South-west Growth Charter

Debate between Rebecca Pow and Marcus Fysh

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I feel like I ought to go like a train, Sir Roger, in the time limit, but not like the trains that were running out of the south-west yesterday, which were not going at all. I sometimes feel like I am the Boadicea of the north of the south-west region, and that my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter), who so gallantly brought this debate to the House, is like the Alan Sugar of the south of the region, but in between, we have a myriad of talent. We are a talented force and we are joining forces and working together for our region.

We should not be underestimated. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) said, the south-west Conservative MPs won the election—to get political about it. There are 51 of us and we should not be underestimated. We came into this House on a manifesto promise to increase productivity in the south-west, and we are determined to do that but we cannot do it without the right framework behind us. We already have so much going in the south-west; we are achieving a lot. We have a lot of top-quality businesses and companies, but we could do more with the right framework, so I urge the Minister to listen and not to take us for granted.

One must always have a plan and a strategy, and we do. We have the south-west growth charter, and we also have our local enterprise partnerships working. We have a really solid framework from which to work. We are not working individually—although we all have our individual bids—but as a team, particularly on infrastructure and our particular asks.

In the time I have I will focus on just a couple of areas: skills and infrastructure. As I said, we already have some top-quality companies in my constituency. I must mention the Claims Consortium Group, with its Investors in People gold standard, the Ministry of Cake, Peter Brett Associates, Albert Goodman, Francis Clark, and Viridor, which is under the Pennon banner. There are so many of them, all doing great work, but they could all do more. So often, we find it difficult to attract the right talent and keep it in our region, and that is something we need to concentrate on. I applaud the Government’s apprenticeship scheme—I think it will work well—but we need to work more. I have the first nuclear apprenticeship degree in my constituency, being run through Bridgwater and Taunton College, and, as has been said, we need to build on the nuclear strength we have in the south-west.

We need to build on health, aerospace, textiles and marine —the things we are really good at and strong in already—but it is important that we work with the region as part of the Government’s industrial strategy. We must ensure that we do not miss out on any designations that are being handed out under the strategy outlined in the Green Paper. We need to be part of the bidding process but we need to win, and we must not be hampered if we do not happen to have signed a devolution deal yet. We are already doing good work and we must not be hampered, or even penalised.

I will just mention AgustaWestland, as many people who live in my constituency work there. I had a very good meeting with the company. It employs 17,500 people across the south-west. It particularly urges innovation and investment in science and technology, with which I think we would all agree.

[Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Rebecca Pow]

I will give way to my hon. Friend, because the company is in his constituency.

[Marcus Fysh]

Yes, that is a wonderful industry and we need to focus on it and raise its skill levels. Investing in infrastructure is absolutely fundamental to what we are trying to achieve in the area.

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend is right. The company stressed to me that it is not just about wanting engineers to build helicopters but about attracting young people into the area to be those engineers. The industry is inspirational and is going somewhere. We need the seed-corn money from business, and grants for medium and small companies so that they can start to do research in that field. We can do that in the south-west; we can build on it and we can all take advantage of it.

I just want to throw in that we need a university. We are warm-hearted in Somerset, but we are a cold spot where academia is concerned. I would like to speak to the Minister about how we ease the numbers game so that we can apply to be a university.

I will sum up on the infrastructure note. We all agree that we have lots of ideas but the Minister needs to bring it on. We want to see the spades in the ground. I want to see the A358 come to fruition before the next election. We have to have junction 25 upgraded, we have to have the A303, and we have to have the road to Barnstaple done. They all work together. I ask the Minister to put some money back into growth deal 3. It was almost in the bag, but the bag seems to have been opened and the money has been let out. Please can we have that, devolution or no devolution?

We can do it in the south-west. Give us the tools and we will deliver, but do not destroy our beautiful environments at the same time. We are a spectacularly stunning region. We can make the economy work but we can also make it work in a glorious environment.

Protection of Ancient Woodland and Trees

Debate between Rebecca Pow and Marcus Fysh

Thursday 10th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Rebecca Pow]

My right hon. Friend makes a valid point, which I will address in a moment. She is right; if we cannot stand by the designations, we might ask what the point of having them is. I put that to the Minister.

I thought that the Minister responsible for forestry would reply to the debate, but I am pleased to see the Minister of State with responsibility for farming in his place. The whole of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is especially committed to trees and woodland, but the Forestry Minister admitted in the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—I was at the inquiry meeting at which he said this—that

“ancient woodland, as a category, is not a protected category”.

I am now coming on to what many of my hon. Friends are referring to—everything is about paragraph 118 of the national planning policy framework, which allows for the destruction or loss of

“ancient woodland and…aged or veteran trees”

if

“the need for, and benefits of, the development in that location clearly outweigh the loss”.

As a result of that loophole, as I would describe it, hundreds of ancient woodlands and trees are being lost or threatened in the planning system every single year. Since the national planning policy framework was introduced in March 2012, more than 40 ancient woods have suffered from loss or damage.

[Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the problems in planning assessments is that much reliance is placed on professional reports and assessments of one kind or another that are challengeable, although they seem to persist from development to development with a life of their own? We need decision makers who will actually challenge such things and not allow them to take on a life of their own.

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, which I will come on to later with reference to the idea of natural capital and how much value we put on the natural world versus development. The Woodland Trust is dealing with an incredible 560 threats to ancient woods; November saw the biggest escalation ever of the number of threats being registered—14 in one month, which is shocking. Threats can come from mineral extraction, installation of electricity or gas pipelines, housing, leisure proposals, roads, golf courses or even sites for war-gaming and paintballing.

Other ancient woodland areas are under threat from local area plans, which are falling through the net and we hardly know anything about. I have one such near me at Ash Priors, where houses were built on ancient woodland because the local plan could not really stand up for it. We do not know exactly how many ancient woods there are, let alone how many are threatened, because we rely on the dear old Woodland Trust to gather such data. I ask the Minister for a proper database to collate all such information, because then we would be on stronger ground.

Interestingly, the motion we are debating has not been far from the thoughts and considerations of others in this place. Only one year ago, in December 2014, the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government called for ancient woodland to be awarded the same level of protection as designated heritage assets in the built environment, which include scheduled monuments, wreck sites, battlefields, and grade I and II listed buildings—my own house is grade II and, small and humble as it is, I cannot knock it down to build a road. Do my hon. Friends agree that the CLG Committee proposal seems eminently sensible?

Neonicotinoids on Crops

Debate between Rebecca Pow and Marcus Fysh

Monday 7th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Rebecca Pow]

Lots of research is still going on, which is why more and more evidence is coming forward, which is heartening. The chief scientific adviser has commissioned a lot of field trials, which I expect we will hear about later. However, research must cover the whole countryside including the hedgerows, ditches and streams and not just the specific areas where rapeseed and maize crops are grown.

Back to those bees who were exhibiting rather odd behaviour, that they were foraging away but not being effective suggests that their behaviour had been changed, possibly, it is alleged, by pesticides. It is worrying if that affects the bee’s memory and ability to learn about and do productive foraging.

[Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate. Does my hon. Friend agree that bees are particularly important to our ecosystems, and that nothing is more important than following a precautionary principle when we look at pesticides? Does she not also think that we can all play our part by trying to encourage growth in the bee population by planting wild flowers in our meadows and gardens? Will she congratulate two constituents of mine, the Cordwell family in East Coker, who every year run a wonderful community event?

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend has obviously been looking over my shoulder at my script, because I am coming on to that point. I know of that field of wild flowers, which is truly a heaven for bees. Individually, we can all play our part to help the bees and I urge everyone, including all those who signed the petition, to do that in our green spaces and gardens. If we add all our gardens up, they come to 1 million hectares of land, which is a huge habitat.