Oral Answers to Questions
Patrick Hurley Excerpts(2 days, 15 hours ago)
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Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Emma Hardy)
I want to begin by sending my deepest sympathy to everybody impacted by recent flooding; having your home or business flooded is devastating. I pay tribute to the emergency services, the Environment Agency and the communities and volunteers who have stepped up to keep people and communities safe. The latest intelligence I have is that the weather warning remains yellow across much of the south-west. We will keep a close eye on that today.
Emma Hardy
We recently produced a report, through Peter Bonfield, called “FloodReady”, which was exactly about how we incentivise more people to get property flood resilience. It was about working with contractors, manufacturers and everybody involved in the industry to make this a mainstream option for more people. I highly recommend that the hon. Lady has a look at that report; I hope that she and her constituents find it really useful.
Patrick Hurley
Farmers in my constituency report that watercourses are not being sufficiently maintained, there is not enough investment in drainage infrastructure, and there is a limited ability to deal with changing rainfall patterns and rising water tables. They tell me that the creation of an internal drainage board could help with all that. I know that work has been done to establish new IDBs through a statutory instrument, so will the Minister tell us the current status of that work, and will she please expedite it being laid before the House?
Emma Hardy
I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the fantastic work of the internal drainage boards in managing water levels, reducing flood risks and supporting communities, businesses and farmers alike. Of course, we are working hard on our statutory instrument. I am sorry that I cannot give him an exact date, but I can guarantee that it is something I am committed to doing.
Dame Angela Eagle
We are aware of the welfare issues around fireworks, and we are looking at the evidence to see whether any such changes would actually make a difference.
Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Emma Reynolds)
Since the last oral questions, we have published the animal welfare strategy, set out key reforms to the sustainable farming incentive, hosted the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services—the international panel on nature—in Manchester and published our water White Paper, setting out once-in-a-generation reforms to our water system so that it is fit for the future and delivers better outcomes for consumers and the environment.
Patrick Hurley
As you will know, Mr Speaker, Southport is a lovely seaside resort and one of the nicest places to visit in the whole of the country, so what recent discussions has the Minister had with United Utilities about reducing sewage discharges, which affect Southport and the wider north-west coast?
Emma Reynolds
The Water Minister and I are working closely with water companies across the country, including United Utilities, to drive them to reform their operations and clean up rivers, lakes and seas. Our water White Paper will replace the one-size-fits-all approach with dedicated supervisory teams at every company. UU is investing £50 million to upgrade Southport’s waste water treatment by 2029 to reduce storm overflow spills and improve coastal water quality.
Animal Rescue Centres
Patrick Hurley Excerpts(1 week, 5 days ago)
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Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for securing the debate. I pay tribute to the campaigners, who are with us today, for the opportunity to raise this issue, which is of deep concern to many of my constituents, as well as to people across the northern parishes and indeed the whole country.
Across all our communities, rescue centres play an extraordinary role: they step in when animals are abandoned or neglected, or when they can simply no longer be cared for. They do so largely through the dedication of volunteers, through donations and though good will, and their work is often unseen but invaluable.
However, unlike kennels and breeders, animal rescue centres in England currently operate without a clear, consistent national licensing framework. There are proposals that would address that gap, using the model that already exists under other legislation. That would not create a new system from scratch, but extend a familiar and well-understood framework to a sector that is currently insufficiently regulated.
We know that that approach can work, because it works elsewhere. As has been mentioned, Scotland already has licensed animal shelters, and I am reliably informed that Wales is committed to introducing legislation too. That means that England is now the only part of Great Britain without a formal system of oversight. Introducing such a system would simply bring England into line with best practice across the rest of the country.
There is strong support for that across the rescue and veterinary community. The RSPCA and Dogs Trust have publicly welcomed the discussion about licensing, and colleagues across the House have also expressed their support. This is an issue on which there is genuine cross-party and evidence-based agreement, focused solely on improving animal welfare.
Across Southport and west Lancashire, we are fortunate to have several rescue organisations that do excellent work. I visited one of those, the Woodlands Animal Sanctuary, only a couple of weeks ago. It provides a safe and caring environment for animals during some of the most vulnerable periods of their lives. It already operates to high standards and would have nothing to fear from proportionate regulation.
However, not all rescue centres are able to meet the same standards. Many of them, despite the best intentions, are run from spare rooms or garden sheds. They are driven by compassion, but lack the facilities, training or support necessary to guarantee the best outcomes for animals. Without sufficient formal oversight, conditions can vary widely; in the most extreme cases, that has led to the tragic consequences we have seen across the country.
At a time when the cost of living crisis is forcing more families to make heartbreaking decisions about their pets, the pressure on rescue centres is growing. That makes it even more important that animals are placed in environments that are safe, suitable and properly supported. This is not about burdening good organisations with too much regulation; it is about giving them recognition, consistency and reassurance, while ensuring that every rescued animal receives the care it deserves. I hope that today’s debate can be a constructive step towards achieving that shared goal, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patrick Hurley Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Steve Reed
I have enjoyed visiting Milton Abbas on many very happy occasions. I agree with the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. We are working with farmers and landowners to ensure that they are getting the support they need to take the kind of action that he talks about. The new regional tier proposed by Sir Jon Cunliffe will give a place where farming and land managers can raise their voices and ensure that the outcomes they can contribute to are delivered.
Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Emma Hardy)
We have introduced a new era of accountability. We are resetting, reforming and revolutionising the water sector, putting public health and the environment first and delivering the change rightly demanded by the British people. With the most ambitious targets on sewage water pollution in history, we will halve sewage water pollution by 2030.
Patrick Hurley
Over the summer, we saw the announcement of a £50 million investment into Southport’s waste water treatment works to reduce the number of sewage overflows to just three per bathing season, allowing Southport to once again become the jewel in the crown of the north-west coast. Does the Minister agree that that level of investment is very much needed after more than a decade of Tory neglect of our waterways, and that it shows the difference a town can see when it has a Labour MP, a Labour council, a Labour metro mayor and a Labour Government here in Westminster?
Oral Answers to Questions
Patrick Hurley Excerpts(8 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)
The Solicitor General (Lucy Rigby)
Today we mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day. It has been 80 years since the allied victory in Europe that brought an end to the second world war. I pay tribute to the extraordinary courage, sacrifice and determination of our veterans and all who made that victory possible. Their legacy lives on in the freedoms that we cherish and enjoy to this very day.
Let me be absolutely clear: victims are waiting far too long to see justice. That is completely unacceptable. It has hit confidence in our criminal justice system, and this Government simply will not stand for it. That is why we are committed to working with the Crown Prosecution Service and partners across the criminal justice system to slash those backlogs and get cases through the courts more quickly. A review is ongoing of how we can reduce the backlog, and I am confident that what emerges from that review will mean that we can get delays down and set about the kind of reform that will deliver the change that the public deserve to see.
Patrick Hurley
On the topic of backlogs across the justice system, the Ministry of Justice’s successful campaign to recruit more magistrates is stretching the capacity of local training committees to provide sufficient mentors and appraisers to support new appointees. What more can the Government do to fill the gap in training capacity to better serve the interests of justice?
The Solicitor General
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the vital role that magistrates play in our criminal justice system. As we seek to reduce the intolerable court backlog that we inherited from the previous Government, I have absolutely no doubt that magistrates will continue to have a crucial role. It is essential that any new magistrates receive the right level of training, and I am happy to raise the matter that my hon. Friend has spoken about with colleagues in the Ministry of Justice.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patrick Hurley Excerpts(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Daniel Zeichner
As I said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law), the first thing we needed to do was establish how much we are actually buying, and that is now in progress. I absolutely get the point about the urgency. The question is why doing this took the previous Government so long when they shared our ambition. We are determined to make this happen.
Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)
Jo Platt (Leigh and Atherton) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Emma Hardy)
Repairing and rebuilding our flood defences is a priority for this Labour Government, and we are investing at a record level to improve flood resilience, better protecting 52,000 properties by this time next year.
Patrick Hurley
The Environment Agency allocates its budgets to carry out work on flood defences on the basis of a funding formula, but that formula does not give sufficient weight to agricultural land. Will the Minister undertake a review of the formula, so that agricultural land gets the flood defences it needs?
Emma Hardy
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important issue. I completely agree that the previous flooding formula did not work for rural communities, which is exactly why we are consulting to change it. The consultation will be announced shortly, and I encourage him and every Member across the House to get involved in shaping the formula, so we can make sure it delivers the right outcomes for everybody up and down our country.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patrick Hurley Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Steve Reed
Mental health services are the responsibility of the national health service, and the former Health Secretary, who broke the NHS, is in no position to lecture anybody about public services. She was no friend of the health service and mental health services, and she is no friend of farming. Some 12,000 farms went bust on the Conservatives’ watch. They failed to get £300 million out the door and into the pockets and bank accounts of farmers, and they signed a trade deal with Australia that undercut British farmers on environmental and welfare standards. I hear the posturing, but it is this Government who are standing up for farming.
Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)