Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords]

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my right hon. Friend. That shows that we on this side can count, unlike the cockeyed accounting of the Chancellor and her Ministers.

In Committee and beyond, the Conservatives will look to deliver an effective limit on water company borrowing. We will boost the way that nature-based solutions can be used in drainage and sewerage management plans, as well as in water storage and tackling pollution. We will also seek to bring back the water restoration fund as an absolute priority.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Member think it is acceptable that 90-year-old residents in Fillongley in my constituency go out in their wellington boots at night to deal with flooding in their village because her Government did not invest in local solutions for the last 14 years?

[Victoria Atkins]

Of course the constituents’ experience that the hon. Lady has described is not acceptable. I do not think anyone would say that it was. Sometimes the public are switched off by this back and forth, because the idea that anyone would be content with the experience that she has described is for the birds. The difference that we draw on—I hope we will have a much more constructive conversation about water than this—is that the investment that was made by the last Government in flooding has had many benefits across the country but, as I acknowledged at the beginning of my speech, there is more to be done. That is why we will support the Bill, but we will be looking to improve it.

I just want to make sure that the Minister got the point that I was making. The amendment that came from the Lords to improve accountability on debt levels and on the financial structuring of water companies is a critical one, and I very much hope that the Government will address this and set out their commitment to keep that amendment that the noble Lords saw fit to put in the Bill.

As I say, in Committee and beyond, the Conservatives will look to deliver effective and constructive amendments to this Bill, but I put down this marker. It is surprising—and, I have to say, disappointing—that the Government have failed to grasp that water companies and sewage are just two elements in managing, maintaining and improving our waterways and water quality. Where are the plans for investment in infrastructure? Where are the plans for nature-based solutions? Where are the plans for the roles of other businesses? As we face the likelihood of increased bills being announced this week, what guarantees and reassurances can the Government give to bill payers? And what plans do the Government have to separate foul water and surface water systems? That is a critical infrastructure question that I hope we will get some answers to in the coming weeks. How will the Government encourage investment, particularly given the depressive effects on growth that this Chancellor and her Budget are having on the economy?

Fly-tipping

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tristan Osborne]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Around the country, we see community payback initiatives whereby individuals who commit the crime are then sanctioned to go and clear up the mess either in that location or in parks and other green spaces. I think that restorative justice approach is absolutely a solution to this issue. Of course, this problem remains one of the biggest challenges for council enforcement departments, and the causes are multifaceted.

First, there are the economic factors. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned, a key reason people engage in such behaviour is the expense of private waste management companies. People try to avoid disposal fees, and fly-tipping is a convenient alternative. Secondly, we have seen a reduction in waste disposal services; in some areas, councils have had to close household waste recycling services and/or introduce charges. Thirdly, there is a lack of enforcement. Enforcement numbers have been reduced in many council areas due to local government budget cuts and the non-statutory nature of enforcement in councils. In my view there is a correlation between the enforcement potential, the reduction of staff and the increase in fly-tipping.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing this matter to Westminster’s attention. It is something I have already raised on a number of occasions. The frequency of fly-tipping is going up in every location, but in many cases the number of prosecutions is static. In my local authority area, there were nearly 1,000 incidences of fly-tipping last year, but only one prosecution. We have to accept that much of it is carried out by organised criminals, not people trying to dispose of their domestic waste because the tip is closed or it is too difficult to book an appointment. Is it time for the Government to provide more support for local councils so that they can increase their rate of prosecutions and deal with the problem once and for all, rather than leaving residents, farmers and others to clear up the mess?

[Tristan Osborne]

I agree with my hon. Friend. In my local council in Medway there were seven prosecutions in 2022-23, which is extremely high and shows the success in that area, but she is right that it is not the same across the country. Environmental waste carrier licences need to be scrutinised, and where we see illegal activity on a commercial level, the Environment Agency and others need support to engage.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

Thursday 14th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner]

The changes we have made this year are the biggest boost to sustainable farming that this country has seen—that is the agricultural transition. The Liberal Democrats have always been flaky on this issue, and they have never been able to make up their minds what they think about it. We are determined to tackle the extreme climate crisis globally; they seem to think it is not happening.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

2. What steps he plans to take to help tackle fly-tipping.

[Sarah Coombes (West Bromwich) (Lab)]

7. What steps he plans to take to help tackle fly-tipping.

--- Later in debate ---

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

May I begin by wishing His Majesty the King a very happy birthday? I am sure the sentiment is echoed on both sides of the House.

Fly-tipping has increased after years of Conservative failure, leaving a plague of dumped rubbish across our streets, parks and cities and imposing huge costs on taxpayers and businesses. This new Labour Government will end our throwaway society and stop the avalanche of rubbish filling up our streets by increasing recycling rates, reducing waste and cracking down on waste crime.

[Rachel Taylor]

In 2022-23, North Warwickshire borough council recorded 912 incidents of fly-tipping and took 172 investigation actions, yet only one fixed penalty notice was issued. This meant that farmers often picked up the cost of removing the problem, and criminal gangs were allowed to get away scot-free. Does the Minister agree that more must be done by the council to prosecute incidents of fly-tipping?

[Mary Creagh]

I can tell my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour that local authorities have the power to issue fixed penalty notices—on-the-spot fines—of up to £1,000, but one fixed penalty notice is completely inadequate given the scale of the problem she outlined. The low rates of fixed penalty notices and prosecutions mean that this is a consequence-free crime. We are on a mission to improve that, and I hope her council will work with us to improve its record.

Independent Water Commission

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

We certainly know the dire state of our waterways. We also need to know in detail the root and branch reforms required to make the corrections. We will have that from this commission by next summer, and I hope the hon. Lady will take part in that. We need to clean up all of our waterways, including those very important ones to which she refers.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

This weekend, I met the Fillongley flood action group, a small group of brave men and women who, when they receive notifications about floods, put on their waders in the middle of the night and go out and clear a culvert that is not fit for purpose. Will the Secretary of State join me in applauding their efforts? Will he also reassure them that this commission will look across all Departments to see how we can best ensure that those culverts can accommodate the overflow from things such as smart motorways, as I am hearing that the floods have got worse since the M6 was allowed to become a smart motorway. Will it also consider the economic impact on those villages when shops, hairdressers and the local pubs close, sometimes on a permanent basis?

[Steve Reed]

I thank the residents of my hon. Friend’s constituency and those in other constituencies who are taking action for themselves against flooding. We have already set up and held the first meeting of the flood resilience taskforce, which will be seeking to provide better co-ordination between central Government—where the resources are held—and those local agencies on the ground charged with improving work to protect people from the very damaging effects of serious flooding.

Farming and Food Security

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron]

I completely agree with that, and it leads me on to what I was going to say next, which is to praise Michael Gove. The environmental land management scheme created at the beginning of the last Parliament has an awful lot going for it, and there is actually cross-party support for the idea of public money for public goods, as my hon. Friend rightly points out.

I will say this: we have searched high and low for Brexit benefits, and this might be one of them. The common agricultural policy was riddled with all sorts of failures, some of which have been mentioned already. ELMs provide the possibility to have a bespoke farming and cultural environment policy that actually delivers what we want in the places where we want it, and providing environmental goods is absolutely part of that.

However, this positive idea with all-party support was botched by the last Administration. There was a £2.4 billion budget for England alone—eroded, of course, over five years by inflation and all the shocks we have talked about—yet even that pitiful budget, which was frozen by the last Government, was underspent by £358 million. What does that mean? It reduces our ability to feed ourselves as country, to restore nature and to tackle climate change. We did not spend the money not because farmers did not need it, but because of a surplus of complacency from a Conservative party that thought the countryside would always vote for it, because of a lack of care for farmers, their families and their communities, and from a fundamental absence of competence.

My message to the Secretary of State, the Treasury, the Prime Minister, and every Labour MP is this: please do not let the Treasury take financial advantage of Tory incompetence. Do not bake in the underspend. Please, Secretary of State, do not give in to No.11 and No.10. Protect this budget, because without that public money we will not get those public goods. Please fight your corner—[Interruption.] I am pleased to hear him say that he will do so. In fighting his corner, he will be fighting the countryside’s corner, and I want to support him in that.

I would like the Labour party to understand why the Conservatives botched the transition and why the money did not get spent. One of the few efficient things that the previous Administration did was to get rid of the basic payment on time and without any delay. That happened without any problems whatsoever. What did not happen at the same time was the adequate rolling out of new ELMs payments, in particular the sustainable farming incentive. We had a stop-start approach, and many people on historic stewardship schemes for example, were simply not able to get into the SFI.

At the Westmorland county show a few weeks ago I spoke to a youngish hill farmer in his 40s—I mention this particular case because it is so typical of all the others I have spoken about in my constituency and beyond. He said to me that by the end of the process he will have lost £40,000 in basic payments from his annual income. He will gain £14,000 in SFI, and by the way that cost him £6,000 in agent fees. That is a net loss every year of £26,000, and that is typical. That is why there is an underspend. Please do not bake it in. The Secretary of State rightly spoke about mental health, and in this time of flux and change I have never worried more about the mental health of my constituents, and of farmers in particular.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

The suicide rate among male farmers is three times the national average. The Conservative party left rural communities such as mine facing a mental health crisis. A close family friend of mine, Rocky Poulson, took his own life just four days after a farm inspection found that 18 of his sheep were tagged with the wrong coloured ear tags, leaving him facing criminal sanctions and the embarrassment of that among his friends and colleagues—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. May I respectfully suggest to the hon. Lady, and all Members—she should be sitting if I am standing—that interventions should be short, they should be spontaneous, and they certainly should not be read out as if they were part of a speech. I am sure the hon. Lady has made her point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

My grandad was a tenant dairy farmer, and rural communities such as mine feel let down by the Conservative party. I spoke earlier about a close family friend who took his life following a farm inspection. Many farmers who had been let down and forced out of producing food were my clients when I practised as a high-street solicitor in North Warwickshire. They could have done with the £300 million that the Conservative party failed to allocate to the support of rural farmers. They needed a better inspection regime that worked for them and for consumers. I was inspired recently when visiting Aldi, which has its national headquarters in my constituency, because it is passionate about British food and forming good relationships with local farmers.

The agriculture and food industry sector contributes £148 billion to the economy, and provides 4.2 million jobs in the UK, including many jobs in my constituency. However, the Conservative party created a cost of living crisis that forced families to buy less fresh food, particularly vegetables, because they could not afford it. That squeezed our local farmers further. Because the last Government did not prioritise energy or food security, farmers were crippled by escalating energy prices, and animal feed and fertiliser prices. The last Government’s chop-and-change approach to rolling out environmental land management schemes left farmers reeling with uncertainty, and it is no wonder that they and their representatives are looking to this Government for much-needed reassurance. We need to reassure our farmers and give them the confidence to invest for the future. We need to make sure that they know that this Government have their back.

Rural and freight crime in my constituency, like many others, has become intolerable. The Conservative party left rural criminals to roam free, with crime in rural areas spiralling out of control. Farmers are losing valuable equipment essential to the running of their businesses, and to add insult to injury, they are often the ones left to clear up fly-tipping. I am glad to be part of a party and a Government taking rural crime seriously with a cross-Government rural crime strategy that is the first of its kind. This strategy will crack down on issues such as fly-tipping and antisocial behaviour that affect rural communities such as mine.

I am looking forward—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. The time is up, I am afraid.

Waste Crime: Staffordshire

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Snell]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is almost as if she has read the script in front of me, because she has perfectly lined me up for my next point, which is about the link between illegal dumping, fly-tipping in communities and the wider connection to organised crime and money making. Another report from Unchecked UK, published in 2022, pointed out that enforcement against fly-tipping was at a 10-year low, while the number of incidents of fly-tipping was at a 10-year high. There is a growing chasm between what is happening on the ground and the activities that perpetrators are being punished for and prevented from carrying out.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

I am in the neighbouring county of Warwickshire —we share many borders with Staffordshire—and fly-tipping is at an all-time high in my constituency. Much of that is from organised crime from the neighbouring boroughs of Tamworth, Coventry and Birmingham. They come along the M42, the M6 or the A5 and dump waste in the entrances to farms in the middle of the night.

That was the biggest issue that was raised when I recently met the National Farmers’ Union in my area. It is also the No. 1 issue raised by our local rural crime service, but it is not taken seriously by the police and crime commissioner for Warwickshire, and neither is any funding spent on advising people not to use the white vans that parade the streets offering to remove their waste. Reports of fly-tipping are the No. 1 thing I see every day on my local Facebook page. Because no money is spent on publicity, people have no idea where they should report these crimes—whether it is the local authority, the Environment Agency or the police. There has to be more joined-up working, and I would like to see the Minister leading that.

[Martin Vickers (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind hon. Members that interventions should be a little shorter than that.