Agriculture Bill
Debate between Theresa Villiers and Simon HoareMonday 3rd February 2020
(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Theresa Villiers
Through a combination of regulation and farm support payments, we are certainly doing everything we can to ensure that farmers play their part in addressing and reducing pollution, and contribute to cleaner water and cleaner air.
Finding a way sustainably to feed a rapidly growing global population is essential if we are to have any chance of tackling the climate and nature crisis that we face. Getting Brexit done means that we are able forge ahead with the reforms that the United Kingdom has sought for so long from the European Union, but never managed to secure. For 40 years successive UK Governments of all political complexions have vowed to secure reform of the CAP, and for 40 years Ministers returned from Brussels and stood at this Dispatch Box with very little to show for their efforts. This Bill will therefore deliver one of the most important environmental reforms for decades. It shows that we can deliver a green Brexit, where we have a stronger and more effective focus on environmental outcomes than was possible while we were a member of the European Union.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is being characteristically generous in giving way. I agree with her entirely about the need to green and be environmentally friendly in farming. Against that backdrop, is she able to indicate her thinking about the support this Bill could provide to those farmers who are really keen to invest in agri-tech as a way of reducing the need for both insecticide and pesticides?
Theresa Villiers
The new scheme of farm support will include support for agri-tech to support productivity enhancement in a sustainable way. My hon. Friend raises an important point, which I will refer to later in my remarks.
If we get right the reform we are contemplating today, we can be a beacon for others to follow. Over $700 billion is spent around the world on agriculture subsidies. If we successfully deliver a new approach to farm support here and that encourages even a fraction of those billions of dollars of farm subsidies to be diverted into environmental improvement schemes, we will have a created a massive boost to efforts to address the climate crisis. As Secretary of State, I want to emphasise that I fully recognise the urgency of that crisis. I have been driving forward this Bill as just one part of the biggest package of legislative reform in Whitehall, but I am determined to go further. In the coming weeks, I will be publishing documents outlining more detail on our proposals for the future of farming.
The Government have always been clear that we will seize the opportunity Brexit presents to deliver reforms that work for our farmers across our Union and that help to secure crucial environmental goals, but I am afraid that that cannot be said of the official Opposition. In all the years Labour Members had to change things, they did nothing. They wanted us stuck in the EU, locked forever into the CAP and anchored to a status quo that has been holding us back for decades. I am shocked that, in tabling a reasoned amendment, they have signified their intention to vote against this Bill.
The Climate Emergency
Debate between Theresa Villiers and Simon Hoare(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Theresa Villiers
No; I want Back Benchers to have all the time they need, so I will have to cut down on the points of information.
We will, for example, go further and faster than ever before on air quality, because we will be setting a legally binding target on PM2.5 fine particulate matter. Poor air quality is the biggest environmental threat to public health, and particulate pollution is the most damaging of all. Real progress has been made, but we need to do more if we are to ensure that children growing up today can live longer healthier lives. This Bill will drive that forward.
The UK is home to scientific excellence that has made us world leaders in environmental innovation, from Kew’s millennium seed bank to climate-resilient crops, but as well as backing the science and research that we need to protect our environment, we are also embracing nature-based solutions to tackle climate change. We have recently announced that we will plant 1 million trees to create three new forests in Northumberland, in addition to the 11 million to which we are already committed. We are restoring almost 6,500 hectares of peat land. That is our biggest carbon store, and it is home to some of our most threatened and fastest declining bird species, including the golden plover and the curlew. Through our agriculture Bill, we will seize this once-in-a-generation chance to combine support for our hard-working, brilliant farmers with support for our natural environment.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will be aware that the previous Agriculture Bill, which fell at Prorogation, struck a neat balance between the interests of farming and the interests of the environment, with both sides being broadly supportive. Can she confirm this afternoon that it is going to be broadly the same direction of travel for the new agriculture Bill?
Theresa Villiers
Yes, we would certainly envisage broadly the same direction of travel for the agriculture Bill when it is reintroduced. We very much value the input that Parliament previously provided, and all the fundamentals of the previous Agriculture Bill will remain intact.
Outside the EU, we can and will replace the common agricultural policy with a system that not only helps farm businesses to be more resilient, more productive and more internationally competitive but rewards environmental stewardship. From heathlands to hedgerows and from soils rich in carbon to better biodiversity, our farmers will be properly rewarded with public money for the public goods they provide. Breaking free of the CAP means that we can support a range of vital goals, including clean air and water, landscapes protected from floods, thriving plants and wildlife, and reduced carbon emissions and pollution. Brexit also means regaining control of our waters, so that we can manage our fish stocks sustainably, support our marine environment and give our fishing communities a much fairer deal than they have ever had from the common fisheries policy.
We are taking more action on climate change globally than any of our predecessors. We know that 70% of the world’s poorest people are directly reliant on the natural environment for their livelihoods We therefore believe that climate and nature programmes should be at the heart of our efforts to relieve poverty around the world. That is why the Prime Minister announced at the UN in September that we will double our international climate finance funding to at least £11.6 billion in the period up to 2025. He has confirmed £220 million of investment to protect international biodiversity and help to halt its decline. We share the grave public concern felt about plastics pollution in our oceans, and we are investing up to £70 million to fund global research to develop circular economies for waste around the world, working across the Commonwealth to keep plastics out of our ocean.
We are custodians of the fifth largest marine estate in the world, and we are on track to protect more than half of our UK and overseas territories waters by 2020, with a further £7 million recently announced to expand still further our highly successful blue belt programme. We are calling on the world to protect at least 30% of the ocean in marine protected areas by 2030, and 10 nations have already signed up to our new global ocean alliance. We are determined to make this happen.
Whatever our views on the climate protests, there can be no doubt that we as a nation find ourselves at a crucial turning point, and 2020 needs to be the year when the international community pulls together to agree time-bound, measurable and demanding environmental targets. We need targets for protecting biodiversity on land and in our ocean to help us to meet our climate objectives and tackle the tragedy of plastics pollution. That is what we will be asking for, as aspiring co-hosts of the crucial COP 26 conference in Glasgow next year, as we make nature-based solutions and biodiversity a central focus of our efforts to tackle the climate crisis at home and abroad.
In conclusion, the Government have one of the strongest records in the world on environment and climate issues. As the evidence becomes ever stronger, we are determined to escalate the UK’s response to the climate and nature crisis, both domestically and internationally. We believe that the Environment Bill published this week will be a big step forward in turning the tide on the degradation of nature and the natural environment. Combined with our legislation on fisheries, farming and improving the welfare of animals, this is a powerful reform package that will change things for the better in this country for decades to come.
There can be no doubt that we face a daunting task if we are to live up to our commitment to leave young people with a better natural inheritance than was bequeathed to us. We need a green economic revolution every bit as profound and far-reaching as the industrial revolution that this country once led. If we work together across the House and get this ground-breaking legislation on the statute book, we can lead global efforts to find solutions that work for climate, for nature and for people. I am happy to commend the Gracious Speech to the House.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Theresa Villiers and Simon Hoare(8 years, 3 months ago)
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Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
4. What steps the Government are taking to reduce cross-border crime in Northern Ireland.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
5. What steps the Government are taking to reduce cross-border crime in Northern Ireland.
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mrs Theresa Villiers)
Along with the Irish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive, the United Kingdom Government recently announced the creation of a joint agency taskforce to tackle cross-jurisdictional organised crime. It will enhance law enforcement co-operation in relation to, for instance, crime linked to paramilitaries.
Mrs Villiers
It does. The fresh start agreement allocates £25 million for tackling paramilitary-related crime and £3 million for a new monitoring body, but it provides substantial additional funds for more widely based shared society initiatives, which are also crucial to ending the influence of paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland once and for all.
Simon Hoare
We all know that, unfortunately, many organised crime groups on the island take advantage of the land border and commit the classic cross-border crimes of smuggling and excise evasion. The proceeds of those activities often go towards funding dissident groups. What efforts are my right hon. Friend and her ministerial team making to introduce preventive measures to eradicate such activities?
Mrs Villiers
In Northern Ireland, huge efforts are being made by the PSNI to prevent the border from being exploited by criminals, and those efforts will be enhanced by the new joint agency taskforce, building on the excellent work already done by the police services both north and south of the border in recent years.