A Green Industrial Revolution

Steve Double Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good suggestion. It is clear that central Government will not be the only actor in spending taxpayers’ money and driving every bit of innovation; they will be hand in glove with local civic leaders and, really importantly, the private sector. Government must set the direction and provide incentives, and then let others take the mission forward.

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend rightly highlights Cornwall’s history in new technologies. Is she aware that large deposits of lithium have been identified in Cornwall? That has the potential to put Cornwall at the forefront of technology once again and to revive our precious mineral extraction industry. Will she ensure that her Department gives that fledgling industry all the support it needs to thrive?

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend is a great champion for his constituency and for Cornwall more widely. In many ways, Cornwall is playing a major role in our moves toward net zero, and we in my Department will always be happy to talk to him about that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin), and it has been a pleasure to hear some excellent maiden speeches this afternoon. I believe that there is at least one more to come, and we look forward to it very much.

It is also a pleasure to participate in this important debate on the Government’s vision and ambition for a green industrial revolution. As I pointed out in an intervention at the start of the debate, Cornwall is ready to play a very active part in that revolution. It has a proud history of innovation and being at the forefront of technological advances, and it is already playing its part in the area of renewable energy. We already have very advanced wind and solar generation power, and we are about to start producing geothermal energy: we are the only place in the UK that will be able to do that. Cornwall will also be at the forefront in the extraction of lithium and other precious minerals that are necessary for battery technology.

However, what I want to touch on this afternoon is not so much the green revolution that we need, but the blue revolution that we need. We now have a much greater understanding of just how important the seas and oceans are to our environment, and of the part that they play in regulating our climate.

I was born and grew up in Cornwall around the sea and I now have the huge privilege of representing one of only three constituencies in the country that has two separate coastlines. I grew up being very much aware of what an amazing thing our sea is—a place that we can love and enjoy, a place of adventure—but I also grew up to respect the ocean and to understand what a complex place it is. The sea in Cornwall has shaped not just our landscape but our culture and identity, and we are always closely attached to it. For far too long, though, we seemed to have the impression that the sea could cope with anything we threw at it—that it was vast enough to cope, whatever we pumped or threw into it. Thankfully, in recent years we have come to appreciate that that is not the case and that we need to protect our oceans and take care of what we put into them.

I will touch on three areas where I welcome the Government taking action, but on which I want to press them to do a bit more. Others have already mentioned the fact that we have to stop producing so much plastic and be more responsible in the way we deal with and dispose of the plastic that we use. I will never forget the moment, a few years ago, when the realisation hit me just how much plastic was being pumped into our seas and oceans. It was when I read a report that highlighted that if we do not take drastic action by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in our seas.

I am grateful for the action that the Government have already taken to reduce the amount of plastic waste we produce, including the plastic bag charge, the ban on microbeads and the plan to ban plastic straws, but I want to press them on this, because we urgently need to come forward with a deposit return scheme for single-use plastic bottles. We have been talking about that for over two years, and that is far too long. We now really need to press ahead and bring in a scheme that will help us to increase the level of plastic recycling in our country and ensure that far less is thrown away only to end up in our seas and oceans. I am pleased with the progress we have made as a Government, but let us really press this home and ensure that we take urgent action.

Another thing that I want to talk about is sewage discharge into our seas. We have made huge progress in cleaning up our seas in relation to the amount of sewage that we pump into them. One of the things I have been proud of in my time in this place is that I have worked closely with the Cornish-based charity Surfers Against Sewage, whose main focus over many decades has been to ensure that we clean up our seas, but the sad fact is that we are still pumping too much untreated sewage into our oceans through combined sewer outflows. We still have too many of these sewage systems that combine household foul waste water—sewage—with rainwater and surface water from run-off drains. When we have heavy rainfall, all of that gets into the sewerage system and it just cannot cope. Untreated raw sewage is therefore pumped into the seas.

We have been monitoring this situation and we found that, just in the recreational summer season last year, there were more than 1,700 discharges of untreated sewage into our seas across the UK, 10% of which were in Cornwall. It cannot be acceptable that we continue to do that in this day and age. Yes, we are making progress, but I believe we now need to press the water companies to really up their game. They must take drastic action to get rid of these combined sewers and ensure that we stop discharging untreated sewage into our seas. Surfers Against Sewage has a target that we will have stopped pumping raw sewage into recreational sea areas by 2030, as well as a long-term plan to ensure that we rid our seas of untreated sewage in any circumstances. Again, I welcome the measures in the Environment Bill that the previous Parliament began to consider; I urge the Government to bring back that Bill in the near future and to include real teeth in the new policy to ensure that we can hold water companies to account and stop the pumping of untreated sewage into our seas.

Finally, coastal areas bear the brunt of the impact of climate change, and we see that time and again in Cornwall. The extreme weather events that we used to think happened every 50 years now occur on an almost annual basis. We need to prepare our coastal communities for the impact of climate change. A big area of concern in Cornwall is coastal erosion, which is accelerating before our very eyes. Many of the communities that I represent face the impact and costs of erosion, so I urge the Government to do more to protect those communities from the impact of extreme weather and storms. If we spend a few million pounds now, we will save tens or hundreds of millions of pounds in the years to come.

Many of the communities that I represent, such as Newquay, are worried about the amount of development still being allowed on clifftops that are eroding before our eyes. We need to look again at our planning policy when it comes to clifftop development to ensure that we are not just saving up problems for the years to come by building properties that will be right on the edge of those cliffs in a short space of time. We must take action to ensure that funding is available to protect our coastal communities and that we are not continuing to build in areas facing coastal erosion.

As a proud island nation, the UK has always had a positive relationship with the sea. I am pleased that we are now starting to treat our oceans much more responsibly, but we need to do more. I welcome the measures that the Government are already bringing forward, but I urge them to continue to review the situation and to ensure that we treasure and protect our oceans and do not continue to contribute to the pollution of the seas around us.