Oral Answers to Questions

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to help protect communities against flooding.

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

The Government are investing a record £5.2 billion to better protect 336,000 properties from flooding and coastal erosion over the next six years. Alongside that, we recently announced that 25 areas will receive a share of a further £150 million for particularly innovative projects dealing with flood resilience and pioneering many things that we think we will learn lessons from. Our long-term policy statement outlines our ambition to create a nation more resilient to flooding and coastal erosion and we are taking a whole range of actions to forward that.

[Henry Smith [V]]

I pay tribute to this Government for the significant flood mitigation investment that has been delivered. What discussions has my right hon. Friend the Environment Secretary had with our right hon. Friend the Communities Secretary about not building new homes on flood-risk areas, such as the proposed west of Ifield development?

[Rebecca Pow]

As my hon. Friend will know, national planning policy provides clear safeguards for protecting people and property from flooding, and the national planning policy framework is very clear that inappropriate development in areas at risk of flooding should be avoided by directing development away from areas at the highest risk. Where development is necessary in such areas, that development should be made safe for its lifetime without increasing flood risk elsewhere, and should be appropriately flood-resilient.

[Jonathan Gullis [V]]

Residents of Norton Green and their local ward councillors, Dave Evans, James Smith and Carl Edwards, have regularly raised the issue of flooding. The River Trent and the canal feeder to the Caldon canal both run through Norton Green, yet the river is hardly ever dredged. The river is the responsibility of the Environment Agency, and the canal feeder is the responsibility of Severn Trent Water. If those two agencies co-ordinated their work, they could help to alleviate the problem, so will my hon. Friend work with me to ensure that the Environment Agency and Severn Trent Water undertake regular dredging to help to improve the lives of Norton Green residents?

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend is a doughty spokesman for his constituency, and rightly so. I encourage all relevant risk-management authorities to work together on watercourse maintenance, for the benefit of Norton Green’s residents in this case. Of course, responsibilities lie with a range of bodies, including the Environment Agency, which is responsible for the main rivers; lead local flood authorities or internal drainage boards, which are responsible for ordinary watercourses; and riparian landowners whose land adjoins a watercourse. My hon. Friend could usefully get all those heads together so that people can work constructively, as they are in many parts of the country, to deal with our flooding issues and keep our communities safe.

[James Wild]

This year the Burnhams, the Creakes and other villages in North West Norfolk suffered flooding that resulted in sewage coming up through manhole covers due to water infiltrating the sewer system. Things got so bad that foul water had to be pumped into one of our precious chalk streams, so will the Minister ensure that the Environment Agency holds Anglian Water to account so that it puts in place plans and investment to ensure that that does not happen again?

[Rebecca Pow]

That is a scenario that nobody wants to see repeated. I hope my hon. Friend knows that I am championing his cause, as are the Government. Tackling the harm caused by sewer overflows into rivers, particularly chalk streams, is a top priority for the Government. That is why we established a storm overflows taskforce, made up of the Government, the water industry, regulators and environmental groups, which has set a long-term goal to eliminate harm from storm overflows. The group is considering the problems caused by infiltration, which my hon. Friend mentioned, and last month we announced plans to introduce legislation to address these things. We are moving on this.

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to tackle plastic waste.

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

We are committed to tackling plastic pollution. We have introduced a ban, with a few very specific exemptions, on the supply of plastic straws, stirrers and cotton buds, and reduced single-use plastic carrier bag usage by 95% in the main supermarkets through the 5p charge. This is a great day, and I am pleased my hon. Friend has chosen to raise this subject today, because we are debating increasing the charge to 10p and extending it to all retailers, and we are seeking powers in the Environment Bill to charge for single-use plastic items, making recycling more consistent.

[Jacob Young]

Plastic waste is a huge problem in coastal communities such as mine, but does the Minister agree that it is not that plastic is the problem but that waste is the problem and we should do all we can to tackle waste? To that end, will she come to Redcar and Cleveland, when restrictions allow, to visit the new site for ReNew ELP at Wilton, which began construction last month and where revolutionary hydrothermal technology will be used to turn hard-to-recycle plastics back into their component oils, allowing them to be reused?

[Rebecca Pow]

There is another doughty spokesman for his constituency. My hon. Friend has spoken to me about this matter before. It is vital that we tackle plastic waste by taking a holistic approach, which includes increasing reuse and recycling, in line with our ambition to transition to a more circular economy. More work is required to understand where chemical recycling represents the best outcome for waste and to assess any unintended consequences, but I welcome the invitation and the chance to visit the ReNew ELP site. He should contact my office, and, when time permits, I would be delighted to visit.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

It is good to be here in the Chamber and see you face to face today, Mr Speaker.

The Joint Unit for Waste Crime is an important component of the fight against waste, fly-tipping and littering. The Peterstone Wentlooge area of Newport West is a good example of an area in dire need of action from this unit, as the “road to nowhere” there, as it is known, is blighted by fly-tipping, including of noxious substances and chemicals. Clean-up costs for more than 1 million fly-tips cost the taxpayer £58 million in 2017-18, the last time the Department published details of clean-up costs. This Government have pushed councils to the brink and removed the funding needed to tackle fly-tipping, so will the Minister tell the House when this Government will finally take the action needed to protect this green and pleasant land?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and I am sorry to hear about that road to nowhere. I would hate my constituency to be described as the “road to nowhere”. I understand what she is getting at, but this Government are tackling litter. We have a whole policy on tackling litter and I have been meeting Keep Britain Tidy regularly to discuss what more we can do. We have had a lot of campaigns, including “Keep it, Bin it”, which has been extremely effective, and we will be working further on measures. We relaunched the countryside code and added to it during lockdown to cut down on the amount of litter that is dumped, and this has had a significant effect. Local authorities have all of their measures that they can put in place—they can take people to court and people can get hefty fines—but they need to take action with the measures at hand.

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to improve the domestic inspection process for flowering bulbs imported from the EU.

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[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

What discussions he has had with local authorities on preventing toxic air pollutants from affecting children’s health.

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

Ministers regularly engage with local authorities to discuss air quality and assess their air-quality plans. I recently met elected representatives from Greater Manchester, Bath and North East Somerset, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stoke, and we have made £225 million available to local authorities, via the active travel fund, to deliver safe cycling and walking routes, including school streets. As we review the air-quality strategy, we will include measures specifically to protect children from pollution.

[Tony Lloyd [V]]

The death of nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah was a family tragedy, but it was made a public scandal when the coroner decided some time ago that her death was caused by air pollution, which was shocking. Yesterday, the coroner decided in his most recent report that there is no safe level of air pollution and called on the Government to bring our air-quality standards up to the World Health Organisation recommended levels, which would mean a significant reduction in pollution. Will the Minister tell the House whether the Government accept that recommendation? If not, we are literally putting the lives of our children at risk.

[Rebecca Pow]

We are of course taking this issue extremely seriously, and all our sympathies go out to Ella’s family. In fact, the Secretary of State and I were pleased to meet Ella’s mother—for which we thank her—and we listened closely to what she said. The coroner’s report was published yesterday and we will respond in due course. The points made are being taken extremely seriously.

Through our landmark Environment Bill, we will introduce a duty to set a long-term air-quality target and an exposure target. To do that, we are meeting all the scientists and academics and all those who can inform us as to exactly the right level to set. We understand that air pollution is a killer and we need to take it very seriously. A £3.8 million air clean-up programme is under way and we are working hard to ensure that that money is targeted at the places where it is needed.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

In the Committee on the missing-in-action and elusive Environment Bill, Labour tried to write the World Health Organisation air-quality guidelines into the Bill. Unsurprisingly, the Tories voted us down. Yesterday, in response to the devastating death of Ella Kissi-Debrah in 2013, the coroner published a prevention of future deaths report that recommended that the Government should view the World Health Organisation guidelines for air pollution “as minimum requirements”, because all particulate matter is harmful. The coroner has given a clear recommendation and clearly stated that it would save lives, so when will the Minister commit to setting a PM_2.5 target that is at least in line with the World Health Organisation guidelines?

[Rebecca Pow]

The report highlights that there is no safe limit of PM_2.5, which is why it is so important that we get it right. That is why we are taking so much advice on it. The WHO has acclaimed our clean air strategy as world leading and

“an example for the rest of the world to follow”.

It sets out the steps that we are starting to take to improve air quality. The Environment Bill will introduce a duty to set a long-term target on air quality and an exposure target, which nobody has done before. We will give the issue all the attention it deserves.

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

What his Department’s policy is on the use of neonicotinoids in agriculture.