Badger Cull

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I know that he is in close touch with the farming community, and we appreciate that it is under great pressure, which is why we are determined to introduce measures that will, we hope, reduce the disease in high-risk areas and, crucially, stop it going into low-risk areas.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The Secretary of State has highlighted the costs to the individual farmer and the taxpayer, but does he recognise that having disease-free cattle is important to the agri-food industry—a multi-billion pound industry in the United Kingdom that is especially important to economies such as Northern Ireland’s?

[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Gentleman is right to mention the potentially very serious impact on the agri-food industry if we do not get a grip on this disease. We are determined to work on this policy, and to learn the lessons from the experience of the neighbouring state of the Republic of Ireland and other countries.

The task of managing bovine TB and bringing it under control is difficult and complex, but that is no excuse for further inaction. This Government are committed to using all the tools at our disposal and continuing to develop new ones, because we need a comprehensive package of measures to tackle the disease. International experience clearly shows that controlling wildlife species that harbour the disease and can pass it on to cattle must be part of that package.

Environmental Protection and Green Growth

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend. I read in Hansard the debates he had last year on the issue. The floods were devastating, and he played a huge leadership role in his community, bringing it together in the very difficult months that followed, when without a bridge it was split by the river.

We want strong rural communities where rural businesses can sell their goods and services direct and file their accounts over the internet, and where families have the same opportunities as people in towns and cities. In government, Labour promised universal rural broadband by 2012 and universal high-speed broadband by 2015, yet this Government have said that universal broadband will come only in 2015, and only as long as cash-strapped councils, which have also seen their budgets cut by one third, stump up half the money.

Broadband is essential if we are to tackle the social and financial exclusion that many in the countryside face. Speeding up rural broadband should not be part of a plan B; it should have been in the Government’s plan A. So, we call on them to speed up spending on this 21st century infrastructure in order to stimulate growth and private sector jobs in rural economies.

Let me turn to carbon reporting. In January 2010, several Tory and Lib Dem Members wrote to Labour’s then Business Secretary, calling for mandatory carbon reporting. They included the current Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), and the hon. Members for Lewes (Norman Baker), for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr Davey)—all now Ministers. In that letter, they said:

“There will be further economic benefits, accelerating the development of the low carbon economy and giving the City the backing it needs to become the world leader in carbon accounting and reporting.”

What a difference two years make.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I know that the Labour party has an obsession with carbon emissions, and indeed the Climate Change Act 2008 was evidence of that, but the motion is about job creation. Carbon reduction has led to an increase in consumer and business electricity prices, and to energy-intensive industries relocating outside the United Kingdom, with the British Air Transport Association saying only last week, “If we continue down this road it will affect the aviation industry’s competitiveness,” so will the hon. Lady explain how that fits with job creation?

[Mary Creagh]

It is not a matter of either/or. Unlike the Government, far-sighted companies have realised that reporting environmental impact helps them to reduce their costs, to improve their production processes, and drives innovation in products and services. That is where we were a leader in the green economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Benyon]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about our nature improvement areas, and I would be happy to talk further to him about them and about the level of our ambition, which exceeds that of the previous Government. There is no money left, as someone once said when he left a note in a desk. I have to remind the hon. Gentleman of that, but we have made biodiversity and reversing its decline an absolute priority—both for this Department and the Government.

[Sammy Wilson]

Will the Minister give way?