Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Howell Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

The right hon. Lady, who does sterling work on the Home Affairs Committee, knows that the police are not directly under my supervision, but I am proud to talk about the very close co-operation between the police and CPS specialists in this field, which has really helped, together with some great granularity and pushing on the statistics to drive up rape prosecutions. She will be glad to know that in her area of Yorkshire and Humberside the number of suspects charged with rape has increased significantly over the last year.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

My Newton Aycliffe constituent Zoey McGill suffered from appalling knife crime when her son Jack Woodley was killed in 2021. She is now suffering again, as one of the perpetrators is using social media from custody to glorify himself. Does the Attorney General agree that such actions should be prosecuted, and that the consequences should be publicised to ensure that they become a deterrent against others glorifying themselves from our prisons?

[The Attorney General]

My hon. Friend highlights a horrific case. That is why it is so important that we crack down on mobile phone use, and indeed mobile phone existence, within prisons. The Government have put in £100 million to ensure that prisons have airport-style security, to ensure that it is much more difficult for phones to get in. Incidents such as he raises are very serious, and I commend him for doing so, as well as his constituent Zoey and The Northern Echo, which I understand has been campaigning on the issue.

Crustacean Mortality in North-east England: Independent Expert Assessment

Paul Howell Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

That is a slightly different topic. Of course, our scientists consistently monitor water quality throughout the rivers of the UK, and the good news is that water quality is going up in a number of areas. The Food Standards Agency—the most robust standards agency in the world—ensures that food produced in the UK is safe to consume and safe to eat, and it will continue to ensure that that is the case.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

The coastline that we are talking about is where I, my family and my constituents all go for holidays and recreation. We play golf, visit the coast and take all the pleasures from it—it really is a fantastic part of the world. On the one hand, we have got the big worry about crustaceans. My understanding is that, although Opposition politicians are suggesting that die-offs have been continuing since October 2021, the Environment Agency has said that no further die-offs have occurred. I do not want people being put off visiting the coastline and enjoying the businesses there if the die-off is no longer going on. Can the Minister give any clarity about what is actually happening in the sea now?

[Mark Spencer]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and, along with my hon. Friends the Members for Darlington (Peter Gibson) and for Redcar (Jacob Young), taking a keen interest in this topic over a number of months. He is right to identify that the scientists concluded that there was a single, large die-off and the number of crabs now washing up on beaches is consistent with smaller events such as storms. There is no evidence that there is another large die-off taking place.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Howell Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

3. What steps he is taking to tackle fly-tipping.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

9. What steps he is taking to tackle fly-tipping.

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

Criminals should have no place to hide when they mindlessly dump waste. Fly-tipping blights lives and neighbourhoods, and wrecks our environment. We are consulting on legislative reforms to the way waste handlers are regulated, and introducing digital waste tracking.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Churchill]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend: fly-tipping blights our countryside and, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), blights our towns. As I have said, we are taking robust action. We need to ensure that those fixed penalty notices are high enough to act as a deterrent, that more serious offences can be prosecuted, and that courts can hand down fines in excess of the fixed penalty notice should the offence be sufficiently serious. We are producing a new guide on how to present robust prosecutions, which should support tougher sentences, and digital waste tracking—the reform to waste carriers, brokers and dealers—will allow householders to know where their waste is going and that their contractor is legitimate and transparent. We must do more about this offence, which blights all our constituencies.

[Paul Howell]

Since I was elected, constituents have written to me continuously about fly-tipping, both in our towns and particularly on farmers’ land. One of the reasons for the increase has been the ease with which the public can obtain waste removal licences: the checks and balances just do not appear to be sufficient. Will the Minister explain what the Government plan to do to increase the detail in which those checks are undertaken by the local authorities, to stop people providing a cowboy waste service that undercuts legitimate businesses, and stop them from abandoning that waste on the streets and farms of places such as Sadberge, Trimdon, Wheatley Hill and Wingate?

[Jo Churchill]

I agree with my hon. Friend: it is not fair that legitimate businesses are undercut by individuals who do not treat waste properly, and who take no care in anything they are doing. The waste carrier registration scheme needs reform urgently: that is why we are acting, and it is why we published our consultation. The measures that we announced will increase the competence and background checks that are needed to operate in the sector, and make it easier for regulators to take enforcement action to make sure we hound the criminals out of this industry and support our legitimate businesses, so that they play by the rules and treat that waste properly. We will make it easier for householders and businesses to act on a level playing field.

Hare Coursing Bill

Paul Howell Excerpts

Friday 21st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

The act of hare coursing is cruel and barbaric and has seen the brown hare population drop to less than half a million in England. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) for his consistent campaigning for a strengthening of law enforcement around it. His work is incredibly important from an animal welfare perspective and in allowing for increased protections for our farmers.

Some portray hare coursing as a sport, but it is nothing of the sort. It is an illegal activity where dogs are used to chase, catch and kill hares. I know the Government are committed to strengthening Britain’s already world-leading animal welfare laws, and a much-needed clampdown on hare coursing will certainly help with that. I welcome that the Government have taken note of my hon. Friend’s work and tabled amendments to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that will implement a number of the changes he has called for. I hope that, by that or other means, the penalties will be progressed.

I understand that the changes include an unlimited fine and possible imprisonment for trespassing in pursuit, two new offences for trespass, including with a dog to pursue a hare, offenders on conviction can be charged the costs incurred by the police in kennelling dogs and conviction can disqualify the owner from keeping the dog. That is a fundamental part, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend earlier. Those powers are so important, because hare coursing is not only associated with animal welfare, but a range of criminal activities, including theft, criminal damage—predominantly on our farms—violence and intimidation.

Unfortunately, hare coursing is an issue in Sedgefield, which is a particularly rural constituency. I have spoken to farmers from Walworth, Houghton-le-Side, Bishopton, Sadberge, Sedgefield, Foxton, Morden and Bishop Middleham, among others throughout the breadth of my Sedgefield constituency, and I have also met the National Farmers Union and police to hear their concerns, which are well made and need to be listened to.

In just the past week, Durham constabulary has announced additional patrols around farms to tackle a recent spate of incidents in which quad bike riders have been targeting farmland. A number of my farmers have spoken to me about that issue, and I have met them and been shown the damage caused and the challenges to their personal safety. Officers very much suspect that the activity is linked to poaching and hare coursing. I thank the farmers of Sedgefield for all they do and assure them that I will continue to speak up for them.

The nature of farms is that they are typically remote, leaving their residents exposed when incidents occur and resulting in situations where farmers are at risk of reprisals when reporting those crimes. Farmers in some instances have to pay thousands of pounds to attempt to protect their farms from the criminal damage caused by the quad bikes and indeed by four-wheel drive vehicles, whose owners seem to have an agenda to churn up land as badly as they possibly can to test the capabilities of their vehicles while getting across land to carry out pastimes such as hare coursing.

I hope the increased deterrents that the Bill proposes will serve to protect our farmers in that regard and help both the police and the courts system to tackle the concerning rise in hare coursing incidents. A critical next step though is how the police and courts utilise those powers. I encourage the police to step up their focus on our rural areas to get full value from the changes, but I am also concerned about how the courts proceed. Only this morning, I was talking to the Durham chief of police and her team, and I asked her to advise me of the initiatives they will be taking to use the development of the powers under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill to help my constituents.

Although they have not specifically been on rural crime, I have been in discussions on antisocial behaviour. The police are spending significant time and resources to bring offenders to court and, despite multiple repeat offences, custodial sentences are not forthcoming. It is critical that once the law is in place, the police have identified the offenders, and they have been found guilty, the sentence handed down reflects the significance of the crime. It is not just a punishment for the specific offence, but it also needs to be a deterrent for them and others to not repeat. I encourage my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice to do all he can to encourage robust sentencing for those crimes.

To summarise, on behalf of the hares, dogs and farmers of Sedgefield, I thank my hon. Friend for his energies, and I look forward to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill completing its progress and our police and courts robustly enforcing these laws.