Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Zac Goldsmith]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and he is absolutely right. Much of what we need to do to tackle climate change and restore nature involves rewilding or natural regeneration. A growing number of projects around the country are already delivering vast benefits. For example, at Knepp Castle in West Sussex, agri-environment funding has helped to create extensive grassland and scrub habitats, with huge benefits for declining bird species such as the turtle dove and the nightingale. As he says, the new environmental land management scheme will be transformative, because it will make subsidies conditional on the delivery of public goods such as biodiversity, woodland and flood management. It really could be the big thing that improves biodiversity in this country, which of course means increasing tree cover and encouraging natural regeneration.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

T6. May I join colleagues in thanking you, Mr Speaker, for everything that you have done to stand up for our democracy?The Government’s Environment Bill does not actually include targets; it only requires Ministers to set them. Those targets could be 15 years in the future, they could be lower than current standards and they need be nothing more than aspirations. The Prime Minister has said that he would “enshrine the highest standards” in law. Obviously, nobody believes a word that the Prime Minister says, but does the Minister agree that there should be a legislative commitment to non-regression from current environmental standards?

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

The Environment Bill sets out a duty to set targets—actual targets will all be set in secondary legislation, as has been quite clearly stated—and it has had a lot of support from many organisations across the board. The whole system will be overseen by the Office for Environmental Protection, which will have to look at the five-yearly targets and review them annually. There is a very strict set of regimes in there. The Government have given very clear indications about not reducing our environmental standards—that is absolutely not the direction this Government would ever intend to go in—and that includes comments made just last week by the Prime Minister about non-regression.

Unsustainable Packaging

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who makes a powerful point; I will touch on it a little later, but I suspect that others will want to amplify it further. When I look around the world, there are other countries that have perhaps not gone so far down this path, and some of their lifestyles are very attractive—dare I say it, but even some European lifestyles are very attractive indeed.

On Friday, I was also able to visit the Cambridge Cheese Company, which cycles its cheese deliveries around the city and presents gifts in recycled wooden cheese boxes. I am grateful to a very helpful assistant in its shop, Jade Tiger Thomas, who showed me the amazing aforementioned BeeBee wraps and explained a scheme that allows customers to bring their own Tupperware or reusable boxes to carry cheese home, and reusable jars for olives and deli items. The company is a long-established Cambridge gem. Many hon. Members find themselves in Cambridge from time to time, and I thoroughly recommend that they pay it a visit.

This is not an entirely new phenomenon. A long time ago, when I was a student in Cambridge, I remember going to the legendary Arjuna Wholefoods and buying spices measured into brown paper bags. That was happening long before it became fashionable, and Arjuna’s has proved itself a long-term Cambridge institution committed to sustainability and reducing food waste.

Buying food without throwaway packaging is becoming increasingly popular across the country. At the start of the month, Waitrose began a trial in its Oxford Botley Road store of a new “Unpacked” model, with a dedicated refillable zone of products from wine to cereals, frozen pick and mix and a borrow a box scheme. It also has refillable cleaning products and sells plants and flowers without plastic. Most of us have probably read the stories in the newspapers. It is too early to have solid statistics on the success of the trial, but Waitrose tells me that the reaction on social media to the announcement of the trial was 97% positive and the store sold out of some products within the first week of the trial. I was told that

“customers have bought into the concept readily—they arrive with their own containers ready to fill with the loose cereals, pasta, fish and more. This started to happen within just a few hours of us announcing the trial”.

That put me in mind of happy times past in my life, in places such as Venice, where the wine shops allow people to take bottles to be refilled on a regular basis. Now, perhaps, we can extend that to washing-up liquid, even if it is slightly less enticing.

When these schemes are well advertised and communicated and efforts are made to help people to get acquainted with new ideas, such as the borrow a box scheme for those who may have been unaware or do not have their own, behaviour and culture change are possible. That can also be done on a smaller scale: the University of Sheffield students’ union has its own Zero Waste Shop, which sells a huge range of spices, herbs, grains, legumes, dried fruits and nuts by weight, so people can buy as much or as little as they need. Customers simply bring their own container, buy one from the shop or use one of the recyclable paper bags.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning the University of Sheffield students’ union Zero Waste Shop. That is a well-established initiative, and I join him in celebrating the groundbreaking work that it has been doing for some time now.

Will my hon. Friend also celebrate the work of the university’s Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures, which is looking at a range of approaches to eliminating plastic waste, recognising that, while we should be doing everything possible to minimise the use of single-use plastics, there will be some areas in which that is difficult? For example, we need to explore whether there is an opportunity to reuse single-use plastics currently used by medics. Similarly, the carbon emissions of recycling single-use plastic bottles could be more damaging than developing reuse. Does he agree that those areas are the innovations we should be looking at?

[Daniel Zeichner]

True to form, my hon. Friend raises the more profound points of the debate. Those are exactly the trade-offs that must be considered in depth and detail, and I will come on to some of them in a moment. He makes a powerful point that sometimes, the more obvious routes to doing the right thing might not have quite the consequences that one understood them to be liable to have.

I suppose the argument I am making is to encourage the zeal of the public to embark on this path, and the conclusion I will draw at the end is that they must be given help to ensure that they are indeed achieving the good outcomes that they are intending to achieve. This is a subject littered with potentially difficult trade-offs, and I am sure both Front-Bench speakers will refer those in the debate.

I will complete my tour of some of the great initiatives—

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Ind)]

3. What steps he is taking to reduce levels of air pollution to legal limits.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

7. What steps he is taking to reduce levels of air pollution to legal limits.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

The only statutory air quality limit the UK is currently failing to meet is on roadside concentrations of nitrogen dioxide. Members will be aware of our plans to combat air pollution. A £3.5 billion investment has already been set aside, but we are now working with 61 local authorities to tackle their exceedances. I have directed local authorities, including Sheffield, to achieve compliance in the shortest possible time. Some £495 million has been specifically set aside for those councils, but I will take legal action if necessary to make sure that councils do what they need to do.

[Dr Coffey]

The issue of particulate matter has grabbed my attention ever since I became a Minister in this Department. It is soot and dust, in essence, and one of our challenges is that a lot of particulate matter is naturally generated; for example, it is sand or sea salt. There are a number of different issues that we need to tackle, and we will continue to work with local authorities to bring the level of particulate matter down, because the Government are very conscious that we need to make sure that the most vulnerable in society, including children who are still of growing age, get the best possible start in life.

[Paul Blomfield]

The Minister has acknowledged the challenge Sheffield faces. We have multiple sites where nitrogen dioxide levels exceed legal limits and threaten the health of our people. Sheffield’s council has ambitious and innovative plans to tackle the problem, but its resources have been drained by eight years of deep cuts. Will the Minister commit to provide the funds we need to clean Sheffield’s air, and will she meet me and representatives of the council to discuss our plans?

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

The hon. Lady will be aware that I met her and others about a year ago, when we looked at this issue in depth. I subsequently went back through all the submissions that came from the chief veterinary officer in the early 1990s to establish precisely why we stopped using sheep dip, and it was not because of health concerns; it was because of a belief that it was not possible to tackle the disease. I note that she has now got the documents, but I simply say that the committee on toxicity looked at this issue exhaustively, examining 26 different studies over a period of more than a decade, and concluded that in the absence of acute poisoning there would not be meaningful long-term effects.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Traffic hotspots in the Broomhill area of my constituency create unacceptably high levels of nitrogen dioxide. The council is doing what it can, but it is frustrated by the Government on issues such as the deregulation of taxi licensing. We need joined-up action across government, and as the High Court said earlier this month, we need it urgently. So when will the Government produce an effective and comprehensive air quality plan?

[Dr Coffey]

We have accepted the Court’s judgment and we now have a new timescale for revising the plan. We have already said that we would update our plans on the basis of evidence on vehicle emissions. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will contribute to the clean air zones consultation, which was launched on 13 October. More than 100 councils applied for an air quality grant and these decisions will be made in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am afraid that just shows that the hon. Gentleman does not really understand how the energy market works. His party’s proposal to cap energy bills to consumers was a grave mistake, because we have seen wholesale prices come down and all consumers have benefited from that. I say again that this Government are absolutely committed to getting bills down for consumers at every opportunity, to implementing the CMA’s significant reforms and to looking at what else is available to be done.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

4. What assessment she has made of the potential effect of the outcome of the EU referendum on the ability of the UK to meet its climate change commitments.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

6. What assessment she has made of the potential effect of the UK leaving the EU on the ability of the UK to meet its climate change obligations.

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Andrea Leadsom)]

The UK’s climate change commitments are grounded in the UK’s Climate Change Act 2008, which commits us to a reduction in emissions of 80% by 2050, from 1990 levels. Our membership of the EU has no impact on our commitment to this Act, as hon. Members will have seen in our decision to accept the Committee on Climate Change’s advice on the level of the fifth carbon budget just two weeks ago.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the Minister for her answer, but she will know that the Committee on Climate change has said that tackling climate change is going to be more difficult outside the EU. The vote to leave does not give the Government a mandate to undermine the global transition to clean energy, so will she confirm that the UK will maintain its commitment to meeting our 2020 clean energy target, which was agreed as part of the EU’s climate and energy package?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The UK is a world leader in tackling climate change. The 2008 Act is a UK Act that we are absolutely committed to. We are outperforming on our target on energy renewables by 2020, and we remain committed to that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

This is a DFT lead, but the issue raised by the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) about the Commission’s proposals addresses the relationship between the manufacturer, the vehicle owner, and the kind of fines that could be imposed. That is why member states will be looking closely at that Commission proposal.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

3. What steps the Government plan to take to meet the UN target of halving food waste by 2030.

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

Our commitment to the UN target of halving food waste is immensely important, and work on that is being taken forward by the Love Food Hate Waste campaign, the Waste and Resources Action Programme—WRAP—and the Courtauld 2025 agreement. It will aim to build on work that we have achieved since 2009, which has reduced household food waste by 17%.

[Paul Blomfield]

The Minister is right to highlight the reduction in household food waste, but he will know that that is not being matched by the food industry. Will he explain why Government Whips objected to the Food Waste (Reduction) Bill, which was promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) last Friday? Would it not be better to get the Bill into Committee, where its provisions and the positive course of action that it proposes could be properly considered, and we can take the opportunity to end the scandal of food waste?

[Rory Stewart]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), who has campaigned strongly on this issue for a long time. We have significant concerns about the targets set in that Bill, and we believe that its proposals include perverse incentives. Voluntary measures have increased by 70% the amount that retailers have managed to redistribute to charitable organisations, and the real key will be getting councils and retailers to work on a unified system.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady that investment in flood defences is an economic opportunity. Our six-year programme will result in the generation of £30 billion of economic value. We are committed to looking at the Humber plans and are due to report back on them in July.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

4. Whether she plans to bring forward legislative proposals to repeal the Hunting Act 2004; and if she will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)]

As we said in our manifesto, we will give Parliament the opportunity to repeal the Hunting Act 2004 on a free vote on a Government Bill in Government time.

[Paul Blomfield]

The Secretary of State will understand that my constituents and, indeed, the whole country are overwhelmingly opposed to the repeal of the foxhunting ban. As she said, the Government have made a clear commitment to a vote on repeal, but she has not made clear the nature of that vote. Will she confirm that the vote will be on a parliamentary Bill that is considered in this House and the other place in the normal way?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I confirm that that is what we are committed to. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that that pledge was part of our manifesto, which people voted on at the general election, and we are committed to fulfilling it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman raises an incredibly important point. When we talk about sustainable agriculture, we need to have in mind our need to feed not only the people of this country but the people of the world. We have to have a clear strategy on how to get to the point where every sector of agriculture in this country has not only maximum efficiency and effectiveness but sustainability.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

T6. Will the Secretary of State guarantee that cuts to the Food Standards Agency have not and will not compromise meat hygiene inspections or the agency’s ability to ensure that meat is legal and safe?

[Mr Heath]

I seem to have answered a lot of questions recently about the Food Standards Agency, which is a matter for the Department of Health, but I will soon be giving evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on exactly that subject, and I hope that I will be able to set out exactly what the FSA does and does not do. I hope the hon. Gentleman will look at that evidence session and the conclusions of the Committee.

Forestry (England)

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Thursday 17th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

It is clear from the early responses that members of the public are responding in many cases to what they have read in the press or what they have heard, rather than necessarily understanding the policy. Many of the responses were received before the publication of the policy on 27 January. Looking at those early responses, it is difficult for Ministers to proceed with the consultation as it is. None the less, all those responses and the questions contained in the consultation will be part of the work that the independent panel will review.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State clarify what the impact of this welcome U-turn will be on the Forestry Commission’s plans to cut 400 jobs across the country?

[Mrs Spelman]

I can explain to the hon. Gentleman that the Forestry Commission’s plans to make savings in line with the savings that my Department and other Government Departments must make have no connection at all to the consultation or the setting up of an independent panel. Savings are necessary because we have to fill a hole in the nation’s finances that was left behind by the Government of whose party he is a member.