Broadband

Debate between Tessa Munt and Neil Parish

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish]

I have huge confidence in the Minister, but as he can imagine, if someone is living in a constituency such as mine, where about 70% or 80% of people are not getting broadband, those figures do not mean an awful lot. Therefore, I urge him to ensure—I know that he will because he is such a wonderful Minister—that they will immediately get their broadband tomorrow. I am being slightly facetious, but let me reiterate that the purpose of this debate is not just to criticise, but to see whether we can do better. I am not criticising the Government, but when there is a contract from BDUK that has Government money, council money, business money and, in fairness, money from BT, let us make sure that it delivers on its promises.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

I briefly intervene to say that there is no such thing as Government money or council money; it is all taxpayers’ money and that is why those responsible have to be held to account.

[Neil Parish]

I stand corrected by the hon. Lady. It is indeed our money that is being spent and we expect this service to be delivered.

The National Farmers Union has warned that its members do not have the infrastructure connections to enable fast enough broadband to comply with online Government services, including complying with the new agriculture policy, because all the mapping now has to be done online. I can understand that because of the need to map all the hedgerows, but it is essential that we get broadband out to those businesses.

The Federation of Small Businesses conducted research in July 2014 that shows that 94% of small business owners consider a reliable internet connection as critical to the success of their businesses and that 14% of UK small firms view the lack of a reliable broadband connection as being their primary barrier to growth. That has been recognised by the Government, but this is again about delivery. As small firms become more reliant on a high-quality broadband connection to do business, that will become even more significant in future.

As the EFRA Committee’s report rightly noted,

“2 Megabits per second (Mbps) is already an outdated figure, and 10 Mbps is increasingly recommended as a suitable USC for standard provision.”

The Government must reassess whether the current universal service commitment is still valid and right.

I would like to get a little more parochial. The Connecting Devon and Somerset programme that covers my constituency is on track to deliver superfast broadband to 90% of premises across Devon and Somerset by the end of 2016, up from 64% overall when the programme began. The programme is supported by a £32 million investment from BDUK.

I am pleased that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport announced on 25 February 2014 an additional £22.75 million for rural broadband in Devon and Somerset from the Government’s—from the taxpayer, from us all —£250 million broadband fund. However, my constituency of Tiverton and Honiton is ranked as the 611th worst constituency for broadband out of 650 constituencies. Only 33% of premises have high-speed broadband. A large number of communities in my constituency, such as Upottery, Stockland and Rousdon are being left in digital darkness. Some business owners in parts of Dunkeswell have told me that they may be forced to relocate because of the lack of reliable broadband. I have been working with local campaigners, Graham Long in Upottery and Rebecca Pow in Churchinford and Otterford.

CDS has now published its procurement tender for the next stage of the roll-out, to extend superfast broadband coverage as far as possible in Devon and Somerset, with the aim of getting to 100% coverage by 2020. I welcome the progress made in connecting more premises in Devon and Somerset, but I am deeply disappointed that we are not farther along this road. Communities in my constituency should not have to wait until 2020 for broadband delivery. I do not buy the argument constantly put to me by BDUK that, “It’s all too difficult, Mr Parish.” It is not too difficult, because a contract was given and money has been provided to deliver in those difficult areas. The contract is there to provide exactly what we want—broadband in our rural communities. Greater focus is needed on helping hard-to-reach areas and exploring innovative technologies.

Badger Culls (Assessment)

Debate between Tessa Munt and Neil Parish

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is great to follow the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams). I concur with many of his remarks, if not all of them. It will come as no surprise to hon. Members to learn that I completely oppose the whole idea of stopping the badger cull: I will explain exactly why.

Between 1999 and 2010, the number of cattle with TB in this country rose from 6,000 to 33,000. That was the period when Labour Members were in control of government in this country. Let us look at the same period in the Republic of Ireland. There were 40,000 reactors to TB in 2000, but by 2012 the number had dropped to 18,500 and it is dropping further now, so the number of cases in the Republic of Ireland more than halved in that period, whereas ours went up by four times.

In the Republic of Ireland, there are badgers and there is virtually the same cattle testing regime as we have, so of all the countries in the world that we look at, the Republic of Ireland is the best one to take an example from. In that case, what was different about the Republic of Ireland in the period to which I am referring? It took the difficult decision—it is a difficult decision; we all respect that and I respect hon. Members in this Chamber who have different views on badger culling—to cull badgers and it is reducing the disease dramatically. If we are to eradicate TB from our cattle, we must tackle the reservoir of disease within badgers.

More than 6,000 reactors a year are taken out of the county of Devon alone. There, we have a real hot spot of TB, and where we have a hot spot of TB in cattle, we also have TB in the badgers. There is a higher percentage of TB in the badgers because they catch it from the cattle, and then the badgers reinfect the cattle. I have made this point many times before. If we are going to test our cattle and test them more vigorously, as the hon. Gentleman said, and take out the infected animals, it is absolutely pointless then putting the cattle back into a field where there are badgers with the disease, because they will just reinfect the cattle all the time.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me on this point? Certainly in my part of Somerset, a number of the farmers have declared that they have cattle with TB, but the cattle are not removed from their farms with any level of speed whatever, so it both causes a great deal of distress to the farmers and has the potential to keep the infection level going.

[Neil Parish]

Yes. The hon. Lady raises a point that my hon. Friend the Minister might well like to deal with. The quicker we can get a reactor off a farm the better, because it is infectious while it is there.

While there is a reservoir of disease in the wildlife and particularly in badgers, we have to cull, and we have to cull in the areas where the badgers have TB and the cattle do. That is why the hot spots are where we target the culling. That is why we targeted Gloucester and west Somerset. That is absolutely right. We will be able to use vaccine in other areas, because in other areas, where there is little TB in the cattle, there is likely to be little TB in the badgers also. Therefore, vaccinating badgers in those areas could well be very successful. The point has been made many times that if a badger is infected with a disease, we will not cure it by vaccinating it. That is why we have to take the very difficult decision of culling infected badgers.

I congratulate very much the previous Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), who may have been lambasted by many, but who actually stuck his neck above the parapet and said, “Yes, we will do the thing that is necessary, which is to cull badgers in infected areas.”

The hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) opposed the policy from the beginning, so he would oppose it whether or not it was successful. That was never an issue with him, because he has opposed the whole thing, but what do we say to my constituent, David, who is at Ennerleigh farm in Washfield? He has been farming there for generations. Over the last 10 years, he has lost 350 cattle that have had TB. It has been a slow decline all the time—more and more reactors. He needs the pool of wildlife that has that infection to be dealt with, as do farmers across Devon, across the west country and in Wales, because, as has been said, the disease is spreading. If we do not deal with it in those hot spots, we will, in the end, have to cull more badgers, for the simple reason that the disease will have spread, the badgers will get it, they will then disease the cattle and the whole thing will get worse and worse. We cannot go on like the last Labour Government did—prevaricating and prevaricating and doing absolutely nothing.

The current Government have taken the difficult position. We have looked at the cull areas. We have looked at hard boundaries to ensure, as far as possible, that we use major roads, rivers and so on to try to prevent as much perturbation as possible. The system is not perfect. We would accept that and we have learned lessons from last year as far as the humaneness is concerned. As for traps, it is absolutely within the rules for traps to be used, and as for those activists who go out and trash the traps so that we cannot catch the badgers, that is absolute madness, because if we want to cull a badger in the most humane way possible, getting it in a trap so that we can dispatch it at point-blank range will always be the best method of culling.

We have worked so hard to get this going, and the farmers of this country, who keep the cattle, deserve to have the disease brought under control, because this is not only about the meat that we eat and the milk that we drink. It is about the countryside that we see out there and the cattle out in those fields. If we do not get rid of the disease in the wildlife, those cattle will have to stay indoors because it is too dangerous for them to go out, and I do not exaggerate. That is why this Government are making the right decision. I look forward to these pilot culls being successful. We are, again anecdotally, seeing the disease reducing, reactors reducing and outbreaks of TB in Somerset in particular—

Solar Arrays

Debate between Tessa Munt and Neil Parish

Thursday 11th July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) for initiating this debate.

I think that we can all agree that solar power is a real option for producing energy in the very near future, not only to meet our renewable energy needs and targets, but to keep the lights on. Solar arrays are swiftly installed and can balance the supply from more intermittent sources of generation, such as wind.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I was intrigued by the hon. Lady’s comments earlier, when she said that she would prefer to have solar panels than Hinkley Point, which will fulfil 8% of the country’s total energy needs. We would have to plaster the whole of the south-west and probably most of the farm land of the south-east to get anywhere near that amount of power. I am absolutely intrigued if that is actually Liberal Democrat policy.

[Tessa Munt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but of course my comment was on the beauty or otherwise of Hinkley Point, as the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) discussed. My point was that I do not believe that Hinkley Point is in any way beautiful, nor could it be considered attractive from any point of view. I accept that it produces power, and I certainly was not speaking for my party. I accept that there has to be a mix and that I cannot possibly stop Hinkley Point on my own, much as I possibly would like to do so. It is a valuable part of the mix, but I do not think that it is a very attractive blot on our landscape.

I am a keen environmentalist, and I believe that we have to make huge strides on energy saving, as well as on renewable energy generation, to ensure that we meet the targets that we set ourselves in the Climate Change Act 2008.

Using solar PV on domestic roofs is not the whole answer, and there are compromises to be made between orientation and the difficulty sometimes fitting in with architectural constraints. None the less, there is an opportunity to use commercial roofs for solar PV, too. I cite the cow shed roof of Michael Eavis, the founder of Glastonbury festival, who hosted 200,000 people the weekend before last at a highly successful and very sunny festival. I understand that he is the biggest private solar power and electricity provider in the UK. He has 1,116 panels on his cow shed roof at Worthy farm, and he produces 200 kW of power and saves 100 tonnes of carbon per annum. He uses that power to charge the generators used for long periods during the festival.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tessa Munt]

As I understand it—I hope to become a member of the co-operative—the threshold is £250, a moderate investment for those of us who might be able to afford it. I cannot remember what the maximum investment is, but I think that it might be something like £10,000 or £20,000, which is certainly out of my aim. For those who commit to the scheme, the co-op will use the profits created by the feed-in tariff to assist those who are identified as fuel-poor within the community. It might look at houses that are particularly hard to heat; there are a number of properties with very thick stone walls where people have particularly high bills.

For my part, I have been working with a charity organisation examining the amount of money spent in the community of Wedmore on electricity bills, gas bills and domestic heating fuel. They can see exactly how much is spent within a parish. Then the co-operative will move to reduce bills in the properties that are most expensive to heat for those who have the least funds to do so. I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I hope that that answers some of her questions.

To return to the details of the scheme, sheep will graze in the solar paddocks, as they have been called. The energy will not be intensively farmed; there will be space, and sheep will be able to graze. At the end of the 27 years, the panels will be removed and the land returned to its original use. I understand that the investors can expect a pretty healthy 7.2% average rate of return on their investment.

I hope that the Minister will consider speaking to his counterparts in the Department for Communities and Local Government, because there is an opportunity to take localism to the next degree by ensuring that communities start to aim for self-sufficiency in their energy needs. Communities should be able to consider their energy needs and how they might help reduce them by ensuring that buildings are built in a more energy-efficient way and by using all sorts of investment to ensure that people have lower bills.

It would be a good solution if communities could consider how they will take responsibility for the power that they use. My sense is that there has been enormous resistance to wind turbines in two or three parts of my constituency. The answer that I would always like to give to people is that they should be able to approach their district council and say, “Look, if you don’t want wind turbines, what are you going to offer instead?” We have to deal with the question of energy and energy production. We cannot just throw our hands in the air and say, “We don’t want that, that or that,” while carrying on using energy at the same intensity as before. [Interruption.] Is the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) making a formal intervention?

[Neil Parish]

Get some nuclear power stations.

[Tessa Munt]

No, that is throwing one’s hands in the air. There is an opportunity for people to consider how they might take responsibility for their communities. As a second example, the isolated village of Priddy sits on top of the Mendip hills. When the weather is bad, the village is pretty much cut off. The children of Priddy have requested on a number of occasions that their parish council install photovoltaic panels. Originally, they wanted to put them on the school roof, but it turned out that the school roof was angled the wrong way. Happily, the village hall, just across the road, was absolutely suitable, and it was fitted with solar panels in 2010. Those cells generate 4,400 kWh of electricity and prevent the production of nearly 2,400 kg of CO₂ each year.

To generalise, Regen South West’s latest progress report for 2013 shows that the south-west region now supplies about 7.3% of its energy through renewable means, but at current rates of installation, we will not meet the target of 15% by 2020, which is worrying. I would love to see more projects like the Wedmore scheme that work with and for communities. Community schemes benefit not an individual but the whole community, and there are ways to spread the wealth around. There will always be room for corporate players in the market, especially in industrial areas and on brownfield sites, but in rural areas, the community and co-op model is far preferable. Once again, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes on bringing this debate to the fore.