Animal Welfare (Exports)

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Laura Sandys]

It is crucial that we accept and tolerate only the very best transporters in the sector. I feel strongly about this trade generally, but we must ensure that operators take their responsibilities extremely seriously and that this trade is not being subsidised by all of us as taxpayers. In my constituency, where there is much more involvement, it is my local taxpayers who are paying for a lot of this, and I would like to see them refunded for the impact it is having on their bills.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

My understanding is that there is a cost to licensing. I shall use the example of George Neville’s firm, which is in the Minister’s constituency, abutting mine. It has a fleet of 20 vehicles—this is executive transport, with water, fans and hydraulic decks that lift up and down so the stress levels on the animals are hugely reduced—but it pays £4,000 for the licences on those 20 vehicles.

[Laura Sandys]

That sounds like the Rolls-Royce of transportation, and I would be very pleased if the animals coming through Ramsgate were in that sort of condition. My understanding is, however, that people can apply for a transportation licence, although I do not know whether this is a different sort of licence from the one to which the hon. Lady has just referred, and that they can get it for free.

--- Later in debate ---

[Roger Williams]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point and his experience of representing his constituency is important in these matters.

The hon. Member for South Thanet asked what type of business plan encourages this type of live export. I cannot believe that anybody who loads 100 live sheep on to a lorry and at the end of the journey unloads 95 live sheep and five dead ones can make money out of that in the long term.

[Tessa Munt]

I have spoken already about executive transport for cattle and sheep, with which I am familiar. If a company that pays £90,000 for an Italian-made trailer and £70,000 for the tractor unit to draw it can carry cattle, sheep and other animals, can operate at such costs and can meet the Freedom Foods certificate standards, it is clearly possible to do that and still make money.

[Roger Williams]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The discussion this afternoon shows that although some hon. Members may wish to ban live exports altogether, most would want it carried out in the way that is most conducive to good animal welfare. My hon. Friend makes the important point that much of the transport that is now provided for animals is of a very high standard. Water and ventilation are provided, there are rest periods and journeys are of limited duration.

Green Waste (Contamination)

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

I think that the point I was coming to might answer my hon. Friend’s concerns. I will say now what I was going to say later: the Government are in absolutely no way complacent about this. We might have the most stringent standards in Europe, but we want to see that we are enforcing them. Having the most stringent standards is just a factor on a piece of paper; we are concerned with outcomes. I want to assure him that we will follow up any cases where we believe there has been a failure to comply with standards, and I will move on to explain how the principle that the polluter should pay will continue to be a key component of what we do.

Of course, not all compost needs to be produced to such a standard. Lower grade compost and compost-like outputs can be legitimately used on land, for example as mulch. In those cases, the compost remains a waste and its use on land is subject to environmental permitting or registered exemption controls in the same way as the composting process itself. That is monitored and closely enforced by the Environment Agency. We are aware of cases of sham recovery where, under the guise of composting, some operators have seemingly been more interested in disposing of unwanted materials than producing a worthwhile product. Where such cases are identified, the Environment Agency will investigate and consider enforcement action in accordance, importantly for my hon. Friend, with its enforcement and sanctions guidelines.

The controls on compost spread to land are in place, but we are keen to guard more generally against adverse impacts resulting from the spreading of a wider range of waste and non-waste materials on land. For this reason, officials in the Department and in the Environment Agency have set up a joint project to look at the impacts of other materials spread on land and whether we have the right controls in place. Nobody has total possession of all wisdom in this regard, and we are happy to take up any cases that we hear about from hon. Members, local authorities, or members of the public and organisations such as the one that my hon. Friend mentioned. In doing so, we will need to be absolutely clear about the rationale for any further intervention and avoid unnecessary or disproportionate regulation. We believe that there are sanctions in place that can deal with every one of the cases that he raises. If that is not happening, we as Ministers want to know why, and we look to him and others to provide cases that we can take up with the Environment Agency, which we will do with vigour.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

Will the Minister consider the fact that it is possible to look at the outcome as opposed to the process and perhaps offer some facility for the Environment Agency to recognise the integrity of agricultural and food-producing land and to offer some protection for that land? We already protect water voles and all sorts of other things in a number of different ways. If we looked to the protection of the land, any offence on it could be worked against by the Environment Agency rather than trying to classify every assault on the land.

[Richard Benyon]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. What Government have to do is to create standards, and we do that in accordance, in the main, with European designations on such matters. However, that is a very prosaic and rather unambitious reason to do it. We also do it because we want to do so. We want to see a healthy environment. We want our food grown in a healthy way, and we want to be mindful of the health of the consumer and, of course, the impact on the environment. We are very concerned with outcomes, so we are genuinely worried when we hear such issues raised. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, we are in no way complacent. We take our responsibilities very seriously. We are absolutely desirous of having good outcomes from all the measures that are in place. Many people say that far too many regulations are imposed on our food-producing industry and that we need to try to rationalise them, but we do not do that at the expense of the health of our environment or the consumer.

We have covered a lot of ground in the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester and the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Tessa Munt). I understand the attraction of metal detecting as a hobby, because a lot of people in my constituency do it. It is not only a good way of getting out into the countryside and doing a worthwhile activity; it is part of our agenda of more people having access to the countryside. It is also, as my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester points out, a fantastic way of collecting and identifying some extraordinary artefacts. We have all heard some of the wonderful stories in recent years, especially in and around the ancient Roman city of Camulodunum, now of course Colchester. I appreciate the frustration of the members of the National Council for Metal Detecting and note its recent petition on the subject. I particularly note the concern of those in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and I agree that we cannot accept the inappropriate spreading of what is alleged to be green waste, or the wilful damage to our environment.

The Government have a fundamental duty to continue to support and encourage the recycling and recovery of waste so as to conserve natural resources. We also have a responsibility towards the established principle in modern society that the polluter pays. That is an important sanction against the kind of pollution that my hon. Friend has described, and I reaffirm that if he can bring us evidence of this kind of thing happening, perhaps from his contacts in the National Council for Metal Detecting, I can assure him that there will be no lack of will among Ministers or those in the Environment Agency to take up those cases.

I hope that I have managed to reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester and the House that there are good regulatory systems in place, and sanctions that should be working. There are also quality protocols which, if complied with, can add immensely to helping our environment. Where they are not being complied with, the perpetrators can be punished.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Tessa Munt.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Lady has changed her mind. We are saddened. Mr Gary Streeter.

Littering and Fly-tipping

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

I entirely agree with my hon. and learned Friend and thank the volunteers in his constituency who do that, and I resent, in almost equal measure, the people with such little regard for our communities and countryside that they throw the litter in the first place, thereby requiring those volunteers to perform the selfless act that he describes.

Let me set out to the House the Government’s plans for good-quality local environments and the actions that we are taking to tackle littering and fly-tipping. We know from repeated public surveys that the appearance of local neighbourhoods matters greatly to people, ranking alongside or above concerns such as global climate change or rising fuel prices. Poor quality environments can destroy neighbourhood pride and create a climate of fear and neglect. These are therefore important issues, and it is right that we take a close interest in addressing them. Local authorities are on the front line of dealing with littering and fly-tipping. They have the duty to clean up public land and the powers to take enforcement action to fit local circumstances. Although most fly-tipping on public land is handled by local authorities, the Environment Agency also has a role in investigating large fly-tipping incidents, in particular those involving hazardous waste or organised crime. As my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire said, on private land the responsibility for dealing with fly-tipping rests with the landowners—often at great cost to them and their businesses—although many local authorities offer advice, guidance and, in some cases, help.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

I wonder whether the Minister could address the problem of different local authorities having different responsibilities. In my area, Somerset county council has shut a number of local recycling centres, leaving the district councils as the level responsible for dealing with fly-tipping. That transfers the cost from the county council’s budget, but means that district councils have to deal with an increasing problem. Indeed, they are left having to charge, through council tax, which seems most unfair.

[Richard Benyon]

I understand that all local authorities, like the Government, face difficulties and have to set priorities. If we are to be a truly localist Government, we have to leave decisions about priorities to be taken locally. In areas with unitary councils there is less misunderstanding on the part of the public about who is responsible. When I was a district councillor, people were always blaming the county council for things that were my responsibility, and vice versa. I know that this is a difficulty in areas with two-tier local authorities, but I understand the point my hon. Friend makes.

The charity Keep Britain Tidy carries out a survey for DEFRA each year, and this year the 10th report was produced. It provides an opportunity to look across the changes in the last decade and highlights the fact that litter levels are not much better than when the survey was first carried out, in 2001, with 15% of areas deemed “unsatisfactory” for litter. Yet since that time, the costs to local authorities of sweeping the streets, including dealing with litter, has risen by hundreds of millions of pounds, as my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire said, to little short of £900 million.

DEFRA and the Environment Agency host the collection data on fly-tipping, through the Flycapture reporting system, which helps to provide evidence of the nature and scale of fly-tipping and allows decisions to be made locally and nationally on the best interventions to tackle the problem. Fly-tipping continues to have too great a detrimental impact on the local environment. In 2010-11, there were 820,000 fly-tipping incidents in England. Although that is a reduction compared with the previous year, this is in part due to changes in reporting practices by some authorities. The true figure is likely to be considerably more, as it is recognised that many incidents, particularly those on private land, go unreported. We also know that a lot of fly-tipping involves domestic waste, which can ordinarily be collected by local authorities or taken, as has been said, to civic amenity sites.

So what can be done to make real inroads into the persistent levels of litter? The Government’s commitment in this regard is clearly set out in the coalition’s programme for government. We aim to reduce litter as part of our drive towards a zero-waste economy. Changing the attitude and behaviour of those who drop litter and casually fly-tip is essential, which is why the Government are committed to working with Keep Britain Tidy, businesses, local authorities and community groups on their “Love Where You Live” campaign. It appeals to all sectors of business and across all sectors of society, and support is coming from Wrigley, McDonald’s, Network Rail, Coca-Cola, Waitrose and many others. Businesses can contribute in many ways: by supporting the campaigning effort; by carrying their message to customers, staff and others; and, directly, through changing the design of their products, packaging and services to reduce the possibility of litter from the outset. The “Love Where You Live” campaign holds promise in being able to attract widespread support to capture the public’s imagination and inspire civic pride, especially in this year of the Queen’s diamond jubilee, and the London Olympic and Paralympic games.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

May I put on the record my thanks to the right hon. Gentleman—I thank other Members too, but him particularly—for his work in supporting what we have been trying to do? He is a long-standing supporter of the waterways. I absolutely assure him that the governance model we have introduced will create an independent organisation that cannot be tampered with by Ministers in future, and certainly not by this Minister, who passionately wants the charity to succeed.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

Currently boats are allowed to discharge effluent into rivers and watercourses. I recognise the difficulties with some locations, which are very remote from any practical answer to the problem, but what measures is the Minister taking to call a complete halt to this practice so that the quality of beach bathing water, particularly in the west country, is kept to the very highest standards?

[Richard Benyon]

Water quality is an absolute fundamental, and releasing pollutants into waterways can affect our ability to comply with the directives that we have signed up to, such as the water framework directive, so it is an absolute priority as well. We have allocated funding to improve water quality. I will certainly look at any regulations, and if the new charity comes forward with suggestions that require legislation on any level, we will certainly consider that.

Bovine TB

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

Far from it: I think we can be reasonably confident that they will be subject to a legal challenge and that is one reason why we have taken the utmost care. We have taken our time and we have taken a precautionary approach, and every step of the way we have tried to ensure that we have a copper-bottomed reasoned analysis that is the basis of our judgment that we should proceed with this policy.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

I am aware that more than 1,200 badgers have been vaccinated over the past 18 months in Gloucestershire in trials under separate projects from the Food and Environment Research Agency and the Gloucestershire wildlife trust to assess the practical use of a vaccine. I am pleased that the new vaccine plans have been announced today and they at least explain that we are trying different solutions to sort out this problem, which is a huge one in Somerset. When will the Secretary of State be in a position to assess the effectiveness and costs involved in that project in Gloucestershire and how will that inform the planned vaccination projects that are to come over the next three years?

[Mrs Spelman]

It will take some time—many years—before we can finally assess the effectiveness of the vaccination trial in Gloucestershire, but I went and saw it for myself and, as much as anything, it was about the practicalities of trapping and caging the badgers prior to injecting with the only vaccine that is available. There are considerable practical difficulties with the procedure, but today I have tried to make available a fund to help those voluntary groups that want to participate in the vaccination programme.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

Animal Aid believes that around 70% of slaughterhouses already have CCTV. Regarding the recent, quite proper, furore over cruelty to pigs at what was then called Cheale Meats, it is important to point out that CCTV cameras were there—albeit perhaps pointed in the wrong direction—so they are not the final panacea that some people believe them to be. Nevertheless, we are considering them as part of a wider-ranging package to ensure that there is no cruelty to animals in those last few moments of their lives.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

Does the welfare of laying hens directive present an opportunity for us to support our farmers and food producers through country of origin labelling and information on compliance suppliers and sources of egg? Will the Minister have discussions with supermarkets and other retailers on egg products, liquid and powder egg, and prepared foods, so that it is easy to buy good eggs?

[Mr Paice]

I can assure my hon. Friend that I have had such discussions and will continue to have them. I can assure the House that overall, the supermarkets, and indeed much of the processing sector, are determined to comply with the spirit of the legislation and procure egg and egg product only from compliant cages. As I said, I may well make a further statement shortly.

Badgers and Bovine TB

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

Some of the points that I wanted to make have been made already and I shall not repeat them. I come from Somerset, which is a hot spot for bovine TB in the west country. Bovine TB is an appalling problem for farmers in both economic and social terms. I deal quite a lot with the Farm Crisis Network, which tries to relieve the stresses on the families concerned.

The Liberal Democrats are committed in the coalition agreement to pursuing a

“carefully managed and science-led policy of badger control in areas with high and persistent levels of bovine tuberculosis”.

I am concerned that, if successful, the badger control policy is expected to reduce incidences of bovine TB by only 16%. People have cited anything between 16% and 27%. We must ensure that robust measures are put in place to tackle the other 84% to 73%, depending on which figure is taken. Cattle controls, testing regimes and biosecurity measures, which are a crucial part of preventing the spread of the disease, are addressed in the proposals. I welcome the fact that £20 million has been set aside for continued development of a cattle vaccine and an oral badger vaccine. However, I am concerned that the approach to culling outlined in the guidance to Natural England varies significantly from the approach taken in the RBCT and is not, therefore, supported by scientific evidence. I am further concerned that it is proven that an ineffective cull increases incidences of bovine TB.

I take issue with the suggestion made in relation to the Government’s proposed area for culling, which is a 7½ mile by 7½ mile patch of land—150 sq km. The hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon), who started the debate, suggested that there could be 30 badgers per square kilometre. I scaled those figures up. That suggests that in the culling area that the Government propose, there would be 4,500 badgers, which I somewhat doubt. Those who are not informed and who do not live in areas where this problem is fairly severe may take a different view. The suggestion is that a 70% clearance of the badgers might therefore lead to 3,150 badgers being killed in a six-week period. I do not think that that is correct, and I am sure the Minister will have a view on it.

I live very close to the location of Secret World, which is an organisation that protects badgers. It often collects the young badgers that have been left orphaned. It might be helpful if people understood that Pauline Kidner, the lady who runs that organisation, takes care to ensure that euthanasia is carried out when badgers that she collects from around the country are found to have TB, and that she does not just automatically release all badgers back on to whatever piece of land she chooses. Fairly stringent measures are taken against diseased badgers, even by those organisations that exist to help them.

Finally, I call on the Minister and ultimately the Secretary of State to ensure that the cattle testing regime is more stringently enforced. What are the Minister’s thoughts about including the removal of compensation payments for cattle where testing is overdue without just cause? Could compensation payments be tied to good biosecurity measures, with full payments being made to farmers who practise good biosecurity, and lower payments or the removal of payments being implemented for farmers who do not? Could the money saved from reduced compensation payments be used to set up a fund to make grants for capital works to farmers who wish further to improve their biosecurity measures? Could we ensure that each of the pilot schemes is carefully monitored by independent experts for their humaneness and effectiveness in achieving the required 70% reduction in the local badger population? Could any perturbation effects also be monitored? Could they be compared with those experienced in the RBCT? Finally, what are the implications of such an approach from a public safety perspective? The Secretary of State should hold—

[Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. I will have to interrupt the hon. Lady, because it has gone past 12.10.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

I am glad the hon. Lady recognises that no final decision has been made, a point that I need to emphasise. The fact is that the proposals that we laid before the House, and the consultation that has just finished, were agreed by the whole Government. On the policing costs, we are in discussions, and have been for some months, with the Association of Chief Police Officers. Its attention was unfortunately but quite understandably diverted by the disturbances and riots, so it has only recently refocused, but I assure the hon. Lady that all that information will be used and involved in the final decision, when we bring it to the House.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

Living as I do in the west country, I know that the Minister will be aware of our concerns not only about bovine TB, but about several other things. I gather that the Secretary of State has put together a proposal to close the vet labs in various places throughout the country, and I wondered what the rationale was for that, particularly in an area where bovine TB is such a problem.

[Mr Paice]

I am grateful that my hon. Friend allows me to correct her impression slightly. The decision, which will be made quite rightly by the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency, results from the merger of two agencies into one. All that is being closed is the actual laboratories that undertake scientific testing. The post-mortem centres are not proposed for closure, and most samples are already sent by post anyway, so it does not represent in any way a diminution of service.

Bovine TB

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

I do not accept that it is a sad day for conservationists, of whom I regard myself as one. I think the hon. Lady will be aware that nature conservationists regularly have to cull species in the natural world. That is part of good conservation. As regards the 2007 position on the science, things have moved on. I repeat what I said to the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh): in 2011 we have had the publication of the data produced by one of the original scientists, Christl Donnelly, which show that the ongoing beneficial effects of having culled the badgers in the cull area are maintained, and that the perturbation effect moves away. I think the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) will find when she reads that document that, since it has been peer reviewed by other scientists, it meets with strong support in the scientific community.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

The right hon. Lady will be aware that this is a matter of immense importance to my constituency, which is in the south-west. The coalition agreement states:

“As part of a package of measures, we will introduce a carefully managed and science-led policy of badger control in areas with high and persistent levels of bovine tuberculosis.”

Science-led policy would require a thorough and rigorous evaluation of the two pilot projects of which she has spoken before the policy was rolled out to the rest of the areas affected by TB. I imagine that it might take years for the scientists to evaluate them. What form would that evaluation take, and can she give more details of what resources DEFRA will put in place?

[Mrs Spelman]

I commiserate with the hon. Lady on the fact that her part of the world is so badly affected. That is one reason why we want to undertake the pilots in the worst-affected areas, where they are likely to be disproportionately beneficial. I can assure her that the pilots will be rigorously evaluated by an independent panel of scientific experts, veterinary scientists, academic scientists and practitioners. However, we need to be clear that the pilots are to establish the efficacy and humaneness of this method of reducing the population, and are not about the wider question of the science, which had already been established by the randomised badger culling trial. For that reason, I do not think it is remotely likely to take years. It will be more a matter of weeks or months.