Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I think the whole House welcomes the fact that the Assembly is back up and running. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I am very keen, as a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, that money is spent in a value-for-money way. I was in the Northern Ireland Secretary’s constituency just last week to discuss a range of issues in Northern Ireland, and I am very keen that we learn from each other about the best ways to tackle flooding.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

2. What steps he is taking to encourage supermarkets to promote British produce.

[The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries (Mark Spencer)]

I welcome the campaign of my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) and the action taken by some supermarkets to introduce a “buy British” button online, and I strongly support their efforts to encourage consumers to pick high-quality British produce. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has launched a consultation on fairer food labelling to help promote British produce and statutory codes that ensure that British farmers get a fair price for their goods.

[Mr Hollobone]

One of the best ways we can support British farmers is by choosing to buy British food. It is good for the environment, reduces food miles and improves our food security, because we are importing less produce. Will my right hon. Friend the Farming Minister join me in specifically congratulating Morrisons, Aldi, Sainsbury’s and Ocado, which all now have the “buy British” button online so that consumers can easily find British food to buy?

[Mark Spencer]

What we see is that consumers want to buy top-quality British food. I congratulate those supermarkets, and I encourage others to consider whether they may want to introduce a “buy British” button for online sales.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Solicitor General]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for raising that. I am horrified by a great number of the findings. There is clearly a lot of work here. Things are clearly moving in the right direction, and much of the work being undertaken by the CPS is on liaising with victims and ensuring that their experience is as easy as possible, in the hugely traumatic circumstances. There is a lot more to do on joint working, but I am happy to continue liaising with her, in order to update her as this goes forward.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

3. What steps the Crown Prosecution Service is taking to improve the experience of victims of crime in Kettering constituency.

[The Solicitor General (Robert Courts)]

My hon. Friend will be pleased to hear that CPS East Midlands is now making charging decisions for rape cases more quickly. In 2022 and 2023, the area was performing better than the national average on reducing victim attrition.

[Mr Hollobone]

I thank the Crown Prosecution Service for the work it does in prosecuting offenders and seeking justice for victims in Kettering. What overall assessment has the Solicitor General made of the effectiveness of the CPS across the east midlands?

[The Solicitor General]

The Attorney General visited the CPS East Midlands office in Leicester just last month, and she tells me that she was impressed to hear about the work that prosecutors have been undertaking to tackle recent and historical instances of child sexual abuse in particular, securing lengthy sentences for the perpetrators. That is an excellent example of the importance of joint working between prosecutors and the police, which I have referred to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

We have done an enormous amount of work in this area to help to support primary producers and farmers. We will legislate in the dairy sector to help to make sure those contracts are fair, and to make sure we have fairness across the supply chain. The hon. Gentleman is advocating the control of market prices, which would have exactly the opposite effect of what he wants to achieve. It would drive up prices across the country, and we would end up in a far worse place.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

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

The Met Office has issued various warnings. Indeed, as the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), pointed out, we are preparing for potentially significant storms, which is why the Environment Agency has mobilised its emergency operations centre and why temporary defences are being lined up in different parts of the country. We continue to encourage households to register for flood alerts and warnings and to take action, where appropriate.

[Mr Hollobone]

Ball Corporation has invested £200 million to create Europe’s largest and most modern aluminium drinks can manufacturing plant in Burton Latimer. Will the Secretary of State be kind enough to meet the company to explore her plans to support drinks can producers against potentially unfair market distortions as a result of the decision to exclude glass from the deposit return scheme?

[Dr Coffey]

I decided not to proceed with glass in the DRS because of the complications that would bring to its introduction; I would have thought his local company would benefit from that. However, I know that the chief executive recently had a constructive and useful meeting with the recycling Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), who will take away the comments from that for further consideration as we finalise our policy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

I declare my interest in these matters.

I recognise the fact that global wheat prices have now come back down. We work closely with retailers, processers and the hospitality sector to make sure that there is not extra profiteering in the marketplace. We will continue to have discussions with those representatives and will work with the sector to make sure that food is reasonably priced for our constituents.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The farming Minister will know that in north Northamptonshire we have some of the best farmers in the country who are facing these challenges, like every other farm up and down the land. Would he be kind enough to visit Kettering to meet a large group of local farmers—perhaps in early September in between harvesting and drilling?

[Mark Spencer]

That is a very kind invitation. It is always a pleasure to visit Northamptonshire, and, if my diary allows, I will of course meet my hon. Friend and his farmers.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Solicitor General]

In terms of access to justice for victims, I mentioned the victim transformation programme, which is vital in supporting victims. It will transform how the CPS communicates with victims and ensure that those with specific needs have enhanced support.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The victims’ right to review makes it easier for victims to seek a review of a CPS decision not to bring charges. Will the Minister congratulate CPS East Midlands on having the victims’ right to review prominent on the front page of its website? Is he satisfied that the scheme is being rolled out satisfactorily across the country?

[The Solicitor General]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this issue. He will be pleased to know that on the law tour, the Attorney General and I saw CPS East Midlands for ourselves, and he is right. It is also right to acknowledge that the vast majority of cases are performed correctly and accurately. Of those that are not, it is right to say that 243 decisions were found to be incorrect and were reviewed last year.

Environmental Land Management Scheme: Funding for Upland Areas

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered environmental land management scheme funding for upland areas.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and great to see the Minister in his place to respond to what I am going to say.

Our uplands are precious beyond measure. They are on the frontline in the fight to restore nature and to tackle climate change. They provide us with water for drinking and with the opportunity to protect population centres from devastating flooding. They underpin our tourism economy and are home to our most stunning historic landscapes. They provide food and they enable the flourishing of communities that are as much a part of our heritage as the landscapes that they care for.

I support the transition to the environmental land management scheme. The principle of public money for public goods makes sense and is, in theory, a great improvement on the area-based payments of the common agricultural policy. I also welcome a move to a more sustainable payments scheme that supports environmental benefits alongside ensuring food security. In practice, however, the Government are sadly putting our uplands in peril, and they are doing so needlessly.

Farmers across the country are being put at risk by a failure to listen, but in the uplands that failure is worst of all and threatens to be catastrophic. In this debate, I aim to speak for upland communities in Westmorland, but also for communities elsewhere. While preparing for the debate, I visited many farms and listened to dozens of farmers, and my hope is that the Minister will acknowledge the Government’s failings and commit himself to putting them right.

The transition from the old farm payments scheme leaves upland farmers especially exposed as they typically rely on the basic payment for more than 50% of their income. As the basic payment scheme is phased out—every farm will have lost at least 35% of its BPS this year—upland farms will need alternative sources of funding to fill the gap. Those sources of alternative funding are, however, not forthcoming, and the consequences will be devastating.

It is my honour to represent more than 1,000 farms in Westmorland and Lonsdale, but the last time I checked fewer than 30 had registered for the new sustainable farming incentive. Those farms have lost a huge chunk of their BPS, and most of them so far have nothing to replace it. That is the Government’s fault. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs rules dictate that farmers who are not already in the countryside stewardship or higher level stewardship schemes cannot maximise SFI benefits because the schemes do not fit together seamlessly. This means there is a guarantee that almost all upland farms will not be able to replace their lost income and that their financial viability will decline steeply.

If farmers are in a stewardship scheme and also received the basic payment, they can expect to get no more from their stewardship scheme. Meanwhile, they lose their basic payment. Therefore, in the transition, farmers can only lose income. That is the case for many farmers, including lowland farmers, but especially those who farm in the uplands. Why can we not permit those in stewardship schemes to provide additional environmental value by applying for an SFI that fits with stewardship?

The new schemes seem to have been written deliberately to disadvantage upland areas, in particular because Ministers chose to stick with income foregone plus costs as the principle underlying payments for SFI and stewardship schemes. That caps, or limits, income for delivering for nature, climate and water at the amount a farmer could have earned from beef and sheep in the uplands, which is an awful lot less than the famer could earn elsewhere. The lowland rate is £151 per hectare, but the upland rate is only £98 per hectare.

The former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), is on the record saying that DEFRA must depart from

“the outdated income foregone methodology”

for payment rates. I wonder why DEFRA has chosen to ignore its former Secretary of State. Why, instead, do the Government not pay farmers a fair rate for the immense value of the environmental work they do, rather than giving them the equivalent of the poorly paid work they have given up? If we valued nature and valued farmers, that is what we would do. Why is there not equality of opportunity? Why are we not allowing all farmers who want to deliver for nature to do so? Why are upland farmers effectively being locked out?

The failure to pay upland farmers a fair rate is a major reason why most have been put off even applying. Another reason is the Government’s choice to reveal the SFI options in a drip, drip, drip fashion over time. Many farmers I have spoken to in the past few weeks, including two in the Eden valley, tell me that they have not applied for two reasons: first, the payment rates are pathetic and it is just not worth their while applying; and secondly, they are waiting to see whether something better comes along from future options that the Government may or may not reveal. All the while, those famers and others are seeing their incomes eroded by the phasing out of BPS and have no alternative sources of funding to replace it.

In particular, we desperately need more detail on the new moorland option. I am glad there is one, but can the Minister tell us when it will start, what it will be worth and when farmers will have the full details of what it will entail? Take-up of the option is slow, yet as the chair of the Uplands Alliance, Professor Julia Aglionby of the University of Cumbria, points out, DEFRA has refused to fund a digital app that would have enabled effective and efficient moorland surveys. Relatively small decisions such as that make a big negative difference, and reveal the Government’s apparent disinterest in the plight of our uplands. It will be a disincentive for our farmers to deliver more for nature and the climate.

The lack of clarity and the limited nature of the options available are particularly damaging for tenant farmers. How are they to make long-term decisions about their businesses when the Government are dribbling out incomplete information now and again and leaving them effectively in limbo? Meanwhile, as Baroness Rock revealed in her very welcome review of tenant farming, many tenants are being forced out so that their landlords can access ELM schemes for themselves.

I sincerely hope that it was not the Government’s intention to advantage wealthy absentee landlords at the expense of hard-working farmers, but whatever their motives, that is nevertheless happening. DEFRA has repeatedly said that the transition aims to stop big payments going to large landowners, yet we see asset-rich landowners embarking on 21st-century clearances, and scooping up big payments in the process. We are already seeing new money pouring into the uplands and being invested in land for its hope value—for carbon credits or offsetting. It is transparent greenwashing in exchange for wads of taxpayers’ money, while farming families are turfed out and cleared from the land for which they have cared for generations.

Many upland farms have the potential to get into the countryside stewardship higher tier, yet reports from throughout the country show that few of those who might qualify even begin the application journey, mostly because Natural England has had its staffing so badly cut that there is no one to help those farms or groups of farms to get through the process. Just the other week, farmers near Ullswater put it to me that the Government are missing out on a vast amount of nature restoration, water quality improvement, and carbon reduction and sequestration, all because of penny pinching in relation to Natural England and farms being locked out of the schemes that were supposedly designed for them.

Many farms have benefited from the Government’s shift towards more grant funding, and that is a good thing, but even then there is a failure to understand how farms really operate. Capital grants work on the basis of reclaiming outlay that farms have already made, but upland farmers’ cash flow is disappearing with BPS. The grants are often welcome, but they ignore the reality that farms need regular, reliable revenue funding for the good work that they do, not one-off chunks that they have already had to spend up front. The very fact that DEFRA is paying BPS in instalments—which is also welcome, by the way—is a clear admission that it realises that cash flow is vital and that the loss of BPS without replacement will cause huge damage to businesses in the uplands and elsewhere.

This litany of mistakes, incompetence, unfairness, penny pinching and broken promises is putting our vital uplands in a treacherous position. It is surely obvious that the Government will not spend the promised £2.4 billion on farm support. With so few farms entering the new schemes, while every farm is losing BPS, it is surely impossible for the Government to have kept that promise.

In the uplands, where BPS makes up such a large proportion of farm incomes, the betrayal is felt even more sharply. Will Cockbain, who farms near Keswick and is the chair of the Swaledale Sheep Breeders Association, tells me that he has written to the Prime Minister four times setting out very clearly that the BPS cuts for upland farms, even if they are in countryside stewardship schemes, means a loss in farm incomes of more than 50% in direct support. He pointed out that tinkering with countryside stewardship does not come close to compensating for the loss of BPS. Will the Minister clarify whether his Department has done an economic assessment of the impact of the transition from CAP to ELMS on upland farms? If such an assessment has been done, will he please commit today to publishing it? If one has not been done, why not? Will the Minister now commit to doing one?

The forecasts of the farm business income survey show that, in the most recent financial year, upland farms will have seen a 51% drop compared with average farm incomes over the previous three years. The average income for an upland farm is now £16,300. Farm business incomes for upland farms for 2028-29—the end of this process—are not predicted to improve beyond £16,500, even with the full introduction of ELMS. That equates to an average hourly rate for farmers of £4.20, which is much less than half the minimum wage. This catastrophic fall in incomes is a direct result of Government policy and choices, or at least of the incompetent application of those policies.

The consequences are stark. We will see farms fail. People whose families have farmed in our uplands for generations will find themselves in the crushing position of being the one who lost the family farm. We do not think enough about the mental health impact on farmers and their families of the uncertainty caused by this botching of the transition. What does it mean for our upland communities when families that have formed the backbone of village life for centuries get uprooted because the farm has failed because of the Government’s failures? What does it mean in children lost from our schools, jobs lost, lost demand in the economy and the loss of homes and human dignity?

We do not think enough about the damage to our environment caused as farms cease to farm and farmers decide that they cannot afford to farm with care for the environment. Without farmers, we will lose the essential partners we need to put environmental policies into action. Even the best environmental plans in the world are useless pieces of paper in a drawer without the expert hands of farmers to put them into practice.

Many upland farmers will go broke and many more will go backwards. Having spent time on farms in the lakes, dales and elsewhere in the last few weeks, I am struck by how many have looked at their falling incomes and the fact that the new ELM schemes are either impossible for them to enter or too unattractive or restrictive, and made the reluctant choice that the only thing they can do to make ends meet is to farm more intensively and get more livestock, and in doing so undo the good environmental work that they and their families have done for decades. It breaks their hearts, but it seems to them to be the only alternative to losing the farm. How stupid and irresponsible to design a scheme meant to protect and enhance our environment, but to deliver it so badly that it does the exact opposite.

Might I suggest that the Government could make one of two choices? First, they could pause the phase-out of BPS to give farmers breathing space to get into the new ELM schemes—and, indeed, to give the Government the breathing space to fix their mistakes and put them right. Or they could choose to turbocharge the introduction of ELMS and demonstrate a commitment to supporting upland farmers to address the nature and climate crises. Throughout covid, we learned that with political will Departments can, at great pace, introduce new schemes to address crises. I suggest that this is a crisis on multiple levels.

There are only 6,500 upland farms. It cannot be beyond the wit of DEFRA to bring in an effective scheme for early next year, 2024, that enables upland businesses to thrive, delivering for nature and climate and underpinning a tourism economy that in Cumbria alone is worth £3.5 billion every year. Surely now is the time to admit that if we want to ensure that we do not devastate our environment and our capacity for food production, £2.4 billion is a wholly inadequate sum of money. If we care about biodiversity, reducing greenhouse emissions, the production of good-quality British food, protecting water quality and maintaining our landscapes, we must surely add at least another £1 billion to the pot. Central to the Government’s failure is that they are trying to do a range of incredibly important things on the cheap.

It is our farmers in Longsleddale, Kentmere and other upland valleys who protect thousands of homes in Kendal, Staveley and Burneside from flooding. It is our upland farmers in the lakes who maintain water quality for the whole of the north-west of England. It is our upland farmers who produce food, and maintain, shape and protect our historic landscape—so much so that UNESCO awarded world heritage site status to the Lake district largely on the basis of how the national park is farmed. We remember that Liverpool recently lost its world heritage site status. That is a warning that if we fail to protect this awesome natural environment in the lakes, we could lose that status, too, causing damage to a tourism economy that employs 60,000 people across Cumbria.

Our upland farmers are at the forefront of the fight against climate change, as they restore peatland and woodland, including imaginatively managed woodland pasture. They are crucial to nature recovery and biodiversity: 53% of England’s sites of special scientific interest are in the uplands. All that is at risk because the Government are not listening to farmers, are failing to understand the impact of their actions, and lack the humility to accept where they have made grave mistakes.

We will not stand by while this Government, by accident or design, cause avoidable harm to our uplands and the people who are their faithful stewards. I am proud to represent and fight for such a breathtakingly beautiful and important part of our country. But I am prouder still to represent the people—the families at the heart of those communities—who take care of that landscape. I hope that I have done them justice today, and that the Minister will acknowledge the peril facing our uplands and act before it is too late.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

The debate can last until 11.30 am.

Environmental Improvement Plan 2023

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

There is great food in a number of counties, and I do not want to come between Devon and Cornish MPs about who has the right pasty or where cream should go on a scone, but I will say to my hon. Friend that it is very important for us to involve farmers and landowners in improving our natural environment. I think that, by default, most of them are already doing that, but I am very conscious of the challenges they face. The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries has been very active, in a number of ways, in responding to the issues that they have raised. I am convinced that what we are doing, and what we did last week, is opening up many more activities that will allow us to pay farmers to improve, for instance, the quality of soil and integrated pest management. We will help them not only to farm more sustainably, but to enjoy the extra benefit of ensuring that the quality of Devon’s food is the best it can be.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State, and the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), for the tremendously hard work they have put into developing this world-leading environmental improvement plan. Local residents in the Kettering constituency are keen to support any measures to protect, preserve or enhance our natural environment. Does my right hon. Friend agree that (a) nature has been neglected for far too long, (b) environmental and agricultural policies were returned to this country as a result of Brexit, and (c) she is drawing on (b) to fix (a) so that we can clean our waters, tackle air pollution and increase biodiversity?

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend sums it up perfectly. By leaving the European Union, we have removed ourselves from the constraints—the handcuffs—of the common agricultural policy. We have been able to develop a policy that, certainly in England, will translate into sustainable food production and improving the environment. The Lords are about to pass the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill—another Brexit freedom—which will allow us to develop climate change-resilient wheat. We can use the best of technology and our freedoms to do what is right for the farmers and people of this country, ensure that we have a healthy and wealthy farming community, and continue to enjoy all the fabulous produce for generations to come.

Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2023 Ministerial Corrections

The following are extracts from Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions on 12 January 2023.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

May I welcome the massive and unprecedented increase in the monitoring of illegal sewage discharges, and in particular the welcome steps taken by some water companies for live monitoring so that people can see in real time where sewage is being put into our rivers illegally?

[Rebecca Pow]

That is yet another measure that has been put in place. There is a requirement now for water companies to report all discharges from storm sewage overflows with dates and deadlines, but some water companies have gone over and above. They already have that in place and some companies, in particular around the coast, are reporting annually.

[Official Report, 12 January 2023, Vol. 725, c. 686.]

Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow).

An error has been identified in my response to my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone).

The correct response should have been:

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

I have made it absolutely clear that sewage going into our waters is totally unacceptable. That is why under my tenure as Environment Minister—actually, it began with the previous Environment Minister, now the Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey)—we set in motion the monitoring that did not happen under Labour, the storm overflows reduction plan, the targets in the Environment Act and the new direction to Ofwat. We are bringing everything together under one hat to tackle this issue once and for all. Because of the work we have done I launched an investigation, which is being undertaken by Ofwat and the EA—the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is working very closely with them. That is uncovering all these incidents. Trust me, we will be clamping down.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

May I welcome the massive and unprecedented increase in the monitoring of illegal sewage discharges, and in particular the welcome steps taken by some water companies for live monitoring so that people can see in real time where sewage is being put into our rivers illegally?

[Rebecca Pow]

That is yet another measure that has been put in place. There is a requirement now for water companies to report all discharges from storm sewage overflows with dates and deadlines, but some water companies have gone over and above. They already have that in place and some companies, in particular around the coast, are reporting annually. That is proving extremely useful for anybody who wants to know the condition of our water. All of this will improve.

UK Canals and Waterways

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Michael Fabricant]

I can say to my right hon. Friend, who is also Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, that not only will I support him, I have actually signed the letter agreeing to that proposal, because it seems an eminent way to ensure that our canals and waterways remain as unpolluted as possible.

We saw how central the canals were to the amazing Commonwealth games in the west midlands, which showcased Britain’s industrial heritage on a world stage. Someone bet me earlier that I was going to say something that I had not planned not to say, but I will now say that there are more canals in Birmingham—in fact, I was photographed alongside a marvellous plaque during the Conservative party conference—than there are in Venice, and some might argue that they are more beautiful. We have to introduce gondoliers into Birmingham—don’t you think that would be an excellent idea, Sir Robert?

I know that colleagues will have equally strong feelings about the central role that our waterways play in their cities, towns and villages. Canals can play a wider role at a time when our water supply has never been more critical. In a changing climate with increasing drought risk, the trust’s canals play an important role in improving the resilience of the nation’s water security. They currently move water around the country to support water supplies for approximately 5 million people, including to Bristol and parts of Cheshire. The trust can support more such waterway transfer schemes.

Only last week, Affinity Water announced its intention to work with the trust to use the centuries-old Grand Union canal to move water from the midlands to households in the south-east. Like Plaid Cymru, it wants to charge more and more for its water, which is what we should do in the west midlands when we supply it to the wealthy south-east.

Canals can also supply heating and cooling for waterside buildings, with enough latent thermal energy to support the needs of around 350,000 homes, as well as providing a cooling effect in urban areas during hot weather, according to research verified by the University of Manchester, and they deliver renewable energy from hydropower. Our canals and waterways form an important part of the United Kingdom’s nature recovery network. They provide a vital corridor for wildlife, with habitats that contribute hugely to biodiversity, supporting the key goals of the UK’s 25-year environment plan and giving people the proximity to nature that inspires them to care about the natural world—what is around us or across the planet.

As a not-for-profit charity, the Canal & River Trust is arguably the largest urban blue space provider in the United Kingdom. The recently released “Valuing Our Waterways” report showed that it delivers £4.6 billion of social welfare value for the nation each year, plus over £1.5 billion per year in economic value, supporting 80,000 jobs. I will repeat that: 80,000 jobs.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Unsurprisingly, my hon. Friend is making a speech of his usual high standard. On the economic benefit that the Canal & River Trust brings, may I highlight my lovely constituent Kay Andrews from Rothwell who runs Kay’s Canal Crafty Arts from her 32-foot narrowboat Pea Green, which is moored at Welford Wharf on the Grand Union canal on the Leicestershire-Northamptonshire border? Kay makes her living by selling hand-painted canal art, and she is a Canal & River Trust licensed roving trader. She trades from the wharf in the summer and then goes round the canals around the country selling her painted crafts. Is that not a wonderful boost to small businesses?

[Michael Fabricant]

That is a fantastic example from my hon. Friend. Those of us familiar with canals know that type of art, with beautifully, vividly painted flowers on coal scuttles and buckets. An ugly bucket can be transformed into a thing of beauty. I have friends who live some distance from canals who have examples of that work in their own homes. That is a first-rate example of how the canals generate income for others and generate business in the economy as a whole.

I hope that I have left all my colleagues here in no doubt about the importance of and value created by our waterways and those who manage them. They are undoubtedly a national treasure and a critical part of our national infrastructure. At the heart of the trust’s success has been the connections it has forged with so many communities along the length of its waterways. We have just heard a first-rate example of that from my hon. Friend. The trust has inspired many to volunteer, and we have heard about that, too. In the past year, the trust’s volunteers gave 700,000 hours, as well as hundreds of partner groups and canal adoptions. Those amazing individuals contribute so much to making the waterways network safe, clean and attractive places for us all to enjoy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

The hon. Member for South Norfolk, the Chairman of the Public Accounts Commission, was asked—

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

8. What plans he has to consider National Audit Office reports on the NHS.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk)]

The majority of National Audit Office reports are considered by the Public Accounts Committee. Earlier this month, the Committee took evidence on the NAO’s recent report “Introducing Integrated Care Systems” and will report on that in due course. My hon. Friend may be interested to know that, today, the National Audit Office has published a report on “Managing NHS backlogs and waiting times in England”. The PAC expects to take evidence on that on 28 November.

[Mr Hollobone]

In 2019-20, the NHS England budget was £124 billion, which has increased this year by 23% to £152 billion. Yet, despite that record extra funding, so far this year the NHS has treated 656,000 fewer patients than during the same period in pre-pandemic 2019—a drop of 5%. Is it the National Audit Office’s view that the NHS has a productivity problem?

[Mr Bacon]

Yes, it is. Indeed, the report published by the NAO today states:

“The NHS now has a problem with reduced productivity.”

NHS England has estimated that, in 2021, the NHS was about 16% less productive than before the pandemic. Some of that, of course, relates directly to the pandemic, but NHS England is also examining other potential causes, including reduced willingness to work overtime. Some of NHS England’s new initiatives such as surgical hubs and the transformation of out-patient services are intended to produce greater productivity. No doubt the National Audit Office will want to examine that in due course.

Cost of Living: Support for Farmers

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

The debate can last until 4 pm. I am obliged to call the Front Benchers no later than 3.27 pm. The guideline limits are 10 minutes for the SNP spokesperson, 10 minutes for Her Majesty’s Opposition and 10 minutes for the Minister. Alicia Kearns will then have three minutes to sum up the debate. Six Members are standing. We are in Back-Bench time until 3.27 pm, so with a seven-minute limit, everybody will be able to have their say.