Draft Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2023

Debate between Rebecca Pow and John McDonnell

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 General Committees

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Can I give the Minister some more time?

[Rebecca Pow]

No—I am fine, honestly.

[John McDonnell]

I have a question anyway.

[Rebecca Pow]

Shall I begin, and then I will be delighted to answer the right hon. Member’s question? I am very grateful to the shadow Minister for her comments, and for being helpful and constructive in allowing me to say a bit more about one or two of the items that I mentioned.

The measure will optimise the regulatory tools available to us for managing and protecting groundwater quality. It will not reduce protections; indeed, it will strengthen them, giving the EA a greater range of tools. That is something that business and industry have come to us about in many different areas. The new tools will be more proportionate to the risk. If matters are deemed to be very low risk, the EA will be more generic in its approach. Other more complex areas will continue to be bespoke, as at present with the mines and so forth. Some responses will therefore be less costly, and potentially more speedily delivered. For example, if the EA has to react to a discharge, it might speed up its response. There are an awful lot of positives in improving the hierarchy of regulatory controls for groundwater. Including extra pollutants such as heat will be of great benefit.

On the mobile plant question, again, this is something that business and industry asked for particularly in the consultation. It is a well-recognised term used for waste activities. It is long established, and a lot of discussion went on with industry about it.

Reference was also made to cemeteries. Exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester described, a new cemetery will not need to get a permit unless there are deemed to be specific reasons for one, in which case the Environment Agency will work with the cemetery operator to ensure that the right conditions are met. A permit might be needed if the cemetery were near a vulnerable aquifer, or if there were a significant number of burials. Say there was a terrible incident, or something like that—no, I will not say that. Also, if a cemetery were in close proximity to vulnerable water users, public water suppliers, private water suppliers or chalk streams, a permit would be considered. I hope that that gives a bit more clarity.

[Rebecca Pow]

We have a well-established process for the regional monitoring of groundwater. Any long-term trends in quality and in what is found in the groundwater are monitored, and we have research programmes looking into the impact at regulated facilities. I hope that helps to clarify that that is an important part of checking that what is in place is doing the right thing. Just out of interest, areas that might not need a permit are clay areas or areas where there are very small numbers of burials. I hope that that has dealt with the death section of this SI.

The shadow Minister asked about the onshore oil and gas industry’s surrendering of permits. An oil and gas operator can send a notification to the Environment Agency stating that it no longer requires a permit for its discharge. An application to surrender the environmental permit will require evidence to demonstrate that there has been no impact on the environment from that discharge at the onshore oil and gas site. This amendment will ensure that there are no ongoing risks to the groundwater environment at the point of decommissioning, or any future likelihood of pollution occurring. I hope that that answers the question.

[John McDonnell]

Before I vote on these things, I do occasionally try to understand them. Paragraph 7.22 of the explanatory notes clarifies the defence of sewerage undertakers who are in breach of permit conditions. That relates to regulation 7(c), which inserts new sub-paragraph (5A) into schedule 22 to the 2016 regulations. New sub-paragraph (5A) states that a sewerage undertaker is not guilty of an offence, first, if it did not do it —understood—and, secondly, if it

“could not reasonably have been expected to prevent the discharge into the sewer or works.”

Understood. But sub-paragraph (5A)(b) states that the undertaker is not in breach if it

“was not bound to receive the discharge into the sewer or works or was bound to receive it there subject to conditions which were not observed”.

That seems to be a huge blanket exemption from the sewerage undertaker’s responsibility for ensuring that discharge is leaked properly and complies with any conditions attached. If the Minister wants to clarify the answer to that question in writing, I am happy for her to do so.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that, and he is absolutely right that it is important to understand what we are talking about. This is very detailed. I do have some notes here, but if it suits him, I will put the answer to his question in writing, and I will share it with the shadow Minister as well, because I think it is important to clarify that. We have done so, because we have updated that particular section of the explanatory notes, but I will get back to him on that.

I think that brings me to the end of my points. I thank the shadow Minister for supporting this SI, albeit with some testy questions, and I commend it to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Budget Resolutions

Debate between Rebecca Pow and John McDonnell

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

Debt under the hon. Gentleman’s Government has gone up by nearly £800 billion, and it is debt to pay for failure rather than to pay for investment. If we borrow to invest, we grow the economy, which means that we can put more people to work with more skills and higher wages. They pay more taxes and it pays for itself. That is the lesson that the Government still have not learned.

The Government appear, as is demonstrated today, to be completely out of touch with the mess that our economy is in. They have no understanding of the consequences of their choices for the lives of our people. They do not seem to grasp the scale of what is happening to our people out there. The Chancellor has tried to claim that income inequality has fallen, but he does not seem to be aware that more than a million food parcels have been handed out in this, the sixth richest economy on the planet. Inequality is not falling. He may well be aware that London is home to more billionaires than ever before, but does he know that there are more people homeless than ever? How can he claim that inequality is falling when that stark comparison is made? This Government’s decisions will make the poorest poorer still. Buried away in an annex, at the very back of the Treasury’s own distributional analysis, is the truth on this. The poorest fifth are being made poorer by the changes this Government is implementing. Those in the poorest fifth will lose almost £250 a year.

The House of Commons Library has confirmed that the burden of cuts—86%—made in tax and benefits measures since 2010 have fallen on women. Is that what equality is under this Government—86% of cuts on the shoulders of women?

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

rose—

[John McDonnell]

I will come back to the hon. Lady.

On housing, the Government’s proposed solution to the crisis is inept, and counterproductive. The stamp duty cut for first-time buyers will not bring forward the new homes that we need. No wonder the OBR expects only 3,500 additional sales to happen because of the change. It says that thanks to the price rises

“the main gainers from the policy are people who already own property.”

The problem is simple, but perhaps it needs explaining: you cannot solve a problem of housing supply by driving up housing demand. We are not the only people saying that. Conservatives Ministers reviewed a previous stamp duty reduction and said that the cut had

“not had a significant impact on improving affordability for first time buyers”.

Setting a target of 300,000 homes a year for the mid-2020s does little for a housing crisis today.

[Rebecca Pow]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

I was going to intervene on a previous point. The people of Taunton Deane have more money in their pockets, which is what they want. We have put up the national living wage, cut income tax by raising the personal allowance, and, again, frozen fuel duty. People actually have thousands more in their pockets than they had under the Labour Government.

[John McDonnell]

I know that the hon. Lady is well intentioned, but she has displayed ignorance of what large numbers of people are experiencing. May I suggest this to her—[Interruption.] I do not wish to be patronising. [Interruption.] If that is the way it is interpreted, it is not how it is meant to be. I just say that all of us, who are on relatively high wages, need to be very careful when talking about levels of income and levels of wealth because many people, including 4 million of our children, are actually living in poverty. Two thirds of those children are living in households where someone is in work, which says something about low pay to me, as it should do to all of us.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Rebecca Pow and John McDonnell

Thursday 17th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

Of course we welcome that employment growth, but we are concerned about the insecurity of that employment. The number of zero-hours contracts has gone up by another 100,000 over the past month, and the insecurity of that employment, unfortunately, is affecting people’s long-term investment plans as well.

Yesterday the Chancellor pointed repeatedly to global economic headwinds as an explanation for his failure. His problem is that we have known about them for a while. Many of us were warning him last summer about the challenges facing the global economy. I spoke about them in this place, as did others on the Labour Benches, but rather than adapting his proposals to deal with the global reality, the Chancellor has charged headlong into another failure of his own making. He has failed to heed our warnings and the warnings of others, he has failed to invest in the key infrastructure that our economy needs, and as a result he has failed to boost Britain’s productivity figures.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

Is it not the case that our Chancellor is being very adaptable, as we heard yesterday? Is it not the case that the Opposition have an economic credibility strategy which essentially reverts to exactly what they did before—more borrowing, more spending, and higher taxes? It did not work then, so why would it work now?

[John McDonnell]

The hon. Lady might describe the Chancellor as adaptable. Most of the media and most independent analysts described him today as failing—failing on virtually every target he set himself under his own fiscal rule.

Charter for Budget Responsibility

Debate between Rebecca Pow and John McDonnell

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

I will press on, if hon. Members do not mind, as time is short.

Economists have warned of the potential for a future slowdown in western economies as a result. Former chief economist at the World Bank, Larry Summers, wrote last week that the dangers facing the global economy are more severe than at any time since the height of the crisis. Faced with these potential challenges, it makes no sense to close down the fiscal options available, especially when there is a possibility that monetary policy options may also be constrained.

I want to break the stranglehold that the focus on deficits has had on the economic debate in this country in recent years. Yes, the deficit is vitally important, but we need a paradigm shift to open up the wider debate on what makes a healthy economy, a prosperous economy, in which everybody shares in that prosperity and in which everybody is secure, not just the wealthy few, where everybody has a decent home in a sustainable environment, is able to develop their talents to the full, has secure, stable, well-paid and rewarding employment, and support when they fall on hard times. We will tackle the deficit, yes, but we will not tackle—[Interruption.] Hon. Members should listen and they will hear.

We will not tackle the deficit on the backs of middle and low earners, and especially not on the backs of the poorest in our society. We will tackle the deficit, but we will do it fairly and to a timescale that does not jeopardise sustainable growth in our economy. We will balance day-to-day spending and invest for future growth, so that the debt to GDP ratio falls, paying down our debts. We will do this, first, by ending this Government’s programme of tax cuts to the wealthiest in our society. This winter, when the letters go through the letterboxes telling working families how much they will lose in tax credits, we will be reminding them that their tax credit cut has paid for a cut of billions of pounds in the inheritance taxes of the richest families in this country.

Secondly, we will give HMRC the resources and powers to tackle tax evasion and avoidance—no more Facebooks paying less than £5,000 in tax despite £35 million in bonuses and total global profits of £1.9 billion—but above all else we will grow our economy. We will use smart Government institutions to strategically invest in the key areas that increase GDP in the future: education, health, research, technology, human capital formation and training—a progressive economic agenda that recognises that wealth creation is a collective process, working in partnership with businesses, workers, public institutions, and civil society organisations that create wealth in this country.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John McDonnell]

I have given way a number of times and this is a time-limited debate; I apologise.

That is why we will establish a national investment bank to invest in innovation across the entire supply chain, from the infrastructure we need to the applied research and early stage financing of companies. To tackle the growing skills shortages we will prioritise education in schools and universities along with a clear strategy for construction, manufacturing, and engineering skills to build and maintain sustainable economic growth. The proceeds of that growth will reach all sections of our society.

So we are launching the debate on the economy we need and the economic instruments and policies needed to achieve that prosperous and sustainable growth. That is why we are reviewing every aspect of economic policy and systematically assessing our economic institutions, the Bank of England, HMRC and the Treasury.

Today I can announce that I have appointed a former member of the Monetary Policy Committee, Professor David Blanchflower, to lead a review into whether the Monetary Policy Committee should be given a broader mandate. He is joined by Lord McFall, the former Chair of the Treasury Committee.

This is Labour’s radical project. It is based upon the sound advice of some of the best economic brains in the country. We will be testing our policies and economic instruments and we will be asking the Chancellor to give us access to the resources of the Office for Budget Responsibility to model our proposals. I am asking the same of the Governor of the Bank of England.

We are seeking the widest public engagement in our economic policy discussions. The dividing lines between us and the Government are not just on how to tackle the deficit and who pays for the crisis. They are more fundamental. It is about for whom the economy works and the role of the strategic state in this process. So today we will oppose this charter as an instrument for imposing austerity on our community unnecessarily. We are bringing to an end the petty game playing and moving on to a more serious debate of how the economy can work for everybody.