight back to sleep again. That is very sad—it is incredibly sad—for one simple reason. This was a woman who got a degree at Oxford in 1938, at a time when women did not get degrees. She then became an interpreter at Bletchley Park during the war and played a significant part in defending our country from Nazi oppression. For her to be in that position now is very worrying and concerning for all of us. I very much hope that she continues to have an acceptable life, and I am delighted that everyone there is most certainly going to be helpful.

I pay tribute to the hon. Members for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) and for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), who must have found it very difficult to talk about their personal lives and experiences. I commend them both for being able to do so in this environment and for getting through it. May I also say what an honour it is to share a platform in this debate with the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck)? I suspect that, between us, we will find ourselves repeating each other somewhat, although I am in the fortunate position of going first.

The issue of social care is becoming increasingly important. There has been an enormous amount of press attention on how people are cared for in the latter years of their lives. However harrowing the stories may be, they provide us with an opportunity to speak about social care and lessen the stigma that surrounds death and dying. Dementia is already a significant issue and a growing concern that should not be ignored.

I am delighted to say that I represent a constituency in a part of a city that has a really good reputation on dementia, especially through the university. An enormous amount of research is done; indeed, I am for ever getting telephone calls from Ian Sheriff—for whom I have an enormous amount of time—who rings me up and gives me advice on how we should handle this issue. However, I was surprised to find out that there are currently more clinical trials into hay fever than into some common forms of dementia. So I heard that our mutual friend the Health Secretary had announced that spending on dementia research would receive a £22 million cash injection I was incredibly grateful. More funding will most certainly need to be made available to excellent bodies around the country such as the Alzheimer’s Society and to universities such as Plymouth.

Plymouth university conducts a great deal of research into dementia and this policy area. In September the university held a very good conference, which it asked the Prime Minister to attend. Unfortunately he could not come, but we will see whether we can have another go later. Any help that the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), can give to encourage the Prime Minister to come and participate in the dementia conference would be helpful. Indeed, his lead in the dementia challenge has given the whole thing an impetus. The university also does a lot of work on community engagement and raising awareness. Indeed, shortly after Christmas I went to Stoke Damerel community college, which has done a lot of work on encouraging youngsters to become more involved in community engagement with dementia. May I also pay tribute again to HMS Drake, which is taking a big lead on dementia and ensuring that this happens elsewhere in the Ministry of Defence?

In Plymouth there are around 3,200 individuals with dementia. That figure is forecast to rise by 35% in the next 10 years, but this is just the beginning. The diagnosis rate is 39%, which it is estimated will increase by 27% before 2021. That means that a large number of people in my constituency do not have access to the care and support they need on a daily basis. The new NHS mandate commits to drive up diagnosis, which can only be a good thing for both sufferers and their families. I know that the Government want the clinical commissioning groups and the NHS Commissioning Board to work together on that aim, and I would welcome more information from my hon. Friend the Minister on what plans are in place to ensure that that happens, so that the lives of sufferers and their carers can improve.

GPs are on the front line when it comes to driving up diagnosis rates. They express their concern about mistaking the symptoms of dementia for old age. In some cases, they do not make a diagnosis of dementia because they feel that to do so is futile. I am aware that the Department of Health has put the case for a reward through proactive case finding, which is due to be consulted on this year. Is there a timetable for that consultation to begin? The sooner we start to diagnose those in need, the sooner we can start to help them.

Earlier this week, I participated in a debate on the Liverpool care pathway. We had an interesting discussion, and real concerns were raised. I told a story about a constituent who came to see me about her father. It had been decided to put him on the Liverpool care pathway, but the family were concerned because they knew nothing about that until they were told about it by one of the car park attendants at the hospital. The process was supposed to last for two days, but it went on for 12 days, and the family were very concerned about that. Will my hon. Friend the Minister have another look at that issue, just to make sure that such cases have been included in the review of the LCP?

A number of excellent facilities exist around the country, especially in Plymouth, and I want to pay tribute to St Luke’s hospice, and to the hospice movement in general, for doing a tremendous job. They are certainly appropriate places for people to spend the last few days of their lives. Given that the report on Stafford hospital is to be released shortly, however, it is clear that dementia sufferers often do not have the dignified death that we would expect for them. I am aware that we are all mortal, although I have wondered whether God might make an exception in my case, and whether I might be here for ever and a day. I know that that is not going to happen, however.

It is important to ensure that, when dementia sufferers die, they are able to do so with dignity and without pain. The more work that we can do to ensure that that happens, the better. Vulnerable people need to be properly looked after, as do their carers. We need to ensure that we talk to the relatives as well, to ensure that they understand the processes involved. None of us—politicians or anyone else—likes to be ambushed, and it is important to help those family members to work their way through their suffering as well.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making some good points. Those who care for dementia sufferers need respite care, but we do not always provide for that as well as we should. I am keen to see more respite care being provided for those who care for people with dementia.

[Oliver Colvile]

I agree with my hon. Friend. This is also about the families, who have to deal with dementia on a daily basis.

Given the appalling events at Stafford hospital, appropriate checks and balances must be put in place to ensure that people with dementia are given the proper quality of care in all hospitals. Further, it should become standard practice that the demands of someone with dementia should be listened to. It is incredibly important that we get better at listening to what they, and their families, are saying. Dementia is a complex illness, and it is often difficult to assess its onset. Whenever possible, however, conversations should be held with the individual and their loved ones about what is happening and the process that is involved. Such conversations would be useful in helping the family through the process.

Dementia is now one of the top five causes of death in the United Kingdom, and it is disappointing that the health and wellbeing boards are being a little slow to consider people’s needs. About 800,000 people in the UK have dementia, and that number is going to go up. It is said that more pressure is being put on the national health service. I do not think that is right. I think that we are making enormous strides in order to deliver better health care for our elderly. It is because we want to do more that our national health service is facing increasing levels of challenge.

For those with dementia, the changes to long-term care are crucial. I am delighted that the Government are looking at trying to take forward the Dilnot report, to which I made my own submission—I have a copy here or I could e-mail it to the Minister. That report must be viewed as a blueprint for how to go forward.

There has been increasing debate with the Treasury since the 1940s. Let me remind everyone of what happened in 1947 when the national health service, of which we are all very supportive and proud, was first set up. The other half of the equation was long-term social care. Over the last 10 or 15 years since I was a candidate for Plymouth, Sutton as it then was—it is now Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport—I have spoken about the divorce of social care from the national health service. If I have a heart attack or have cancer, I will have to deal with it one way, but if I have Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or dementia, it will be considered to some extent as being a separate challenge. I believe that we need to bring the two much closer together.

I have some concerns about using insurance. Every time I have had to make claims—on my car insurance, for example—I have always had some difficulty with my provider. We need to look at that, but we need to ensure that people do not see all their savings just disappearing into a black hole. That is something that we need to deal with as a country. There is a danger that the amount of money individuals are asked to pay for their care will remain far too high. We cannot hide from that in our ageing society.

At the beginning of my time in the House, I wrote a paper on the strategic defence and security review, in which I said that there were two important matters of which we needed to take notice. The first was that more money needed to be put into defence—I continue to say that—but the second was that we should devote more money to long-term care for the elderly. That was my No. 2 priority; it has to be incredibly important.

I welcome the Government’s decision to take on the global health challenge—a priority after years of neglecting this growing problem. I welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment and the leadership and extra support he has provided for people with dementia in carrying out their everyday tasks. That shows a shift in the wish to combat the stigma that surrounds dementia and to achieve greater awareness of the illness. We need to learn, too, from the ethnic minority communities that tend to work much more closely together with their families in providing care.

Common Fisheries Policy

Debate between Oliver Colvile and Neil Parish

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish]

We have, of course, a new Minister and a new—coalition—Government, and I have every faith in both this Minister and this Government to deliver what we want.

It is essential that we fight our corner. The European Commission offers great gifts of devolving powers. It offers the tools to achieve that, but when we look into the toolbox we find that it contains very few tools. In the end, the instinct of Brussels is not to give powers away but to grab powers. It has done that for decades. That is why the CFP is in such a mess. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) that we should not have just six-mile and 12-mile limits, but should extend that and have a 200-mile limit.

Let us consider what the Norwegians can do. If an area of the Norwegian sea is being over-fished they can shut it down within hours. In the European Union, however, it would take months—if an agreement is ever, in fact, reached. In the EU we have Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia all arguing about fishing. They have a few lakes, but they have no coast. The European Commission plays that situation, of course.

[Oliver Colvile]

Does my hon. Friend agree that such countries can use their CFP votes as leverage to negotiate on other matters that have nothing whatever to do with fisheries? That is wrong.

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Austria receives probably the largest amount of rural development money of any EU country. I suspect it has traded many times with the Commission to achieve that situation, by agreeing to go along with what the Commission wants on fishing. We must sort that out.

Not only should we manage our waters in a way that enables us to act quickly from a conservation point of view, but we also need the fishermen to sign up to the regulations. The CFP is a little like communism: there is a lovely warm feeling that we are all going to work together for the greater good, but in reality nobody does that. Our fishermen try to conserve fish by doing all the right things such as reducing the size of their nets and reducing the number of discards, but then they are terrified that the Spanish or others will come in and hoover up the fish whose stocks they have conserved through their actions. That highlights a key problem with the CFP.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Parish]

We would hope that we would not. As my hon. Friend says, the last thing we would want to do would be to go into a room full of dead bodies. She summed up the situation well, because all those dead fish are being put back into the sea and they are contaminating the other fish that we catch. The dead fish are a health hazard and that needs to be dealt with. We talk a lot about sustainability, but we need to talk about how we manage that particular side of things.

I have spoken directly to the Minister about the particular concerns of a fishing company in my constituency. It has a lot of vessels, it fishes around the whole of the United Kingdom and it has 140 tonnes of cod quota, but of course it is allowed to fish only 35 tonnes of that. This is a mixed fishery; we have been talking about whether fish understand what flags they have on them, but they certainly do not understand that they should conveniently swim along species by species, so that one fisherman can catch cod, another can catch hake and so on. That does not happen, so all those healthy cod are being caught, and because the fishermen do not have the necessary quota, they are then discarding this excellent fish, which people in this country love to eat. The fishermen have every right to go out to sea because they have quota for other species and they are not fishing directly for cod. We have to find some flexibility and a way of ensuring that the fish that are caught are landed.

Another argument is that if we are to know what is being caught in the sea, and what the stocks are, we have to land much more of a given fish to be able to analyse exactly what is being caught and what those stocks are.

[Oliver Colvile]

The other point I made was that we are finding that anchovies and sardines are coming into our waters now. How easy will it be for the fishing industry to adapt to catching that sort of fish, which have not traditionally been found around the British isles?

[Neil Parish]

It might well be difficult for our fishermen to catch some of the types of fish that are now coming into our waters, for the simple reason that the type of nets being used may not catch them. Alternatively, those fish, too, may be caught in the nets being put out in a mixed fishery, so we may have an even greater loss, as I suspect that our fishermen will not have quota for those particular species. So the whole situation gets worse and worse, and we want our fishermen to be able to earn a living. That is why our Minister has such a nightmare to sort out.

The next matter is very difficult to deal with, because fishermen and the fishing industry have made big investments in quota and are keen to see it maintained, but our 10-metre fleet and the under 10-metre fleet want to catch more fish sustainably, which has a huge impact on our coastal communities. Even that is complicated, because of the super 10-metre fleet, which has large engines and can catch as much fish as the large boats. It all becomes very complicated—and that is why we have such a marvellous Minister to sort it out.