Rivers Authorities and Land Drainage Bill (First sitting)

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Committee Debate: House of Commons
Monday 11th March 2019 Public Bill Committees

[David Warburton]

I absolutely agree. The point of the rivers authority is the central co-ordination of risk management authorities, which will ensure that people are not operating in separate areas and attacking things in a disco-ordinated way. It is about co-ordination and bringing things together to plan strategically.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I applaud my hon. Friend for introducing this Bill. I am a fellow Somerset MP, and this is much needed after the devastating flooding that we all experienced and never want to see again. I praise him and the Environment Minister for their involvement with this. The key is that we now do not have to have a shadow precept. The Bill ensures money and financing so we can tackle flood risk reduction work properly and get an environmental gain from it. That will now be on a much firmer footing, and we can guarantee that it will not stop.

[David Warburton]

My hon. Friend is precisely right. It is about planning for the future, and sustainability in the Somerset Rivers Authority. At the moment, it lives from hand to mouth and the local authority pays it voluntarily. Although £2.5 million of taxpayers’ money goes into it, it has no certainty about whether that will continue in five years, three years and so on. The Bill provides that certainty and the safety that the residents of Somerset deserve.

As I said, if there are gaps in the local plan, the rivers authority must publish a plan of proposed additional flood risk management work, which must supplement the work that existing risk management authorities have already planned to carry out. That will help ensure that work is not left for a rivers authority to pick up on another body’s behalf. The rivers authority can then either fund a relevant risk management authority to do the additional work, or contract someone else to carry out the work on its behalf.

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[Dr Coffey]

To answer the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, internal drainage boards operate in a quite different way. Effectively, cash comes from local councils, which appoint people to them, and there are people who have to pay the drainage rates—that relates to agricultural land. They carry out their own elections and make decisions together. The local businesses will be ones that are concerned with agricultural land, and they run their own election process. I hope that that provides the hon. Gentleman with some reassurance.

I am conscious of the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness that there is not a separate way of accounting for the item in question on the council tax bill. I am sure he recognises that it is not possible under the Bill to change the existing arrangements by which councils might want to show clearly how money is raised, or, indeed, other aspects of the referendum. However, I assure him that if people in his area, working with the councils, want to come forward on the matter of a rivers authority, it would be open to them to do so if they believed that the benefits would outweigh those of their current arrangement.

I reiterate that the Government support the changes. In my area the East Suffolk internal drainage board operates exceptionally well and, with the de-maining pilot, will take on further responsibilities for certain rivers in the area, with no extra cost to councils or indeed agricultural landowners. I believe that IDBs are generally a force for good. They are a key part of the Cumbria flood action plan.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the Minister for injecting her expertise and local knowledge into the debate. Does she agree that the Somerset IDBs do a complicated job representing landowners, as well as a great job on the conservation front? What is amazing about the Somerset levels is that they are an internationally famous wetland site and the largest area of lowland wetland grassland in the UK. Huge populations of wading birds come there. We have three IDBs in Somerset and they have just jointly produced a biodiversity action plan. It is all part and parcel of why we need to control the water and why the Bill is so important. It is not just about people and businesses, but about wildlife.

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which just goes to show how committed farmers and landowners are to improving and enhancing the natural environment in whatever way they can. The flow of water can have a significant impact on nature, and not only in landlocked areas. Members with coastal constituencies will be aware of saltmarsh and intertidal habitats that are critical for the conservation of many special species. I agree with my hon. Friend and support the work going on in Somerset.

Water Industry

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Thomas]

The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point. Given that we are in the middle of the latest pricing review, if Ministers had the gumption they could put pressure on Ofwat to use its existing powers to bear down on those exact issues. I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s general point that we need a full review of the powers available to Ofwat. I am sure that they need to be increased.

Thames Water’s credit rating is the worst in the industry, according to Standard & Poor’s. Thames Water’s tax bill also declined during the period in question, as it regularly paid no corporation tax on its £1.8 billion turnover. Thames Water is, by its own admission, failing to meet targets to reduce the number of properties experiencing chronic low water pressure; failing to reduce the number of complaints; and wasting almost 700 million litres of water annually through leakage. It is failing to meet basic standards in 17 out of 41 key areas. That dismal record also includes record fines for poor performance.

In comparison, Scottish Water, which is publicly owned, has debt levels 5% lower than 17 years ago; its interest payments have remained consistent; and, with no dividends having been paid out, all the profit has been reinvested. It is worth pointing out that, adjusted for leakage per kilometre of pipes, Scottish Water performs just as well as an average English company, with 10.2k litres of leakage per kilometre as opposed to 22.1k for Thames Water, 10.8k for United Utilities and 9.5k for Yorkshire Water.

Thames Water is not alone in poor performance. In truth, more than 20% of all water is currently lost through leakages from water pipes. In total, it is estimated that some 7.5 trillion litres of water has been lost through leakage, which is equivalent to the total volume of water currently in Loch Ness.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case against the water companies. The issue of leakage seriously needs to be addressed. Something like 1,273 Olympic-size swimming pools-worth of water is leaked daily because water pipes have not been addressed. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has rattled the cages of the water companies, to improve their performance, and they have set out in a new plan that they will reduce leakage by 16%. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that should not be done voluntarily and that there should potentially be stronger regulation?

[Gareth Thomas]

I find myself in the slightly unusual position of agreeing almost completely with the hon. Lady. Leakage is a huge problem. Much tougher regulation by Ofwat in particular, and ultimately an increase in the regulator’s powers, are required to bear down on the shocking levels of leakage, not least because the Environment Agency has said publicly that England and Wales could suffer major water shortages by 2030. The agency also noted that enough water to meet the needs of 20 million people is lost every day through leakage, which surely further supports her significant point.

To be frank, in the past Ofwat has not demanded enough investment from water companies, given the scale of the rise in customer bills. It appears to have been asleep at the wheel under various leadership teams. The Public Accounts Committee, which looked at regulation of the water industry as far back as 2015, criticised Ofwat for overestimating costs and poor benchmarking of efficiency, resulting in higher bills for customers.

The hon. Lady also made the point that even the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs suggested in March last year that water companies have not been acting in the public interest. Granted, the Secretary of State’s criticism came a month after a detailed critique of the water industry by the shadow Chancellor; nevertheless, the Secretary of State’s criticism is welcome.

As I indicated earlier, the latest price review is under way and already the Consumer Council for Water is concerned that Ofwat’s grand promises are unlikely to be met, with

“companies bidding for significant rewards for performance levels that aren’t particularly stretching”.

In part, prices are decided by the cost of equity and the cost of debt, plus investors’ expected UK tax burden. In my view, Ofwat should reduce the cost of equity in its calculations while maintaining fair treatment on debt finance for genuine capital investment. In short, Ofwat should drive down the profit that the owners of water companies make. It should also scrutinise the tax behaviour of those owners, to crack down on tax avoidance, and demand that owners do not use tax havens to receive the profits from our water companies. Lastly, every English water customer should see their bills reduced after 30 years of being used as cash cows by the owners of water companies. It is time that consumers and their pockets were treated better.

In October last year, the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs suggested that an independent review to determine whether the water industry was fit for purpose was required. The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management went further, suggesting that such a review needed to examine the ownership of water companies. The Select Committee also raised concerns about the powers available to Ministers and Ofwat to improve governance and prevent pollution. With climate change approaching and a creaking infrastructure, the Committee argued that the need for change was urgent.

For some of the reasons that I have set out, there is growing concern about the ownership model in the water industry, and there are alternatives to the current privatised system. Long-term alternatives that the Government should consider include, in particular, a mutual approach, with democratic public ownership by consumers and employees, modelled on the success of Welsh Water and inspired by other similar success stories. Welsh Water, or Glas Cymru, does not pay dividends to shareholders, and yet it operates in the private sector. It has an ownership model that forces it always to operate in the interest of its customers and it has changed the way in which it raises finance, in order to reduce the cost of credit.

Welsh Water now has the strongest credit ratings in the water industry, which reduces its financing costs and allows for even more future investment in its infrastructure and services. Customer bills have been reduced steadily in real terms and so far it has returned about £180 million to customers in the form of customer dividends. In addition, it has provided some £10 million of support for vulnerable and low-income customers, through social tariffs and an assistance fund.

The first step on that path for the water industry in England, so that it can match and then go further than Welsh Water, would be the formation of consumer and employee trusts. These trusts would have the power to appoint non-executive directors to water company boards, and they would have access to independent advice from management, so that they can make well-informed and independent decisions.

Ofwat should discourage investment in the water industry that requires a fast return to the owners of expensive equity. Instead, it should steer water companies towards the lower-cost debt market, with responsible investors such as public sector pension funds, whose interests are aligned with those of the water sector and whose investment could help to ensure that there is a modern, resilient water infrastructure.

Over the longer term, as equity investors seek to sell up because they recognise that they can no longer make a fast buck, consumer and employee trusts could use bond issues to buy those equity investors’ stakes in the business. These trusts would need to be underwritten by a buffer, or internal equity reserves, to borrow against. That could be achieved through a Government guarantee on loans or debt, to ensure that any large unexpected investment needs will be met, and to ensure that if anything should go awry, lenders are in a first loss position. Similar initiatives already take place in other areas of Government policy. Government guarantees could be replaced over time through the accumulation of non-distributed reserves, or of retained profit, by the trusts.

As the ownership of water companies changes, legislation should be passed to embed the not-for-profit principle. The new not-for-profit water companies would also require protection, with an asset lock to prevent demutualisation in the future. Consumer and employee trusts—like those at Nationwide, John Lewis and other mutuals—would enable customers and the workforce to have an active role in the key decisions taken by their organisation. The board would include employee and customer directors, and the trust membership would enable members—including consumers—to vote for board members, and to agree audit, remuneration and company governance decisions, as well as how profits are invested or distributed.

Ofwat should be given new powers to ensure that water companies encourage employee and customer participation in the democratic process. The new employee and consumer trusts should also have a role in the scrutiny and decision making of Ofwat, with a scrutiny panel that reviews the operations of the regulator, led by consumers, and also playing a role in Ofwat’s appointments to its board.

In conclusion, comparisons of public ownership and private ownership of the water industry do not come out favourably for England’s privatised water companies. They do not look like they are committed to environmental investment and the other challenges facing the water industry. The latest price review should herald the beginning of the transformation to new not-for-profit owners—the very consumers and employees who depend on the services of the water industry. Public ownership works in Scotland and the model for mutual transformation of the rest of the water industry works in Wales. It is time that there was new ownership of the water companies in England, and I commend the mutual model to the House.

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[Richard Benyon]

I can come on to talk about suggestions that I think have some virtue, particularly employee share ownership schemes. As with everything, there is no perfect right or absolute wrong; there is a massive area of grey, and I will explore some of the nuances, on which I think we can perhaps find some agreement.

On the model of nationalisation I have heard certain individuals speak about at Momentum rallies, I think about the head of a nationalised utility company going to see the Chancellor to plead for more infrastructure investment funds, only to be told, “Get in the queue behind the NHS, welfare, policing and schools”—the long list of public spending priorities that come before something that is now funded privately and by institutional investors. Let us consider some facts. Since privatisation, water companies in England and Wales have spent about £150 billion on improvements to the water service. That is infrastructure that had been absolutely ignored by public expenditure before it was put into the private sector. The companies now spend about £8 billion a year continuing with those improvements.

When I was water Minister, I met institutional investors and saw that the regulated utility sector is an extremely popular place for people to invest, including for pension funds—the people who pay the pensions of people in the public sector. I welcome the fact that sovereign wealth funds and overseas investors want to invest in the United Kingdom. They do so because it is a stable and relatively low-yielding but relatively secure investment.

[Rebecca Pow]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that water companies are already getting involved in good environmental projects, to clean the water, work with landowners and make it so that the water needs less treatment? With that interest in sustainability and many more people wanting to engage in green investment, does he foresee the opportunities expanding, particularly as under the Agriculture Bill we will be paying for public services, the public good and the need to protect our land more?

[Richard Benyon]

As water Minister, I pushed the concept of payment for ecosystem services, which was against Ofwat’s institutional view at the time, though I am happy to say that it has moved on. It liked the idea of a regulated asset—of measuring the quality of the water coming in at one end and going out at the other, and judging whether the asset was working. I would say, “Try to let a thousand flowers bloom.” Some of them would fail, but building that relationship between a water company and land managers upstream, and paying them to help to produce better quality water, is the sort of thing I am glad to say is now becoming the welcome norm across the sector.

[Rebecca Pow]

I meant to mention an excellent project I have visited. Upstream Thinking, run by South West Water, is a phenomenal example of exactly how that is working.

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[Richard Benyon]

I do not know the circumstances in Scotland, so I can only speculate, but that is another country that is not short of water, as many parts of this country are. I just think that we need to look at what the customers are saying, and my impression is that customers are not shrinking violets. When I came into this House in 2005, my inbox was overflowing with complaints about Thames Water’s customer service, which made me realise that water is an absolute necessity of life. It is the first thing that people will complain about; it is something that we perhaps rely on too much, and use too much of, in the area of the country in which I live. However, the idea that customers are somehow not involved in and concerned with raising these issues is wrong. When they are asked about them, they give quite interesting responses.

[Rebecca Pow]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Richard Benyon]

Let me just finish this point. A recent ComRes survey shows that 86% of customers trust their water company overall, with 89% trusting it to provide good-quality water and 87% trusting it to provide a reliable service. Those are levels of satisfaction that we as a political class can only dream of.

Will my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) be very quick? I know that other Members want to speak.

[Rebecca Pow]

Does my right hon. Friend think that there is still a role for customers in reducing their water consumption? Water is a precious resource, and we are probably using more than we ought to.

[Richard Benyon]

Yes, we need to do more. When compared with other European countries, we are absolute laggards: we use much too much water, wash our cars with potable, drinking-quality water, and do all kinds of things that we should not. We have to change our lives, and I hope the Minister will be able to inform us about what will be happening in that area in the future.

On the topic of dividends, which is a key point, Ofwat says that each company’s licence requires it to declare or pay dividends

“only in accordance with a dividend policy which has been approved by its Board and which complies with both of the following principles.

The dividends declared or paid will not impair the ability of the company to finance the regulated water and sewerage business.

Under a system of incentive regulation, dividends reward efficiency and the management of economic risk.”

In the past, some companies have certainly played a bit fast and loose with those principles, and have developed levels of gearing that I, as a manager of a small business when I entered DEFRA, found quite eye-watering. However, the hon. Member for Harrow West does tend to pick on the bad players, and in talking about Thames Water, he was perhaps not talking about the Thames Water of today. He might have been talking about a model that applied under previous ownership, and I urge him to look more closely at what Thames Water is trying to achieve today.

We should encourage companies to look at employee share ownership schemes. That whole concept of finding ways to democratise capital is a huge, rich seam that we could collectively work on. Water companies are good places to encourage not just employees, but customers, to develop a higher interest in the ownership of that company, which is a better way to get more people involved without damaging any investment potential. I worry about Labour’s proposals for nationalisation right across the sector. It recently published its plans in a publication called “Clear Water”, but stopped short of explaining how the big challenges faced by the water industry, such as climate change and an increasing population, would be addressed by its substantial re-organisation of structures and ownerships. That publication makes no attempt to acknowledge the many improvements made since privatisation in 1989, let alone the further benefits such as falling bills, improved services and increased investment that companies have set out for the future.

If water is nationalised, it could seriously damage the service and quality of water in England. It could create a future in which decisions are driven primarily by short-term political expediency rather than the needs of customers, and in which the high levels of investment needed to improve services are not sustained. The result would be bad for customers, bad for the environment, and bad for the economy.

Fisheries Bill

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 21st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. As we leave the CFP, there is an opportunity to reallocate quota. We have already seen a reallocation, with a 13% uplift for the under-10 metre fleet under this Government. There is a crucial point to make: some of the quota that is necessarily allocated is allocated for the types of stocks—pelagic stocks—of which the under- 10 metre fleet, simply because of the nature of where those fish are found, would be poorly placed to take advantage. So he is absolutely right to say there is a case for reform, but a significant amount of quota could not, at this stage, be allocated in the way that he might suggest.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

rose—

[Michael Gove]

I am keen to allow my hon. Friend, who has shown remarkable patience, the chance to intervene.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the Secretary of State for allowing me to intervene and not avoiding me altogether. We have talked about a “bonanza” of fish and about recreational fishing, but will he give assurances that we will not bend from our standards on sustainability? After all, we are talking about a wild harvest; fishermen have to make money, but they cannot make it unless the stocks are sustainable. Does he also agree that the Bill has included references to the 25-year environment plan and the nature capital approach and that this is the right way to go, demonstrating that our Government have the environment and sustainability at their heart?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we adhere to the principles behind the maximum sustainable yield. The early clauses in this Bill set out clear principles by which any Secretary of State must be bound in order to put the environment and sustainability first. More than that, as we all know, under the CFP we have not had policies that put the environment first. Now, as an independent coastal state, we can work with organisations ranging from Greenpeace to Charles Clover’s Blue Marine Foundation to ensure that we have a policy that is right environmentally and right economically.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The balance between the two is delicate. What we must do is recycle more.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I commend the Government on banning microbeads, but may I urge them to now turn their attention to microfibres, Mr Speaker? I do not know whether Mrs Speaker does the washing, but every time we do a wash, 700,000 microfibres could go down the drain. I am joining the Women’s Institute to host an event on this in Parliament on 30 October; will the Minister join us?

[Mr Speaker]

I always feel better informed, and almost improved as a human being, when I hear the hon. Lady offer her disquisitions on these important matters.

Agriculture Bill

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Wednesday 10th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sue Hayman]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point.

I would like to think about health, because the Bill fails to recognise the importance of food and diet for health. Why, when we spend so much money subsidising our food producers, are so many of them on the verge of bankruptcy or breakdown? Why is there so much wasted food when foodbank demand has never been higher? While the quality of our home-produced food has never been higher, why do we have an epidemic of obesity and diabetes? The Bill completely misses the opportunity to tackle those problems. We need a Bill that strengthens and enshrines support for sustainable food production, promotes healthy outcomes and supports rural economies, because we believe that access to good-quality, healthy food must not be allowed to become the preserve of only those who can afford it.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

Given the shadow Minister’s concern about these issues—green Brexit, food, food waste and all those things—it is interesting that she was not given a major slot on the main stage at the Labour conference. In my meetings, I have not come across a single environmentalist or farmer who does not support the initiatives in the Bill.

[Sue Hayman]

The hon. Lady may recall that the Leader of the Opposition discussed the environment and issues connected with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in his speech.

All over the world, nearly all farmers are supported financially to produce food, and our farmers must be able to compete with them, but to do so they will need the right financial and policy framework so that they are not disadvantaged in a competitive and volatile global marketplace. We need to move away from the current system of direct payments, but if we are to bring in land management contracts, they need to be accessible. The recent delivery of payments to farmers and landowners has been poor, and the hoops that have to be jumped through put many people off signing up in the first place. We need to ensure that the agencies are adequately resourced—only then can they properly help the farmers who need the support that subsidies provide.

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[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Having spent a lifetime immersed in both the environment and farming—I grew up on a farm—this, for me, is a very exciting moment. It is an opportunity to rethink our land use policy. It is a chance to build on the health of our environment, from soil to water to air, and to set ourselves on track to produce healthy, sustainable food and reset the biodiversity gauge.

Given that a quarter of all agricultural holdings are in the south-west, producing a third of the nation’s beef and lamb, the proposals are really important for our farmers, too. They are possible only because we are leaving the EU, and they have become a reality because the Government are putting not just their aspirations, but their financial support behind this endeavour.

As other colleagues have mentioned, the Bill is very much a framework Bill, which provides the finances and the tools for us to transition out of the common agricultural policy and gives us the chance to have a dialogue in every relevant area. We can now design our own tailor-made approach and not be dictated to by 27 other countries in the joint system that we have been part of. That system has often not been suited to the UK, but to get the money—all £4 billion of it—our farmers and landowners have had to accept the system. Who would not? Who could blame them?

[Dr Whitford]

Does the hon. Lady recognise that the same issue exists within the United Kingdom, in that the land in Scotland, which makes up one third of the UK land mass, is utterly different from that being farmed on the south coast of England?

[Rebecca Pow]

The hon. Lady makes a good point, but the new Bill will allow us to tailor our approach to suit every part of the UK. Wales is taking this opportunity, and schedule 3 states clearly what it will do. Interestingly, we have not heard from Scotland yet.

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

The real risk to Scottish farmers is the fact that the SNP Scottish Government have failed to opt in to this Bill and failed to introduce a Bill in the Scottish Parliament to allow Scottish farmers to get the support they will desperately need after Brexit. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is the SNP who are letting Scottish farmers down?

[Rebecca Pow]

Our Scottish Conservative colleagues provide strong representation for farmers. Farming is very important to Scotland, which is a rural area. The SNP and the Scottish Parliament have really missed an opportunity to get their details down on paper so that they can play a full role in the really exciting future that this Government are creating. If it were not for the Conservative Government and our coming out of Europe—I say this even though I was a remainer—we would not have this great opportunity.

Crucially, the essence of the Bill is to move away from making payments simply for the privilege of owning land, as has been mentioned, and towards the concept of paying for public goods. That is the cornerstone of the Bill, and it is absolutely the right thing to do. The basic idea of receiving money for doing something for the public good has met with universal approval, not just from farmers but from environmentalists and right across the board with everybody I have met in Taunton Deane so far. That is true of improving the quality of our water—currently, only 14% of our rivers are classed as clean, which is absolutely shocking; planting more trees to help to reduce the speed of run-off from the hills to the Somerset levels, which will help to reduce the terrible flooding that we have had over many years; and creating new habitats to improve biodiversity and reverse the catastrophic declines in plant and animal populations that we have witnessed in our own lifetimes, as the 2016 “State of Nature” report clearly sets out.

In many cases, EU agricultural policy has been the driver for those wildlife declines, with the loss of mixed farming—grass is so important to that, as it was on the farm where I grew up—less rotation, fewer hedgerows and increased pesticide use. The increased use of pesticides has reduced the quantity of plants on which foraging insects rely; indeed, we rely on those insects to pollinate our crops. The Bill offers an opportunity for new schemes that emphasise the protection of biodiversity and help to redress those losses. Habitat creation schemes such as the one run on West Sedgemoor by the RSPB, which is producing tasty beef, creating summer water meadows and bringing back the snipe—I am proud to be the RSPB snipe champion—are really working. The Bill offers the opportunity to build on such schemes, which I welcome.

There is, however, one thing that I must ask the Minister. If farmers and environmental groups are already involved in environmental stewardship schemes, will those schemes still operate following the implementation of the Bill? Will they be allowed to run their course, or will they end with those groups then having to apply for new schemes?

The Minister will not be at all surprised to learn that I am now going to mention soil, because I have bent his ear on the subject many times. Half the soils in the east of the country are likely to become unproductive within a decade. That was highlighted in our Environmental Audit Committee report—and I see that the Committee’s Chairperson, the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), is in the Chamber. Soil erosion is a very serious issue, as is the fact that soil has been treated as a growing medium rather than a living habitat for far too long. I therefore welcome the priority that the Bill gives to soil health, and I was pleased that the Minister came to the launch of the Sustainable Soil Alliance in the House. I hope that the work that it is doing to advise on how we could monitor soil erosion or set targets to address it might influence the way in which payments are made.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is a true soil evangelist, but the Government have already signed up to a target in the Paris agreement to increase soil carbon content by four parts per 1,000 every year in order to sequester more carbon into our soil. Does the hon. Lady agree that that is a public good that should be funded and subsidised through the Bill?

[Rebecca Pow]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. As she knows, I am passionate about this issue. We need to have a conversation about all our climate change targets, including the potential net zero target that some people are talking about. The question of targets is very important: how can we pay unless we know what we are paying for? The targets that we set for the climate change commitments have worked well, and a similar model might chime with the 25-year plan and the forthcoming environment Act. I believe that many of the details will go into that Bill rather than this framework Agriculture Bill.

Payments relating to our natural heritage and culture are very welcome. My constituency contains two areas of natural beauty where people are pleading that landscape, and landscape beauty, be included in the Bill.

The Government’s commitment to funding until 2022 and for the transition period demonstrates our ongoing support for the countryside. That is obviously important, given that two thirds of farm incomes in the south-west are currently derived from basic payments. I know the Minister understands that. However, I would like to see a further commitment to future funding. God forbid that we ever change Government, but the production of beef or horticultural crops cannot be switched on like a light bulb, and farmers would like some long-term commitment.

Although the Bill does not directly list food as a public good, it does much to enable the efficient production of food. My local farmers welcome the data-gathering elements in the Bill, although, for the purpose of transparency, they would like supermarkets to be included, as well as the manufacturers and producers along the line—not just the raw-material producers. However, I welcome the data collection, and I stand by the Secretary of State’s commitment to maintaining our high food standards. That is crucial to the future. I look forward to the creation of an overarching environmental standards body—in, I believe, the environment Bill—which will hold people to account.

Let me say penultimately that, much as we love our Welsh farming colleagues—indeed, many of them come to Somerset to trade at our markets, especially Sedgemoor market, and they are very welcome—no one wants an internal competitive market to develop as a result of the flexibility offered to Welsh farmers. I am sure the Minister understands what I mean by that.

In conclusion—and thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to speak—let me say that the Bill heralds the most significant change in our land use for decades, with the finances to underpin it. It is the Conservatives who are leading the way in that regard, for farming and for the environment. I am confident that issues relating to the environment, farming and everything to do with our rural communities will dovetail in the Bill. It is absolutely the right way forward for a sustainable and healthy future. Not one of those elements can survive without the others, and on that note, I give the Bill, and all those who have worked so hard on it, my full support.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Animal Welfare

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend makes a good point: a national register would be good. I would like to see this go further, too. In the United States, a lot of work is done on linking animal cruelty to human cruelty within the home, and I think the two need to be linked much more. It often does not take long to go from treating an animal cruelly—especially beating an animal to death—to starting to beat people up; we have to wake up to that.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I applaud my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He touches on a pertinent point: there are stark statistics proving that people who abuse animals often go on to abuse humans—and indeed it can happen at the same time, of course. A register would therefore be very beneficial in helping tackle what is a much bigger social problem.

[Neil Parish]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for that intervention; she is an excellent Select Committee member. She makes the point about getting that link; when finding cruelty to animals we should make much more of a link to investigating what is happening in the home, to see whether there is much more going on than just the cruelty to the animal. We must open our eyes to what is happening. Most people look after animals very well, but of course those who do not can be incredibly cruel, and we need to tackle that.

I was surprised and disappointed that the Government rejected the recommendation for a higher maximum sentence of five years, and I again ask the Minister to go back to the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice to see whether we can get it increased, because six months is too low.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

I wish to thank the Backbench Business Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) and the EFRA Committee for putting animal welfare on the agenda in Parliament today. I have found it distressing to listen to the brutal examples of animal cruelty we have heard about, particularly those detailed in the speech by the hon. Member for Redcar (Anna Turley). I emphasise that animal welfare and action to prevent animal cruelty is a very high priority for many of my constituents, who contact me regularly about this. I warmly and strongly support the campaign for stiffer maximum sentences for those who abuse animals, act with unnecessary cruelty or otherwise fail to comply with our animal welfare rules in this country.

In the few minutes I hope to detain the House, I wish to focus on the welfare of farm animals, because I feel strongly that all of us who take animal welfare matters seriously should focus on the billions of animals used in agriculture across the world. If we want to ensure that, as a civilised society, we maintain high standards of animal welfare, it is vital that we extend this to farm animals. I thank Peter Stevenson of Compassion in World Farming for providing me with some help in preparing for this debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) said that he was sick of talking about Brexit, but Brexit does have relevance today, because about 80% of our animal welfare rules are currently part of EU law. Leaving the EU will give us back control over many policy decisions on animal welfare and farming. As I said when I had the opportunity to raise this matter during Prime Minister’s questions, we should use Brexit to reaffirm our support for the highest standards of animal welfare. We should also use it as an opportunity to see how we can strengthen protection for animals.

Food and farming is one of the most important parts of our economy, supporting many thousands of jobs. I welcome the fact that last October the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that high standards of animal welfare should be one of the unique selling points of UK-produced food in the post-Brexit era. If that is to be a reality in post-Brexit farming, we need to ensure that animal welfare is at the heart of our new system of farm payment support. It is crucial that we maintain that financial support for agriculture if we are to ensure that food produced in accordance with high welfare standards is not priced out of the market by cheaper, less compassionate, alternatives. In future trade talks, we should be prepared to ask those countries that wish to sell into our market to commit to acceptable standards of animal welfare, as was emphasised in the Conservative manifesto. It is my understanding that World Trade Organisation case law does allow us to do that, so long as we apply the same rules across different countries.

The compassionate treatment of animals should be at the heart of the UK’s post-Brexit brand for food and farming. We should recognise the efforts made by UK farmers already, as the majority take animal welfare very seriously. Our new system of farm support should reward farmers who adopt higher welfare standards, for example, through compliance with recognised schemes such as those run by RSPCA Assured or the Pasture-Fed Livestock Association. We need to provide incentives to move away from industrial livestock production towards free-range systems.

In particular, we should aim for an end to the zero grazing of dairy cows. Industrial systems that keep cattle indoors all year round are not capable of delivering high animal welfare standards, no matter how well-managed. I welcome the acknowledgement the Minister gave in responding to my Westminster Hall debate on this issue, when he said that

“any farmer who has turned cattle out to grass in April and watched their reaction knows that cattle prefer grazing, all other things being equal.”—[Official Report, 24 January 2017; Vol. 620, c. 95WH.]

As part of our efforts to end the practice of zero grazing, I hope that the Government will consider measures to enable consumers to make informed choices on the milk they buy. At present, most milk, other than organic milk, is pooled together, making it impossible to distinguish intensively produced from pasture-based milk. We need to consider separation, to enable farmers using good practices and pasture-based grazing to advertise this fact to consumers in the way free-range egg producers have for many years.

[Rebecca Pow]

Recently, I raised with the Minister the idea of having a “Buy British Food” button when people buy food on the internet, and I hope to talk to him shortly. How about having some sort of guidance or button about standards and animal care, too?

[Mrs Villiers]

Both are good ideas, and I hope the Minister will respond to them when he sums up.

A further very important reason why we should discourage intensive farming methods is antimicrobial resistance, a matter the Select Committee has examined carefully. Industrial-style farming can lead to the overuse of antibiotics to fend off diseases and infection caused by keeping animals in unnatural and crowded conditions that compromise their health and their immune responses. Antimicrobials are often given to whole herds or flocks of intensively farmed animals via feed and water. Unless we draw a halt to the trend that antibiotics are gradually becoming less and less able to protect us, we could face the risk of a return to the situation of previous centuries where such matters as childbirth, non-serious injuries and routine operations frequently gave rise to a risk of death. This is a very serious risk faced by our society, and many will no doubt have listened to the harrowing Radio 4 drama, “Resistance”, which was based on one of the worst-case scenarios feared by scientists. So it is necessary to find ways to reduce overall antibiotic use in farming, and our goal should be higher-welfare farming where animals are kept healthy through good husbandry practices rather than routine antibiotic use.

As we scrutinise the great repeal Bill and associated legislation, we will need to ensure that the enforcement powers currently vested in EU bodies are transferred to domestic alternatives. Here I wish to echo a point made by a number of hon. Members: enforcement is crucial. There is no point in having rules on our statute book that are not properly enforced. This has been a long-standing concern in relation to EU rules; I recall working with my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton when we were both in the European Parliament to try to improve enforcement. This debate is a good opportunity to emphasise that the proper enforcement of rules on animal welfare and preventing animal cruelty is vital for our constituents, who care so much about this matter. Analysis by the Food Standards Agency indicates that between July 2014 and June 2016 there were more than 4,000 serious breaches of animal welfare legislation relating to slaughter and transport to slaughter. We need to do better.

In conclusion, I urge the Minister to consider an end to the export of live animals for slaughter overseas. I believe that this trade would have been banned years ago if the decision had rested with Westminster rather than Brussels. The referendum vote means that very soon this House will have control over this decision once again, and I hope the Government will press ahead with a ban to end this cruel trade.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I, too, commend the Chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, of which I am proud to be a member, for securing the debate. The report is another example of the very good work that the Committee is doing. I am delighted to see you in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, because I gather that you are something of a Dr Dolittle, with a number of pets under your wing.

We truly are a nation of dog lovers and animal lovers. I was brought up on a farm with dogs, and a dog was my best friend. As a moody teenager, I turned to the dog more than anyone else to pour my heart out to. I, too, take part in the wonderful Westminster dog of the year competition. I actually borrow a dog from the Dogs Trust, just to highlight all the good work it does in promoting dog ownership.

[Bob Stewart]

Isn’t that cheating?

[Rebecca Pow]

It is not cheating; I try to do a useful education job. We have talked so much about education—[Interruption.] There is a lot of mithering going on behind me, but it is not cheating; it is all about education and getting the right messages to people about animal ownership.

I will touch on a couple of the report’s themes, namely sentencing and licensing, which have been addressed by many other colleagues. Puppy farming is a massive business in the UK. It is worth an estimated £300 million, so it is not small. To put it simply, demand outstrips supply, as we have heard, which leaves space for unscrupulous breeders to come in and operate. The report aims to address that.

Members on both sides of the House agree that the UK has very high animal welfare standards. We pride ourselves on that, which is why it is strange and puzzling that our sentences for offenders are so low. The maximum sentence, as we have heard, is six months’ imprisonment and an unlimited fine. To put that in context, Northern Ireland, Latvia and Montenegro have maximum prison sentences of five years, which makes me think that we need to look at the issue.

We have the lowest sentences for animal abuse crimes in the developed world. As has been said—I am sure that the Minister knows this, but I want to highlight it again—there is a very strong link between animal cruelty and domestic violence. One study found that in 88% of homes where child abuse had been discovered, there had also been incidents of animal abuse. Another study found that up to 83% of women who enter domestic violence shelters report that their abusers have also been abusing the family pet. That very worrying and strong link shows why we should take the issue so seriously.

People can get five years for fly-tipping—that is a serious offence, so we should not backtrack on such sentences—but if someone burns their pet or carries out gross abuse such as that described by Opposition Members, they might get only six months. That is absolutely unbelievable. Clearly we do not want to overload our prisons, but we need to have another look at the issue and not be coy about very serious cases.

An example that recently arose in my constituency involved not a dog or a cat, but a dairy farm. The dairy farmer is in the top group for animal welfare standards among dairy farmers, but unbeknown to him, a lad he had taken on as an apprentice—this was secretly filmed by Animal Equality—was going in and kicking the nursing cows in the face, kicking the calves, pressing them up against metal gates, and slamming the gates on them and abusing them verbally. It was absolutely horrific. The dairy farmer had no idea that that was happening until he was shown the video, which hon. Members can see online. The lad’s sentence is being considered at the moment, but it will probably not fit the crime.

I will quickly touch on internet sales, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) spoke eloquently. Many illegal puppy sales take place on the internet, and I am pleased that the Government are looking at the matter. I welcome the fact that breeders now require a numbered licence to sell puppies online. Many people want the Government to introduce a centralised register, as has been touched on. My daughter is always sending me pictures of cutesy little puppies in handbags or in chocolate boxes that she has seen online. She says, “Mummy, why don’t we get one of these?” but I know for a fact that lots of those puppies have been illegally bred and imported, and they have probably been subject to some of the horrible things that we heard about in detail from my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Chris Davies).

[Oliver Colvile]

We will, I hope, have a nice long, hot summer. Does my hon. Friend agree that we will face the problem of people leaving their dogs in cars without taking steps to protect them, such as opening windows or leaving water in the car?

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend makes a pertinent point. Many colleagues will often see dogs locked in homes for hours on end when we are out canvassing. Many of those dogs now suffer psychological problems, and I gather that vets are giving some of them Valium to calm them down. There are loads of welfare issues that we have to deal with.

The Committee’s report called for the breeders of puppies to be required to apply for a formal licence if they breed three litters a year—that is definitely a step in the right direction. There are calls for the number to be reduced to two litters, to take account of any accidental litters, which often occur. And please do not forget cats—as a lover of Mr Tips and Raffa, my family’s two cats at home, I know that we must not forget cats. I applaud our Committee’s recommendation that the breeders of cats who have two litters or more a year should also be licensed and subject to the relevant welfare conditions.

Education has been mentioned, and I wonder whether there is any way we can give our local authorities—they are often the ones who have to police these things, and they are often under pressure—a bit more education in this area. I am not necessarily saying that we should throw money at them, but education and additional support might help councils to clamp down on offenders.

I am coming to the end of my speech, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I want to make a final point about our animal welfare standards in general as we exit the EU. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers) touched on this. If the UK is to set itself up as an animal welfare exemplar for domestic pets and livestock—I believe that the Minister has that very much in mind—it is crucial that our regulatory framework is fit for purpose, and that framework should cover the use of antibiotics, which has been referred to, as well as how animals are kept and managed. That is essential if we are to build a British brand on this platform. We know what countries in the EU do, but we also need to know exactly what our global partners do, because we have to trade with them on equal welfare terms. I urge the Minister to consider that; it is something that the all-party group on animal welfare, which I chair, could have a look at.

I applaud the Select Committee report. There is still much to do on welfare, but we have taken many steps in the right direction and I know that the Minister is listening. The overall aim of all the work that is being done is to give our pets the happy, healthy and lovely life that they all deserve.

Middle Level Bill

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 29th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jackson]

May I add to the congratulations of the House on my hon. Friend’s birthday? If I may say so, he is pretty ageless—he has not aged during the 12 years I have been in Parliament—and felicitations to my hon. Friend.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that flood prevention and flood amelioration are massively important; we agree on that.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I come from Somerset, and while I am not familiar with the exact area, my example is just the same. Surely any income that can be raised from navigation of the waterways would be welcomed, because currently, as I understand it, precious moneys raised through drainage rates and levies that ought to be going to vital flood prevention work to protect our precious farmland are being diverted to navigation works. This Bill is just tightening that up to correct this injustice.

[Mr Jackson]

I am mindful of time and know that other Members want to contribute, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), so I will wrap up—also the Whip is giving me the evil eye, but only in her most endearing way.

I defer to the knowledge of my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), and know that Somerset suffered the most appalling trauma of wide-scale flooding about five years ago. I do not think that it is mutually exclusive for us to be removing sunken boats, dredging and doing important infrastructure work that needs to be done, but it needs to be done in a more systematic way, and I am unconvinced about this private Bill, which seeks to be quite innocuous but is potentially quite draconian in what it imposes on people whose rights have been established for many hundreds of years.

It has been a pleasure to have this opportunity to represent Mr Taylor and some of the other people. If we are not here to represent unfashionable views of our constituents, we are wasting our time. In the course of the debate about this Bill, I hope that the petitioners and others with a key interest in the Middle Level will have the opportunity to have a cordial, productive meeting with the Middle Level Commissioners, and that some of those comments will be taken on board in Committee, so that the Bill will be improved. I hope that we can regularise the legislative necessity of the Bill while keeping faith with the people who are the lifeblood of the area—the pleasure boat users—because we need to look after their interests, too. I hope that we will find a mutually beneficial compromise in the near future.

Food Labelling

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Julian Sturdy]

I entirely agree, and that is exactly why I wanted to have the debate now. I do not know whether my hon. Friend has seen a copy of my speech; but he is right. There will be opportunities and challenges for the food and farming sector in leaving the European Union. Developing a comprehensive and accurate food labelling regime is an indispensable element of that.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I applaud my hon. Friend for obtaining the debate, at just the right moment. Often when we shop online we do not know whether the food is British. Could consideration be given to a button to press when doing an online shop to enable people to choose from just British produce? Surely that would really help us as we leave the EU.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julian Sturdy]

I entirely support that; it is another sensible suggestion of where we should consider country of origin labelling. Parents would look at that in great detail and want to make an informed choice for their children. It goes back to the point that consumers need information so that they can make a detailed, informed choice. On the point I was making, I hope that the efforts Ministers were planning to expend on the EU in that regard will now be channelled into examining the opportunities for the UK on this issue on a similar broad basis. I am sure that the Minister will look at this in detail.

I will focus the rest of my remarks on the difference between fresh meat, which, as I have said, is subject to mandatory country of origin labelling, and the wider range of processed meat products, which are not. That is the most striking example of the regulation needing urgent improvement. It should not always fall to a Yorkshireman to plead for plain-speaking and straightforwardness in this place; I know that the Minister will probably argue that the south-west does an equally good job of speaking straightforwardly—calling a spade a spade. However, the current divergence between country of origin rules for meat and processed meat products is a significant source of unfairness and confusion within the UK meat market.

The lack of mandatory labelling for processed meat products and our own Food Standards Agency guidelines mean that those products can legally be labelled as British or “made in Britain” if they are only processed in this country, even if they are made from non-British meat. It is important to bear it in mind that products not currently covered by mandatory country of origin labelling make up a huge share of total meat consumption, including pies, ready meals, ham, bacon and sausages. Crucially, those products are displayed side by side on supermarket shelves with fresh meat that is subject to mandatory country of origin labelling requirements. A national origin label on two very similar products sitting next to each other can in fact mean very different things, potentially misleading the consumer and disadvantaging both them and British agriculture.

There is a significant number of welcome voluntary schemes that encourage country of origin labelling of processed meat products, such as the Red Tractor label and the voluntary standards agreement agreed by the industry and DEFRA in November 2010, but the fact that they are voluntary obviously limits their effectiveness. The number of different labelling schemes, each with their own standards and applying to some producers but not others, risks confusing consumers and prevents a level playing field on which products can be judged according to one ultimate standard.

Current food standards guidelines suggest that the country of origin of principal meat ingredients should be declared, and that any information provided cannot be misleading. Sadly, that is not sufficient to prevent unclear or inaccurate labelling of processed meat products. For instance, a packet of two gammon steaks from one of our leading supermarkets can be labelled

“produced using pork from the UK”

on the front, while the back of the packet reveals the more complete information in small print—that it was

“produced in the UK using pork from the EU”.

Similarly, a spaghetti bolognese ready meal from another leading supermarket can bear the Scottish flag on the front to indicate that it contains Scottish beef, clearly implying that the meat in the product is 100% of UK origin. However, in small print on the back is the information,

“produced in the UK using Scottish beef and Italian, German and French pork”.

That is all hugely unfair to our producers, who have gone to great efforts to ensure that their produce is of the highest standard, which is rightly demanded in this country, and should not have to see their products labelled as being no different from imports from countries where standards are much lower. For instance, research has suggested that an estimated 70% of pork imports fall below UK standards. The classic example of that is sow stalls, which have been banned in the UK for 10 years but remain common practice in many other countries.

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend is making a good point. We are not self-sufficient in food in this country. If we get the labelling aligned correctly, does he think that it would give farmers, like those in my constituency of Taunton Deane in the south-west, more opportunities to produce and sell more?

[Julian Sturdy]

I think it will allow farmers to compete against imports on a fair pitch, as it were. That is very important, because at the moment I feel it is very skewed by the labelling. Whether in my hon. Friend’s patch, up in Yorkshire or anywhere within the UK, including Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales, British agriculture produces products to some of the highest standards and the highest welfare standards in the world. That is not reflected fairly within food labelling at the moment, and we have to ensure that it is.

It seriously inhibits consumers’ choice if we do not get this right. We know that many consumers wish to buy British meat, in many cases because of the high quality and high animal welfare standards to which it is produced. Research suggests that 74% of people believe it is important that the meat they buy is of UK origin. That strengthens the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane about what such labelling can do for UK agriculture. However, under the current regime, consumers are restricted in their ability to do so.

For meat and processed meat products more broadly, I urge the Minister seriously to consider establishing a clear single UK country of origin standard, with a single country of origin label on the packet meaning that the animal was born, raised and slaughtered in the country and making it clear that the location of the last substantial change to the product is not an adequate description of its origin.

I also believe that the Government should use their new freedom of action outside the EU to proceed with introducing mandatory country of origin labelling for dairy products wherever possible. The Minister has made clear his disagreement with the unwillingness of the European Commission to act on that issue, and I therefore hope that in making this call I am pushing at an open door.

The future prosperity of the food and farming sector and its ability to maintain and enhance its export performance will also depend on the promotion of traditional regional and speciality foods, which is another issue within food labelling. Given the time, I will not go into that, but it is worth putting it on record that that is an important sector within food labelling that we need to focus on.

Finally, I urge the Minister to ensure that the labelling standards I have described are preserved in future trade agreements with the EU and other countries, so that British agriculture is able to thrive in conditions of fair competition, with accurate disclosure of origin information to the consumer. Accurate, honest country of origin labelling in food is of great importance to the success of UK agriculture, the prosperity of rural communities, the rights of consumers and the competitiveness of our products in the world market. I look forward to seeing what measures the Minister can bring forward in this area as the Government develop the first independent UK farming policy for more than 40 years.

Microbead Ban

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Wednesday 8th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the proposed ban on microbeads.

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. Those Members may decide, because of etiquette, that they will not come to the debate at all, but thank you for your kind words, which are much appreciated.

This morning, hon. Friends and Members will have used a plethora of cosmetics and personal care products in our ablutions, including shower gels, shampoos, face washes, toothpastes and so on. Perhaps unwittingly, we will have washed millions of teeny-weeny plastic microbeads, which are a key ingredient in many of those products, down the drain, and they will eventually find their way through our water systems into the rivers and seas. “How can that be?” I hear you ask, Sir David. The truth is that we have become a plastic society, and unbeknown to us, plastics infiltrate our lives through an enormous range of products that we use every day. It is increasingly coming to light that many of these plastics are in fact causing damage to our environment, in particular our marine environment, which is now heavily polluted with plastics as a direct result of the actions of mankind.

Plastics have become an inextricable part of our lives, with ever increasing quantities being used. In the UK alone, we increased our production of plastics by 38% between 2004 and 2014. No one denies that plastics are extremely useful, but with their increased use has come, sadly, increased pollution of our seas.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Plastics are ubiquitous, but does she agree that there are alternatives to their use? We have to get manufacturers using alternatives to microbeads, such as sugar and nut derivatives, to ensure that our precious oceans are not polluted at all.

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend makes a really good point, which I will address later. He is absolutely right; there are alternatives, and many manufacturers are looking to convert to them. Ground coconut husk and apricot kernels are other examples of things that could replace microbeads in cosmetics and personal care products.

There is lots of visible plastic pollution and rubbish. Plastic bags, bottles and fishing detritus such as discarded ropes and lines are all polluting our oceans and seas, but it is the less obvious tiny particles—microbeads of less than 5 mm—that present a real danger to shellfish and fish, which often ingest them mistaking them for food. It is estimated that a total of 15 trillion to 51 trillion microplastic particles have accumulated in the oceans. This debate is about plastic microbeads, and in particular their use in cosmetic and personal care products.

Recent studies suggest that these minuscule dots of plastic, when washed into the ocean, could represent a threat to humans as a result of eating fish. One study revealed that in 2009, microplastics were found in 36.5% of fish caught by trawlers in the English channel. Sir David, I do not know if you are a fancier of oysters, but for every six oysters consumed, one might consume 50 microbeads.

Microbeads are tiny balls of polyethylene and other plastics derived from petrochemicals, including polypropylene and polystyrene. They are used in a wide range of cosmetic products, including exfoliators, shower gels, whitening toothpaste and face washes, as well as in many abrasive cleaning products. Interestingly, though we are not talking about this today, fleeces also contain plastic microfibers, and when one puts on one’s car brakes, the tyres fray, which is another way that microfibres find their way into the watercourses.

How do microbeads get into the sea? If they could be removed once they had been washed down the drain, there would not be a problem, but in evidence on the environmental impact of microbeads taken by the Environmental Audit Committee, on which I was delighted to sit, it became apparent that removing them is a very tricky process and few water companies have the sophisticated filtration systems needed to do it. As a result, many of these products, complete with their microplastics, are flushed down the drain during our daily ablutions and end up in the watercourses and ultimately the sea.

Scientists have demonstrated that fish exposed to microplastics during their development can show stunted growth and increased mortality rates, as well as changed behaviour that could endanger their survival—especially reduced hatching rates. An article was published in Science relating to that. Estimating the toxicity of microplastics is complex and the full dangers to human health are not fully quantified yet, but studies have revealed that these plastics are entering the food chain, although the full impact is hard to measure. Microplastics can release and adsorb toxic chemicals and may act as a vector for them, transferring contaminants to organisms that ingest microplastics. I am heartened that Government sources have stated that the chief scientific adviser will review the effects on human health in future.

One fifth of microbeads are used in the cosmetics and personal care industry, and some 680 tonnes of plastic microbeads are used in cosmetic products in the UK every year. This is an important industry, worth £10 billion in the UK in 2016, and we have the second largest cosmetics market in Europe. It makes a significant contribution to our economy, not to mention the fact that it keeps us clean and beautiful, and I am the first to say that I enjoy using make-up and all these products. It is very important that we do not damage the industry, but surely the industry does not want to have on its conscience any associated link with damage the environment. With the right science behind it, the industry could turn to alternatives, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) said. Indeed, many companies are doing that.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. Manufacturers get a little worried when there is the possibility of a ban. Does she agree that there is therefore a greater incentive for them to get on with researching and implementing substitutes and replacements quickly, before we implement a ban?

[Rebecca Pow]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. The Government have made it quite clear that something is coming in terms of a ban. Many companies are planning ahead, and those that are not certainly ought to be.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on being not the litter hero in this regard but the microbeads heroine and on flying the flag for getting rid of microbeads. Does she agree that it is important we make transitional arrangements on both microbeads and single-use plastic bottles—which I am thrilled to see we are not using in this Chamber—so that companies are able to plan carefully for more environmentally friendly ways of working?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She is a great campaigner for the clearing of litter, including plastic bottles. I agree that we do not want to damage a valuable industry that employs many people. The timescale for introducing any ban will be very important. I will touch on that later.

With the right science behind it, the industry can turn to alternatives. The Environmental Audit Committee concluded that a microbead ban, as well as benefiting the environment,

“would have advantages for consumers and the industry in terms of consistency of approach, universality and confidence.”

It would also create a level playing field within the industry.

Microplastics from the cosmetics and personal care industry are thought to be responsible for up to 4% of total plastics found in the ocean. That might seem like a drop in the ocean, Sir David, but I assure you that it is not. Every year, 8,600 tonnes of plastic from this industry are poured into European waters alone, so it is significant. Yes, there is lots of other plastic that we should tackle, but I would postulate that this industry and the microbeads it uses provide a manageable place to begin.

There has been a wave of public good will on this issue, demonstrated by the hundreds of people who signed the Greenpeace petition and by the response to my personal campaign to highlight the problems and encourage change. Public support has also been shown through the publicity generated on the back of other campaigns by organisations such as the Marine Conservation Society, representatives of which came to the environment forum that I held in Taunton Deane. That was a cross-party event, but there was much consensus on how we should make progress. [Interruption.] A wave of women Members are coming into the Chamber following the photographs being taken, and I welcome them to the microbeads debate.

Much good work has been done. Many companies have voluntarily stopped using microbeads, or indeed never used them in the first place—companies such as Ecover, family-run Cornish company Spiezia, Liz Earle and Neal’s Yard. It was companies such as those that I was searching out in my own campaign to find microbead-free products. I believe the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), who was also on the Environmental Audit Committee and still is, will agree that it is quite difficult to work out whether a product contains microbeads because, first, companies are not obliged to disclose what products contain, and secondly, one needs a magnifying glass to read and a chemistry textbook to understand the complicated terminology. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to consider introducing clearer labelling on products, so that in the run-up to any ban it will be easier for consumers to opt for microbead-free products. We have had much discussion about this in the Tea Room, with people getting out their products to try to analyse whether they contain microbeads, and it is quite testing. There is still a long way to go, and a ban might speed up the process and create a level playing field for all manufacturers, as there are currently discrepancies between what different manufacturers class as the relevant microbeads for banning.

Let me deal quickly with other countries. The United States of America and Canada have already legislated to prohibit the production or use of microplastics, although they have come in for some criticism. The US Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015 was limited to microbeads with exfoliating functions in rinse-off products, meaning that many microplastics were excluded from the legislation. That indicates how much consideration is needed when deciding how and what to ban.

Alternatives have been mentioned. There are both natural and synthetic alternatives, although care must be taken in determining how safe some of them are. Examples are apricot kernels and ground coconut shell. What if millions of those particles also start to get washed into the marine environment? How safe are they? Can they be filtered out? What if too many go in?

Why not simply encourage a voluntary system for getting rid of microbeads, leaving it entirely to consumers to decide whether to use products containing microbeads and leaving manufacturers to go down this road themselves? The cosmetics industry will tell us that 70% of microbeads have already been phased out, but as I mentioned, standards vary and it is difficult to tell quite what has been phased out. Plastic carrier bags are a good example of where change en masse did not really happen until the Government intervened with the 5p charge. The voluntary approach to cutting microbeads has not had the impact that it might have had, but I am pleased to say that the Government are stepping in and the tide is turning.

I welcome the moves that are being made, because the Government are listening. They have listened to public concerns: more than one third of the British public backed a ban on microbeads. They have listened to calls from organisations such as Fauna and Flora International and the Marine Conservation Society, and from colleagues, and they have heeded the various campaigns. I was delighted when, in September 2016, the Government announced an intention to ban the manufacture and sale of cosmetics and personal care products containing microbeads and opened a consultation. I was also pleased that the consultation was broadened out to include evidence on the extent of the environmental impact of microbeads in other products. The consultation closed last week.

I do not know whether you were there, Sir David, but I was heartened that in her response to me last week in Prime Minister’s questions—when I dared to ask Mr Speaker whether he had had a shower that morning—my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister committed to introducing a ban on microplastics in this industry by 1 October. That is a commendable position and chimes well with the Government’s determination to leave the environment

“in a better state than that in which we found it”,

but there are a few points that I would like the Minister to consider in relation to the proposed ban.

The terminology used in the proposed ban is important if loopholes are to be avoided. For example, should it cover only rinse-off products or should it also cover leave-in products? This is where we start to get into the detail. Under the cosmetics directive, “rinse-off” refers to products that should be rinsed off the skin immediately after application for health and safety reasons—exfoliators, for example—but there are many other products that might stay on and be rinsed off later. What about those?

I have been in touch with the UK’s Cosmetic, Toiletry and Perfumery Association, which is at pains to stress that leave-in products are a much smaller part of the problem. It is keen to limit the ban to rinse-off products. It says that if we include leave-in products, it might take three and a half years to reformulate products. That is where the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) about giving companies enough time comes in. If improving the environment is the key priority, I suggest that those products should be part of the plan, but companies should be given enough time to reformulate their products; they need workable timescales.

Many products other than cosmetics and personal care products contain microplastics that end up going down the drain, including industrial cleaning products and paints. I mentioned car tyre wear and tear. Should all plastics that do not dissolve in water be considered for the ban? Caution needs to be displayed where exemptions might be considered for so-called biodegradable plastics, because none has been conclusively demonstrated to be fully biodegradable in real-world marine conditions. In relation to effects on human health, we need clear evidence to demonstrate what the effects are of microbeads going into the sea and then humans consuming fish or shellfish that have consumed microbeads. I ask the Minister to consider a research strategy to assess and mitigate pollution. That was another Environmental Audit Committee recommendation.

We need to embrace the idea of the circular economy. Many companies are already doing very good recycling work with their plastics. We need all companies to make progress on recycling and reuse.

Finally, let me say a bit more about the wider issue of plastics pollution. As I said at the beginning, we are a plastic society. My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury is very concerned about plastic bottles. We recently attended a litter breakfast—a plastic bottle breakfast, where we learned that a shocking 8 billion plastic water bottles are used and thrown away every single year, and 30% of those are used by children during sport. Many of them end up not just on our streets, but floating in the sea, and they gradually break down to form microbeads.

[Victoria Prentis]

Is my hon. Friend aware that there is now likely to be as many plastic water bottles in the sea as there are fish?

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

indicated dissent.

[Rebecca Pow]

The Minister is shaking her head. I cannot agree or disagree, but if it is true that is an unbelievable statistic. I know that there is a great big lump of plastics floating about in the ocean.

[Dr Coffey]

I believe by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation asserts that that may be the case by 2050, but I am not aware that it has any evidence to back that up.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the Minister for that intervention and am only too pleased to hear it, to be quite honest, because that statistic is absolutely shocking.

Coming back to the here and now, there must be opportunities to tackle the wider problems with plastic. I welcome the forthcoming litter strategy; perhaps the Minister will indicate what we might expect in that and in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ 25-year plan to tackle all these issues. I know the Minister is listening and that she cares passionately about the state of our seas. Indeed, this Government have already done excellent work on our marine conservation zones.

In concluding, I return to the proposed ban on microplastics used in the cosmetics and personal care industry. I urge that we put the marine environment centre stage. Let us not sacrifice our precious seas and the creatures that depend on them, and indeed the health of future generations. We must do right by them.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir David. I congratulate the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) on securing this debate. I know that she is passionate about this subject, and that came through clearly in her opening speech. I also congratulate the Government on putting aside for once their hard-wired preference for voluntary approaches—a battle that I frequently have with them on these issues—and committing to a ban on microbeads in cosmetic and personal products. As I have said several times, if America can do it, there is absolutely no reason why we cannot; if Obama was persuaded of the need to do it, surely we ought to listen and take the same view.

I congratulate the Environmental Audit Committee on its excellent inquiry, which highlighted the loopholes and inconsistencies in voluntary action taken by the cosmetics industry. As we have heard, some companies have decided to phase out products. I had the pleasure of visiting the Lush factory in Poole a few weeks ago, and I am sure the hon. Lady would be very much welcome there. I got to make bath bombs and see all sorts of other products being made. As a company, Lush accepts that it is not 100% perfect but it has an ambition to be as environmentally friendly as possible. For example, when people buy the big gift boxes with several products in, the Wotsit-like things that are used for packaging are now made of potato starch rather than polystyrene, so the moment water is poured on them, they completely degrade. That is the sort of approach we ought to urge companies to adopt.

As I said, it is welcome that the Government are moving forward with the ban. However, like the hon. Lady, I am concerned that it may not be fully comprehensive and include all products that eventually end up in our water supply. She outlined in detail the difference between rinse-off products and products that stay on the skin a bit longer, and I urge the Minister to be as comprehensive as possible. I hope the Government also see the opportunity to take the lead on this issue internationally. We are so good on marine protected areas and are rightly respected internationally for the action we have taken around our overseas territories. I urge the Government to think of this as a pledge we could make under the United Nations’ clean seas campaign; doing so would be a real contribution and we could urge other countries to do the same.

As the hon. Member for Taunton Deane said, the issue of microbeads is a manageable place to begin. As expected, she did such justice to the topic and covered almost anything that anybody could say on it—I expected that to be the case. With your permission, Sir David, I want to talk about the much larger problem of plastic litter polluting the marine environment. This is not just about the damage larger objects do. When items such as plastic bottles enter the water, they eventually break down into ever smaller pieces and become microplastics in themselves. They cause damage in exactly the same way as microbeads do—they just do not start out as tiny items in the first place.

I had the privilege of attending the UN parliamentary assembly in New York last month. It had a special focus on sustainable development goal 14, which is about protecting the oceans. It was widely recognised by the delegates taking part in that discussion that implementing sustainable development goal 12, which is about sustainable consumption and responsible production, was critical to achieving sustainable development goal 14 on ocean health.

Plastic is a durable material that is made to last forever, but far too much of it is used once and then thrown away. Only a third of plastic packaging used in consumer products is recycled in the UK. The rest is either landfilled or incinerated or, worse still, it is never collected and ends up clogging up our sewers and polluting our marine and land ecosystems where it can remain for literally hundreds of years. Anyone involved in the protect our waves all-party parliamentary group might have seen the items that Surfers Against Sewage brought along that they had found. The divers and surfers have found items such as Golden Wonder crisp packets with “3p” on them, which have only just been retrieved from the seas, and coke cans with different designs on. That shows just how long those things will last in the marine environment.

Something as indestructible as plastic should not be disposable. Plastic bottles and other single-use plastics are commonly found in beach clean-ups. Surfers Against Sewage organise those, as does the Marine Conservation Society, and they report that plastic bottles in particular are frequently found along with items such as cotton bud sticks and bottle caps. About 8 million tonnes of plastic enter oceans every year and, as I said, it breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces causing real harm to marine life and ecosystems.

[Rebecca Pow]

The hon. Lady is making a passionate point about wider plastics. Many plastic balls that are bigger than microbeads—I think they are called nurdles—are found washed up on beaches. I know that in Scotland, in particular, lots of collections have been made, and we would be horrified at the quantity of those things that are washing up on beaches.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I very much agree with the hon. Lady’s point, which is an example of what I am saying—plastics become unrecognisable, but they may have been bigger products in the first place, or used as that size of product in various ways.

Plastic entanglement or ingestion can cause choking, intestinal blockages and starvation. One recent study showed that 90% of birds have plastics in their stomachs. On cleanwater.org, Clean Water Action documented the case of a California grey whale that had washed up dead; its stomach contained a pair of pants, a golf ball, more than 20 bags, small towels, duct tape and surgical gloves. Just recently, extraordinary levels of toxic pollutants—industrial chemicals that were banned in the 1970s—were found in the remotest place on the planet: the 10 km deep Mariana trench in the Pacific ocean.

Some Members may have seen the recent documentary “A Plastic Ocean”, which I recommend to them if they have not. It does a phenomenal job of showing what is inside the sea birds and marine animals that they cut open. Sky’s programme “A Plastic Tide” showed truly shocking images of beaches from Mumbai to Scotland, where the daily tide tips up a layer of plastic from around the world. Tourists in Arrochar—have I pronounced that right? I look to my Scottish National party colleagues to tell me—asked why someone had apparently chosen to locate a landfill on a site of such natural beauty.

There is a great deal more that we can all do to reduce plastic litter as consumers taking individual action and as producers; also, critically, there can be action by the Government. Prevention is better than cure. The best way of stopping such litter reaching our rivers and sea is at source—by reducing the amount of waste that is generated in the first place. In 2014 annual global plastic production stood at 311 million tonnes. Shockingly, more than 40% of it was for single-use packing. As much as possible, we need to stop using single-use plastic, from refusing drinking straws to bringing our own bags to the shops. Plastic Ocean has a great check list.

Cities around the world, such as Delhi, have introduced a ban on disposable plastic, and I hope we will soon see an end to the travesty of manufacturers mis-labelling synthetic wet wipes as flushable. I think that will be the next campaign for me and the hon. Member for Taunton Deane. Although the wipes disappear when flushed, that gives the impression they are biodegradable and do not cause harm, but they very much do.

I want to pay particular tribute to the Bristol-based environmental organisation, City to Sea, which campaigns to reduce the amount of plastic flowing from the Avon into the Bristol channel. As well as organising clean-ups, it has encouraged local shops and bars to allow people to refill their drinking water bottles so that they do not have to buy plastic bottles. It has also been brilliant at going round to retailers to try to get them to stop producing plastic cotton bud sticks. It has now got every single one of them to sign up to paper sticks instead, so that shows what can be achieved.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) and I recently met City to Sea to discuss its campaign to make Bristol a single use plastic-free city. We have a Facebook page that I would like to plug here to publicise the work we are doing. It is called “Let’s Stop Plastic Pollution”.

With litter levels hardly budging over a decade, England stubbornly remains a throwaway society. I very much hope we will see in the Government’s forthcoming litter strategy proposals to introduce a deposit return scheme for single-use drinks containers, which could help reduce littering, increase recycling and cut back on illegal dumping. Research by the Bristol-based organisation, Eunomia, has shown the scale of the problem and how plastic bottles are littered disproportionately more than any other items. It has also shown the success of deposit return schemes in massively reducing littering of beverage containers: by as much as 80% in one US study. There is growing support for such a scheme. Even Coca-Cola, having resisted, has now said it is on board, which is great news.

We also need to focus on people’s attitudes to dropping litter. Despite the blustery weather, showers and gales, I spent most of the weekend taking part in the Mayor of Bristol’s clean streets initiative. Community volunteers were given hi-vis and litter pickers, and we were out filling sack upon sack with rubbish, most of it plastic, from crisp packets to bottles and all sorts of things. The initiative is partly about making the streets tidier, but also about trying to send a message to the community that they need to play their part. We will make the litter pickers and hi-vis available in libraries so that anyone can go out for half an hour and pick up if they want to. Hopefully, it will be a three-year campaign. The worst bit of the day was seeing a hedge where it was clear that everyone who walked past thought that that was where to put their Coke can or plastic bottle, rather than putting it in the bin down the road. We need to persuade people that that is not the case.

We have heard about the plastic bag charge and how that can make a difference. The hon. Member for Taunton Deane mentioned the circular economy, and I agree that that is where we need to see action from the Government. There are currently too few incentives for or requirements on producers to make their packaging recyclable, leaving local councils to clear up the mess and local taxpayers to foot the bill. Of the 7 million coffee cups thrown away each day, only 1% are recycled through normal collection systems. The Environmental Audit Committee’s next inquiry will be on coffee cups and plastic bottles. Most local authorities do not have the facilities to separate the plastic membrane from the cardboard.

We even have new products coming onto the market such as Nescafé’s incomprehensible Azera, which encourages consumers to make their “coffee to go” at home in a non-recyclable takeaway cup, which is ridiculous. Black plastic is frequently used in packaging, especially in high-end products, even though most local authorities cannot recycle it.

I hope the Government will look seriously at the role that regulation can play in stimulating markets to recycle or reuse materials, such as the proposals by the Environmental Services Association for a new framework for producer responsibility. It is terrific that Unilever has announced plans to make all its plastic packaging recyclable by 2025, but to support businesses that have decided to do the right thing we have to stop other companies being able to undercut them, otherwise we will see the situation that has been referred to.

Taking the circular economy seriously could be a huge opportunity for us. It has been suggested it could deliver half a million jobs. The future is not in low-cost products using finite resources that are designed to fail after their warranty expires but in products that are designed and manufactured for reuse or recycling. Although I welcome what the Government are doing on microbeads, I hope I have stressed to the Minister that they are literally a tiny part of the problem. We need to see a much more ambitious approach not only to microbeads but across the board.

--- Later in debate ---

[Scott Mann]

My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. Feeding birds not only get plastic caught around their necks, but when they ingest small marine life they take that into the food chain as well, so she is absolutely spot on.

I must say that I was not a big fan of the 5p charge on plastic bags when it was first announced, but I am a complete convert. Not only has it had a positive effect on coastal communities, but when we walk around towns now we do not see the bags that used to fly around in trees. It has made a real impact, so we can create positive change, as my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane said, if the Government are proactive.

If Brexit means that our fishing industry changes, I would ask that we consider a fishing for plastic scheme. It would be a great opportunity for us to show our country’s environmental credentials.

[Rebecca Pow]

Will my hon. Friend explain a little more about the scheme? I have an image in my head: what does one do—go out with a fishing rod and hope to catch some plastic?

[Scott Mann]

Numerous local authorities currently charge fishermen to land plastic that they find floating around in the ocean. Some local authorities have been quite proactive and have set up recycling plants. I think there is an economic benefit to that, not just an environmental one. There are organisations that could potentially reuse plastics that come out of the ocean. They can be used in carpets—I know they have been before. It would just entail fishermen picking up the stuff that they see floating around in the ocean, bringing it back and then receiving some sort of recompense. It might be through tax breaks, cash incentives, fishing quota, fuel, or a deposit return scheme. It could be a huge incentive.

I am pleased that DEFRA has launched the consultation. The order of priority at the moment should be reuse first, then recycling, and then the bin if those are not an option. Most of our local authorities seem to have got into the recycling process. There is a place for industry to step up, but the Government can intervene as well. I support the initiative and would welcome further exploration of how to encourage more positive behaviour.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patricia Gibson]

Again, the hon. Lady makes an excellent point. I think the most important point is that we live in a society in which consumers prefer natural ingredients anyway. That is a selling point for manufacturers to take on board. It is about not just getting rid of the plastics, although that is of course important, but fulfilling customers’ demand for the more natural ingredients they prefer.

[Rebecca Pow]

Praise should be given to the many companies that are turning in that direction and taking notice of all the public interest. Some companies, such as Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose have their own brands of cosmetics, which do not contain microplastics or microbeads. It is a good message, but I am not sure everyone has heard it yet.

[Patricia Gibson]

The companies that are leading the way should be commended. It is a unique selling point for them from the point of view of the better-informed consumer, but of course there is still a job to do in making sure that all consumers have the information. I wish companies luck in getting the message out there. However, there is no legal requirement to move away from using microbeads, and that must still be an important part of the change we seek. I wish the companies that have voluntarily made the change all the best.

The wider problem of microplastics is vast. The United Nations joint group of experts on the scientific aspects of marine environmental protection has listed the potential effects of microplastics on marine organisms. As we have already heard—that is one of the disadvantages of being so far down the speaking order—they include physical effects such as obstruction, chemical effects due to the transportation of toxic chemicals, impaired health, and impacts on populations and ecosystems, including many with important roles in food chains and the functioning of marine ecosystems. Microplastic pollution could be more damaging to the environment than larger pieces of plastic, because the size of the particles makes it more likely that they will be eaten by wildlife, and then there is potential for them to enter the food chain. I believe that the hon. Member for Taunton Deane said—and certainly marine scientists have said—that a plate of six oysters can contain up to 50 particles of plastic. That should make us pause for thought. More than 280 marine species have been found to have ingested microplastics, and the Environmental Audit Committee has said that much more research is needed on plastic pollution, because there is huge uncertainty about the ecological risk.

The Government can and should play a role on stopping the preventable use of microplastics in cosmetics. Last year the Scottish Government confirmed that they would legislate to regulate such use, following the announcement by DEFRA of the UK Government’s plans to work with the devolved Parliaments on a ban.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

I particularly thank you, Sir David, for chairing us so amiably, and for welcoming the ladies who were having their photographs taken earlier and allowing them to intervene during the debate. Thank you for that.

We have come up with a new hobby this afternoon, which I will be going away to practise—fishing for plastics. That is a very good idea.

I thank all the hon. Members who have taken part in a fascinating debate. What is so welcome and heartening is that there has been so much sharing of knowledge and experience; I think you will agree, Sir David, that there has been much consensus.

I thank the Minister for her very honest comments and for sharing a lot of detail with us about how the ban will be handled. That is much appreciated. Indeed, the fact that there will be a ban is much appreciated. That will level out the playing field for manufacturers. I think all colleagues and Members are behind that ban and welcome it.

We would like to be world leaders in this area and to operate on a global stage. It is really important that we fully understand the evidence. We will press forward with the initial ideas for bans in the cosmetics and personal care products industries, but it is very important that we have the right evidence when we consider widening out the ban to cover any other plastics; I fully agree with that. We have wide support for the ban. I thank everyone who has taken part in the debate, and I say to the Minister, who I personally am right behind, “Let’s press on.” There is more that we can do on the wider plastic issue, but I think there is plenty of support for action.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the proposed ban on microbeads.

Future Flood Prevention

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to open today’s estimates debate on the future of flood prevention. Flooding is one of those issues that is rarely considered until it actually happens. When the weather is dry, we talk about drought, and as soon as it starts to rain we have to deal with floods. In the round, we have to deal with both. Because of that, it can be tempting for the Government sometimes to disregard flood defences and resilience measures when the weather is much drier and budgets are under pressure. I believe, and the Select Committee believes, that this would be a grave error.

Effective flood defences, both hard and soft, are a vital part of this country’s infrastructure. With the UK’s experience over the years of more severe storms as climate change continues, flooding is likely only to get worse. We have recently seen the high tide that came down the eastern side of the country. Fortunately, this did not cause massive flooding, but it might well do in the future. I was flooded back in the ’80s and particularly 1981, when we lost a lot of sheep after huge tidal floods in the west of the country. When the barriers are overcome, we must have the right infrastructure in place.

In November 2016, the Select Committee on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs published its “Future flood prevention” report. We found that flood prevention work in the UK is fragmented, can be inefficient and sometimes ineffective, and has let people down. The winter of 2015-16 broke rainfall records, and storms Desmond, Eva and Frank disrupted communities across northern parts of the UK, particularly Cumbria and York. Storm Desmond alone cost the UK more than £5 billion, but the impact is not just economic. It is very much about individual businesses, individual residents and all those hugely affected by flooding—and sometimes about the amount of time it can take to get people back into their homes or to get their businesses up and running again. Many communities live in fear that a disaster is just one downpour away.

There is no doubt that we are now encountering long periods of dry weather, followed by a huge amount of rain—200 or 300 mm in just 20 or 30 hours. Believe it or not, I do not blame the Minister or the Government for that amount of rainfall coming down so quickly, but we do need to be aware that it can happen and we need to be ready to try to mitigate some of the worst of the disaster that happens when we get these very high levels of rainfall occurring over a very short period.

I personally understand the concerns of many parts of the country that experience being under water for perhaps many months. We need to reflect only on what has happened in the past. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) will talk later about what happened in Somerset, when a huge amount of water fell and remained for up to three months, devastating not only property, but the land. A huge amount of debris was created, and the vegetation and much of the wildlife was lost. This was a disaster not only from a residential and farming point of view, but from a conservation point of view.

While frontline staff and rescue service workers worked tirelessly to support those affected, our system for managing flood risk can and does fail on occasions. That is why I want to talk about the importance of the recommendations that our Select Committee made in our “Future flood prevention” report. I shall touch briefly on the Government’s response and on what action DEFRA has taken to date. I shall conclude by outlining what the Committee believes the Government must do to improve the situation further.

What, then, were our recommendations? We recommended to the Government how to reduce the flood risk to 5 million people and we looked into the “one in 100 years” flood and how to deal with risk. One problem is that, if we are not careful, people living in an area with a “one in 100 years” risk which is flooded are inclined to think that they will be safe from floods for another 99 years. Of course, that is not the case. An area with a high flood risk will continue to have that risk until better defences are created or resilience measures are introduced, and it will probably always be a pretty high-risk area.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is bringing back a great many memories of those terrible floods. Does he agree that communication is very important? One of the points made in the Select Committee report was that perhaps we should stop using the “one in 100 years” terminology. We should adopt a way of warning people about how serious floods are that does not involve years, because the current terminology is misleading.

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The evidence that the Committee took, and what we heard from people who came to talk to us, suggested that it is very helpful when communities are able to get together and warn each other about exactly what is happening. The Environment Agency and others can give the warnings, and the agency, the fire brigade and local authority staff are there to help, but the flooded communities themselves have built up a resilience that will help them in the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, because it is not just about planting the trees; it is also about where we plant them. If we plant them along the edges of the fields or the banks of the streams and rivers, we can hold back the water and hold back the soil. Very often, the soil and debris being washed from the field is also contributing to the flood. So this is not just about the number of trees; it is about making sure we are smart in where we plant them. The way we plant them is important, too. We visited the north of England, and when the old Forestry Commission was planting trees it turned the soil up and put it up into a furrow and planted the trees on the top of it. The only trouble is that there are then two gullies either side of it, which then allow the water to run down very quickly if the trees are planted on a slope. Therefore, over the years there are many things we can do, but my hon. Friend makes a very good point that this is about planting trees, holding that soil back and holding the water back long enough for the major flood to go through, and that was what much of the work was done on.

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend is talking about soil, and I cannot let the moment pass without intervening to stress that soil is a very important part of our ecosystem. Does my hon. Friend agree that we lose it in floodwater at our peril, because it is the lifeblood that we use to grow our crops?

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend will also be very aware that many fields only have so much topsoil on them, and it is the topsoil that is fertile and that we grow our crop in. Therefore, if farmers lose much of their topsoil to the streams and rivers, they have lost a lot of the very fertile soil in their fields. I think most farmers, when presented with a plan that can save their topsoil and the way they manage their fields, can see a big advantage in this, but we have to work with the farming community, rather than, as perhaps has sometimes been the case, just imposing our will upon them. If we can persuade them that there are many good reasons for managing soils in a slightly different way, we can perhaps get a lot further with that. We can sometimes use carrots, and not necessarily sticks. I am sure our Minister has many carrots to offer today, and we will be interested to hear about that when she sums up the debate.

We also need to take a closer look at development in built-up areas affected by flood risk. Naturally, we have laws that we hope will restrict most building on floodplains —sometimes it is breached, but on the whole it is not. When an area is flooded, very little of the water has actually landed on the flooded area. It usually comes from higher up. Rather than stopping building in flood-risk areas, we need to think when building developments of several hundred or 1,000 houses about capturing the run-off water from everywhere on those estates, including the roads. It could be captured in ponds or in reservoirs or tanks underneath some of the homes. Building in resilience measures to ensure that the water from a development could be held would make the situation better rather than worse. We can build developments, but we do not always give enough consideration to what is going to happen further downstream.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I took part in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee flood prevention inquiry and was involved with the Environmental Audit Committee’s flooding report. I very much welcome the recent focus on what is a very serious area, as we know only too well in Taunton Deane, where we have experienced such serious flooding in recent years.

The Government have been somewhat under attack, but I must start by saying that they have committed an incredible £2.5 billion to flood relief work, and I applaud the excellent schemes under way or in place that we have heard about. Indeed, this represents a real-terms increase in capital investment, which is up from £1.7 billion during the last Parliament and from £1.5 billion between 2005 and 2010.

I want to raise some of the issues addressed in the inquiries, but I begin with Somerset. We are used to winter flooding on the Somerset levels—it is natural—but not to the degree witnessed in those severe weather conditions in 2012, December 2013 and January 2014. The whole area effectively turned into an inland sea. It is my home area and I witnessed that at first hand. An incredible 11,500 hectares of land were under 65 million cubic meters of water, largely owing to the build-up of silt in the rivers and drainage channels, which was not effectively dealt with over the many years since the channels were engineered in the 1960s.

The knock-on effects were enormous. Utter disruption and despair was caused to people in their daily lives. The economic impact assessment estimated that the floods cost the local economy £147 million and that 50% of businesses were affected.

I welcome the Government’s reaction, and we are looking ahead optimistically to never having to suffer such serious consequences again in Somerset. They committed £20 million to flood defences to protect properties—£4.2 million was focused only on the Somerset levels and moors. Every £1 spent on flood defences gives a benefit of between £4 and £9, so it is definitely money well spent.

The Government oversaw the establishment of the Somerset Rivers Authority. It was set up to work with many organisations and still exists, and will go on to run and manage the area. It is funded through a precept on council tax bills—initially, the Government committed £1.9 million to start it up. I welcome the Government’s continuing work with the SRA on its long-term funding arrangements. I urge them to find time to give the SRA a statutory basis. It is such a good model that I believe it could be copied elsewhere. It will do both dredging and the wider catchment work about which so many hon. Members have spoken. It involves a range of organisations, which I must praise, including the farming and wildlife advisory group, and the Royal Bath and West Society, which has raised money to help to advise farmers on their forward planning. It is essential that we enable the SRA to continue to operate.

Many hon. Members have referred to the wider catchment approach. I held one of my popular environment forums in Taunton Deane. We were delighted and honoured to have my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) to speak to a cross-party gathering, when we discussed a holistic approach to flooding, which went down exceptionally well. Minister, there is an awful lot of positive feeling about engaging that approach much more widely, with leaky dams, more tree planting and better soil management, which has been referred to. There is a raft of traditional and modern environmental techniques, working with science to slow the flow of water into the rivers and reduce flooding. It will not work everywhere, but it will help—it can be part and parcel of everything else.

With Brexit heading our way, we have a marvellous opportunity to have a new think about land management. I was heartened to read in the response to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee second report on flood prevention that the Government are thinking of a catchment-based approach in DEFRA’s 25-year environment plan. That is a good direction to work in.

We need to consider how much public good is achieved from flood protection work. I urge the Minister to do some early work to calculate how we can value work so that farmers know how much it will cost them if they store water on their land for the short or long term, what it will achieve, what the forgone effect is of not growing crops but storing water, and how much we should pay them. I declare a slight interest in that I come from a farming background and family. Farmers are cautious folk. They do not want to flood their land if there is not a good reason to do so, or no good results or consequences. If we can prove that there will be good results, I am sure they would do it.

I urge the Minister to look at running a large-scale catchment project, another recommendation from the Select Committee’s inquiry, to gather evidence on a wider scale. There are many very good small-scale projects—we have heard many examples today—but we do not have a large-scale project that is able to demonstrate what really works, why it works and what we should do. I therefore urge the Minister to consider running such a project.

Another issue raised in the Select Committee report is whether it is possible to engage water companies more in this approach to handling flooding. After all, they deal with our water day in, day out. I note with interest that the recently published “Natural Capital Committee’s fourth state of natural capital report” recommends natural capital catchment-based approaches by encouraging Ofwat in particular to get involved. This is definitely an idea that has come into the public domain.

I want to touch on housing. We are seeing a huge and necessary increase in house building to address the housing shortage, but let us ensure that those houses are not exacerbating the flooding problems. Sustainable drainage systems and green infrastructure such as ponds can contribute to protecting communities from flooding. It is welcome that the Government recognise that and I urge other Departments to work them into their plans, too. Water has no boundaries, so we need to look at all aspects of its impact on our lives.

Finally, I may have sounded rather biased towards Somerset, but much accumulated knowledge on flooding has now been gathered, including a comprehensive real-time system devised by the Met Office for feeding in rainfall data and river levels. Will the Minister consider applying this model elsewhere?

The Government are committed to tackling flooding. I know that because of all the money they have already committed to it. However, there is so much more that we could do. Brexit offers an opportunity to look again at how we manage our land, and how we could have a whole new and effective approach to flooding to benefit us all.

[Several hon. Members rose—]