Ash Dieback Disease

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I am afraid that the hon. Lady simply is not correct. I have explained the sequence of events and the fact that we have in no way reduced the resources available for plant and tree health.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Pound farm in Suffolk is a mile from my constituency boundary, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter). Will the Minister update the House on what proactive policies are being put in place for local home owners and residents? Will there be a proactive felling and burning policy, and how will it be communicated?

[Mr Heath]

We certainly need to communicate with local people who have forestry interests and trees on their property about what they should be looking for. I will not pre-empt the discussions with the experts on the ground about precisely what is the right action to take, but I assure my hon. Friend that we will apply all available resources to the problem, because we do not want it to spread further if we can possibly avoid it.

Water White Paper

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

I commend that company. I was with its chairman just the other day discussing this issue. We have to learn how water companies cope with large quantities of water in high rainfall areas, but also how we can work with them to achieve greater connectivity with other water companies. If we see water flowing from area to area, it will benefit the hon. Gentleman’s constituents through the bills that they pay and encourage water to go to the stressed areas of the south-east.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

The microclimate in Suffolk Coastal is quite similar to that of north Africa, and farmers are used to using irrigation in producing crops. There are also big abstractors of both river and ground water. I welcome large parts of the White Paper, but I am a little worried by recommendations 3.39 and 3.43, which I am concerned will put farmers in my constituency out of food production.

Environmental Protection and Green Growth

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House believes that the UK risks being left behind in its attempts to attract global investment in environmental technologies; agrees with the British Retail Consortium that the recent Waste Review is a disappointment; further agrees with the Nature Check report by 29 environmental charities that the Government has failed to deliver its environmental goals; condemns the Government’s 27 per cent. cut in flood defence investment from £354 million to £259 million a year; calls on the Government to adopt Labour’s five point plan for jobs and growth and bring forward spending on rural infrastructure projects for flood defences and rural broadband; further calls on the Government to raise the UK recycling target to 70 per cent. by 2025 to create an additional 50,000 jobs; and believes the Government should ensure mandatory carbon emissions reporting for all large UK companies to kick-start green jobs and growth.

May I begin by expressing Opposition Members’ regret that the Environment Secretary is unable to join us for the debate? I understand she is giving evidence to the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but it is a very short walk from the Grimond room in Portcullis House to the Chamber and I hope that we have the opportunity to debate these issues with her at a future date. I would certainly look forward to that.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mary Creagh]

I have not even started yet.

[Dr Coffey]

My understanding is that the motion was tabled only last night, so the Government would have known only today that the attendance of the Secretary of State might be wanted, whereas her arrangements with the Select Committee were made some time ago.

[Mary Creagh]

It is at the Minister’s discretion whether she appears in the Chamber. She could have been informed this morning about an urgent question and would have had to appear before the House. The motion was tabled last night at about 5 o’clock, so she has had almost 24 hours to prepare her speech. I am sure that the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), has been beavering away on his remarks.

Let me start by taking the House back to 2006 and a fresh-faced Leader of the then Opposition visiting the Arctic circle. We all remember the Prime Minister hugging a husky, as well as “Vote blue, go green”. The Tory manifesto told us,

“That is why we have put green issues back at the heart of our politics and that is why they will be at the heart of our government.”

Several megatonnes of carbon dioxide and hot air were emitted by a variety of Conservative MPs confessing their green damascene conversion. In opposition, going green was an essential part of detoxifying the Tory brand, but in the 18 short months that the Government have been in power we have seen progress stall on the environment. As their disastrous economic policies take hold, with confidence failing, unemployment and inflation rising and growth flatlining, the green talk has not been matched by green action.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has had a disastrous settlement in the comprehensive spending review—the second-biggest spending cut of any Department—taking £2 billion in cash out of the environment over the next four years. The Secretary of State was bounced into a disastrous plan to raise £100 million by selling England’s forests, and we await the review of the Bishop of Liverpool, Bishop James Jones. [Interruption.] I am glad to see that the parliamentary private secretary is distributing lines to take from the Government. It is always good to see the briefing machine in action. We hope the brief has been printed on Forest Stewardship Council paper.

The Government have abolished the Sustainable Development Commission, the Government’s watchdog on sustainable development.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate and vigorously to oppose this motion. I am delighted to see so many Opposition Back Benchers in the Chamber—three times more at its start than there were for the entire NHS debate. This is a welcome conversion, given that when elections to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee were held, not a single Labour Back Bencher put themselves forward for it until later rounds.

I want to focus on recycling. I pop up every now and again when Opposition Front Benchers talk about it, and it frustrates me, because we can have as much aspiration as we like. I would love to lose 7 stone, and I did once before, but it does not mean anything if I do not actually deliver. The hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) referred to recycling rates, which rose from 11% at the start of her Government to 40%. Let us have some Top Trumps in our recycling rates. The right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), who is no longer in her place, introduced a private Member’s Bill. The recycling rate for her council is 16.8%. In Wakefield it is 39.1%. In Ogmore, which is split between two councils, it is 33.5% in Bridgend and 36.9% in Rhondda. They are all Labour councils. In Luton it is 35.8% and in East Lothian is it 35.4%. The figures get better when we move to the shadow Department of Energy and Climate Change team. In the shadow Secretary of State’s constituency the recycling rate is 27.5%, In the shadow Minister’s constituency in Liverpool, it is 25.4%. In South Lanarkshire it is 40.1%—[Interruption.]

The hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) asks whether there is a point to those figures. Yes, there is, because I am about to read out the recycling rates for Conservative-controlled councils, which actually deliver. The figures that I gave had in common the fact that they are mainly Labour-controlled, apart from one, which is a Scottish National party coalition.

The rate in my council in 2010 was 51.8%, which leapt to 60.7% in the following six months. In Waveney, which the hon. Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) will visit on Friday—I am sure he will have a nice time there—it is 53.2%, so perhaps he will learn about the three-bin scheme that has been introduced to ensure that there are weekly food collections. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford should be aware that she can apply to the Department for Communities and Local Government fund to ensure that those collections continue.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

The hon. Lady claims that Waveney is a Tory area. At the moment it has a Conservative MP, but it had a splendid Labour MP for the previous 14 years, and it currently has a hung council, which is effectively Labour-controlled.

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Gentleman is incorrect. My point is that aspirational targets may be set by the Government, but councils deliver. Waveney was Conservative-controlled when making that change, and is still Conservative-controlled.

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

Ipswich, which until May was run by a coalition between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, achieved more in the five years of coalition control in raising recycling rates than during nearly 30 years before that when it was Labour-controlled.

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend and neighbour is absolutely right. I will continue with the Top Trumps challenge, and turn to those on the Conservative Front Bench. In Solihull the recycling rate is 40.7%; in South Cambridgeshire it is 53.6%. West Berkshire has the lowest rate of the areas represented by the Department’s Ministers, but it is still 40.2%. In the constituency of the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) it is 43.1%. I forgot to mention Edinburgh, East where the rate is 31.5%.

There is no point in a lot of hot air about aspirational targets if local councils do not deliver. We encourage our councils to get on with the programmes, to be innovative locally, and to ensure that they happen. Conservative Members are proud to go back to our councils and to talk about recycling rates of 60%, but on the other side of the Thames, where MPs are championing recycling, their councils are delivering very little.

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend believe that the Labour party’s bin taxes would have encouraged recycling?

[Dr Coffey]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He makes a good point, and the answer is absolutely not. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) referred to nudge activity, but incentivising people to do the right thing has worked. The punitive measures proposed by the previous Government did not have that effect.

[Sheila Gilmore]

I would like the hon. Lady to put on record the fact that Edinburgh council has been run by a Liberal Democrat-Scottish National party coalition for the past four and a half years.

[Dr Coffey]

I said that there were SNP-Liberal Democrat coalitions, as is the case with East Lothian council.

My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) spoke eloquently about rural broadband and ambitions. We all recall the 3G auction, when £22 billion was raised. If half of that had been used, we would have had fibre optics to every house in the country 10 years ago. That is the kind of ambition that we need, and will have, with this Government, who put their money where their mouth is with the £530 million to be spent within the next four years. The Minister may not have recalled that DEFRA also set aside a smaller, £20 million fund to enable communities, especially rural communities, to access broadband now and not necessarily wait until the 2015 target date.

Other Members have talked about the green investment bank and the capital cuts. I accept that, as the hon. Member for Ogmore said, the Labour Government did not commit specifically to a reduction in flood defence spending. However, Labour Members who were Members in the previous Parliament voted in the 2010 Budget for a 50% cut in capital spending. It is correct, as the hon. Gentleman said, that they had not specified where that cut would take place, but nor had they set out a comprehensive spending review. That lack of transparency is one of the reasons the previous Government were thrown out of office fairly decisively.

I have not yet mentioned my favourite topic—coastal erosion. I am delighted to say that since the Minister came to my constituency and pulled people together, local environment agencies, Natural England and communities have been working together to ensure that, with community contributions, we have funded coastal defences in Thorpeness and the scheme in Felixstowe, and we are now enjoying the benefits of that. I am very proud to be on the Government side of the House, and I will vote most strongly against the motion.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I want to focus on three aspects of the motion: the sell-off of forests, which, despite the Government’s U-turn and nice warm words, is still going ahead, including in my constituency; the Government’s nonsensical approach to waste; and the broken promises to communities up and down the country on flood defences.

My constituency, like that of my neighbour, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), is a large rural constituency with many lowland and upland farms. It has two areas of outstanding natural beauty, and many acres of moorland and forest. What DEFRA does matters to people in my constituency, and so does what DEFRA does not do. In the countryside, we have had, in effect, 18 wasted months and a trail of broken promises. First, we had the proposal to sell off forests. Despite the Government’s U-turns and all the nice warm words that were said in this House, the Government are still planning to sell off 40,000 hectares of land over the next four years, some of it in my constituency. Ministers got away with it last time, but they will not do so this time. On Monday night, I listened to many impassioned speeches by Conservative Members saying, “I have to vote for this EU referendum because my constituents have been in touch with me and told me that I need to.” Their constituents got in touch with them in droves in response to the sell-off forests, and yet it is still happening.

I accept that the mess that now exists around waste is not really of DEFRA’s making, but lies at the door of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government—a man who seems to be obsessed with little other than bin collections. The Government have failed to set ambitious targets for recycling in England, and—this is a capital offence—they have stopped Labour’s ban on wood going to landfill, saying that they will think about it again in 2012. Frankly, that is not good enough. I live in the former Derwentside district council area, which is now part of Durham county unitary authority, and we left weekly bin collections behind years ago. There was a lot of upset at the time—people do not like change—but if Durham county council tried to reintroduce weekly bin collections now, people would be incredibly unhappy.

I have three bins—one for waste; one for recycling, which gets emptied fortnightly; and one for garden waste, which is collected monthly—and guess what, I do not have rats and vermin skulking around my bins. My neighbours and I recycle everything we can, and we are proud of our recycling. The hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) gave us a long list of councils and their actual recycling levels as opposed to the targets. None of us in this House is responsible for that, but I am responsible for my own recycling and the waste that is produced in my house.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

I understand that the hon. Lady and I cannot control the recycling rates of our councils, but it seems odd that people always complain to the Government when it is councils that deliver that service. My challenge is that we must encourage our councils to recycle as much as they can.

[Pat Glass]

I absolutely agree with that, but it ultimately comes down to us. I do not want weekly bin collections to be restored and nor do any of my neighbours. They are a waste of time and of our natural resources. There is virtually nothing in my waste bin; almost everything goes into the recycling bin. If I can do it, so can everybody else.

Marine Management Organisation

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I thank my hon. Friend for that very helpful intervention.

Richard Gates, the Falmouth town centre manager, has added his voice to the chorus of local residents opposing the plans, commenting:

“We live in a beautiful part of the country and certainly are very environmentally aware but this cannot be at the detriment of people’s livelihoods and leisure when many people are working so hard to develop the area”.

I am sure that Falmouth and, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) has pointed out, other parts of Cornwall are not the only coastal communities that feel that the current recommended sites for marine protected areas are inappropriate because they fail to meet the fundamental aim of creating areas that strike the right balance between sustainable economic, social and environmental protection.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

My hon. Friend’s description of her beautiful constituency could be substituted for mine, with Aldeburgh and the River Alde. Is it not the case that constituents feel that designations are being slapped on top of existing special protection areas simply because the data are available, rather than other parts of the coast being sought that could easily fulfil the criteria for marine conservation zones?

[Sarah Newton]

I am very grateful for those comments. My hon. Friend anticipates a point that I was going to make but now do not need to make. I think that issue is a real problem.

Perhaps it is not surprising that this has happened because the lead agencies tasked with drawing up the list of potential sites, the JNCC and Natural England, have as their primary purpose environmental protection and conservation. What is not part of their remit is what the Act clearly set out to achieve—balancing the social, economic and environmental needs of communities.

I appreciate that the Minister has inherited the current process and would not have designed one that led to the current situation, where there is so much genuine outrage and concern, but that is where we are today. It is a matter of great importance to coastal communities that measures are urgently taken to enable greater use of all the available evidence base by decision makers, rather than their relying almost entirely on Natural England and the JNCC. An open, transparent appeals process for both pre and post-designation decision making needs to be established urgently.

Given that the deadline for the establishment of the marine protected areas sites is 2012 and that the sites are being consulted on as we speak, I hope the Minister can reassure me that he will consider these recommendations so that the implementation of the very worthy aims of the Act command the respect of coastal communities. It is vital that people who might be adversely affected by the implementation of the Act are thoroughly involved, which they have not been so far. Making the new planning system work depends on building a consensus and support that can be achieved only if all concerned have confidence in the system that is used to reach conclusions. Sadly, that is very much missing at the moment. Politicians are elected to use their judgment and are democratically accountable. I hope that the Minister can reassure us tonight that he will exercise his judgment and democratic accountability to ensure that there is a common-sense approach to marine planning.

Oral Answers to Questions

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

First, we ought to record with gratitude the effort that the public make to help with recycling rates. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would accept that it is not right to take a one-size-fits-all approach and that it is up to local authorities to decide the best collection service for their area. I fully support the scheme being introduced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government because it is conditional on environmental benefits as well as giving increased value for money for the taxpayer.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

3. What steps she is taking to encourage young people to take up learning and vocational training opportunities in the countryside and farming sector.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

5. What steps she is taking to encourage young people to take up learning and vocational training opportunities in the countryside and farming sector.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)]

I am delighted that so many colleagues are keen to ask about this important issue. Improving skills and creating learning opportunities is an essential part of delivering growth in farming, rural areas and food businesses. To that end, earlier in the summer, my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, announced 50,000 new apprenticeships, mainly associated with agriculture and the food industry. In addition, we are working closely with colleagues at the Departments for Education and for Business, Innovation and Skills to make sure that rural areas benefit from the additional £250 million that the Government are investing in adult apprenticeships.

[Dr Coffey]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Will she encourage her Ministers to work with people such as those at the Suffolk Agricultural Association, who hold annual school days for children, to ensure that they are involved in encouraging the take-up of apprenticeships when people leave school?

[Mrs Spelman]

I have absolutely no hesitation in endorsing that scheme in Suffolk. Obviously, we would like to see that example of best practice replicated elsewhere.

Flood and Water Management

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2011 Westminster Hall

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I commend the EFRA Committee on its excellent report and on bringing it to the attention of the House in this debate. I particularly commend the Chairman of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh).

Water is a scarce resource. We may not feel that that is the case, given the recent downpours that we have had. However, as the hon. Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham) said, the debate should not just be about defences, but about the use of water and about water management. Water is a scarce resource in this country, despite its being surrounded by water. If I may, Mrs Main, I will take this opportunity to advertise the fact that this very Saturday I will be doing a walk for WaterAid along the Suffolk coast, raising money for people who really do have very little water.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) gave a very thoughtful speech on the national flood standards, referring to the Benyon settlement or the Benyon formula. Perhaps there will be many arguments about that in future as there are about the Barnett formula.

I want to refer to a few paragraphs and recommendations in the Select Committee report. I will begin with recommendation 22 about the abstraction licensing regime. I made—well, it was not an error, but I drew the attention of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to the potential drought in Suffolk earlier this year and I wish that I had shut my mouth because we had so much rain in the summer it was untrue. However, I do not regret doing that because it did make things happen. [Interruption.] It did not make it rain, but it ensured that the Environment Agency worked with local farmers to ensure that Suffolk was one of the few areas suffering such arid conditions that was not declared an official drought area. They worked together in a co-operative way, and I was delighted with that.

The particular issue in Suffolk was abstraction from rivers. That was where we had the biggest problems—the biggest threat. The flexibility of licensing that is recommended is important, and I hope that the Minister will consider carefully widening the times of the year when water can be abstracted or stored and how it is used and captured. It seems ridiculous that when we are having downpours, we are not allowed to capture some of that water in our reservoirs.

The report also discusses tradeable rights. I think that such trading does happen now, but perhaps not in a formal way. Certainly in my constituency, farmers can use one another’s licences, but they have to secure agreement from the Environment Agency and Natural England. We all know the joy of trying to ensure that people work together, but that has worked and the people to whom I have referred pay one another. It may not be a formal scheme, but an informal scheme does operate.

We must be careful lest we end up with what happens under the fishing regime. People begin to buy and trade quotas, and they end up having rights to quotas and perhaps licensing arrangements that they never use themselves—they just use them as a financial asset. That would be a great mistake.

The grandfathering regime is referred to in the report. Of course, that exists now. It may not sound very conservative, but I am not talking about nationalisation of licensing or water rights. However, if people are to be rewarded, we should ensure they have actually been using their water rights and that they have not been sitting idle. It is possible that people are becoming a bit wealthier and may not have used their rights for some time.

On water storage, I understand exactly what the Committee says about the transfer from the regional development agency and the use of funds from the rural development programme for England. However, I still do not have full details from the East of England Development Agency about what is being done. I know that something has been done, but it is important that we are able to invest in water storage. Whether it is reservoirs or local schemes, I want to support it.

I return to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. I am not going to talk about funding for flood defences, as that has been eloquently discussed. Councillor Andy Smith from Suffolk Coastal district council and I have met the Minister, so he already knows of my concern that we seem to be relying on his common sense in setting up the regional flood risk committees. Authorities that have responsibility for coastal defences are not automatically included. I fully appreciate the assurances that the Minister has given me, and I realise that he will continue with that, but we will not always have the benefit of the Benyon effect. I hope that the Minister will be at the Department for some time; however, I do not want to limit his ministerial ambition.

I turn next to the practicalities of the necessary coastal defences. The Minister has visited Suffolk Coastal on a few occasions, and he is well aware of the schemes that have been proposed. I would like to thank him publicly for what seems to be a significant change in the approach of the relevant agencies. My feedback from councillors and landowners is that the Environment Agency and Natural England have—dare I say it?—a can-do approach. I am not sure of the reasons for the change, but I put it down to the Minister and his ministerial team. There is certainly a fresh enthusiasm. We have less money, and we cannot always gold-plate everything, so we have to be pragmatic, and some of that is coming through.

Recommendation 12 is on internal drainage boards. Much has been said about them already, and I support many of those comments. I agree that they could be used more, and I would welcome a localist approach if they wanted to take on more tasks. I believe that most of them have a local authority presence. I know that there is talk about oversight, and whether the boards are reporting to the Environment Agency. I like to think that county or district councillor members of IDBs are playing a full part. I realise that not all boards have filled those vacancies with councillors; I would encourage them to do so. I genuinely believe that IDBs can often do a lot of the work much more cheaply. It never fails to amaze me how a project’s costing is scoped out. Although some of that has changed, we should recognise that not all defences need to last 100 years, and that we could be looking at generational life of 25 to 30 years. We should use the IDBs whenever we can, as they do such a good job on other matters.

There is another problem that keeps coming up in my constituency. I have to be careful how I phrase this, but the Environment Agency says that it will not stop landowners defending their parts of the coastline. The same goes for Natural England. To some extent, however, they do stop hard defences being erected, although they will manage soft defences for a few years. The Benacre estate at the top of my constituency is losing land every year to erosion—I have forgotten the exact amount but I think that it is about 15 acres—but it is not allowed to use hard defences.

I realise that we are not debating shoreline management plans today, but they have to connect up. There is no particular compensation for that loss of land. We would not take land away from people living in the centre of the country and say, “You are not allowed to put a fence around that and someone else can come and camp on it and you won’t have access to it”—that kind of thing; I do not want to be controversial—so we should expect compensation for people who are not even allowed to use hard defences on their own land. I do not want to say too much about human rights, but there is a feeling that people are not being allowed to protect their own property.

I understand what paragraph 9 has to say about agriculture. Suffolk is famous for its pigs and potatoes, but if we did not have agricultural land the potatoes could be grown elsewhere or even imported. I am not sure that that is the right policy direction, however; I believe that we should think more about our resilience and the value of food security. I would like a little bit more value to be given to agricultural production in the funding formula.

Insurance is important, as several Members have said. I am slightly concerned that we will not have any more information on the subject until March 2012, just a year before the current agreement comes to an end. However, I have every confidence that the Minister and his officials will secure a successful outcome, so that people can continue to live safely and securely in their own homes.

I wish to make one final suggestion. It is not about legislation or directly to do with floods. The Department has worked well with the new planning policy framework to ensure sustainable development and to deal with water stress, but I return to a point that I have made in the main Chamber about building design. We should encourage people to reconsider the way in which electrics are installed, especially if we have to build in difficult places such as floodplains. I understand that one of the major problems when waiting for a house to dry out, which affects the cost of repair, is the fact that the sockets are at floor level rather than at waist height. Some simple planning guidance or design ideas would save the insurance industry a lot of money and result in lower premiums. I thank the House for its patience.

Dangerous Dogs

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Lady makes a valid point. Guide dogs are not simply pets or companions, because they enable the visually impaired to lead a normal life. It is critical that we look at that problem. It is unacceptable that a blind person should be penalised simply because there is a type of aggressive and unpleasant dog in the surrounding area. Statistics for the number of attacks on family pets in public places are not available, because those attacks are too numerous.

I represent a small corner of New Forest national park, which is extremely popular with dog walkers, and I am conscious from both my own experience and the comments of local residents that not all owners who utilise the area to walk their pets have their dogs adequately under control. I am not suggesting that Wellow common is rife with dog attacks—it is not—but incidents involving out-of-control, aggressive dogs do occur, and for every person or other dog involved, it is not only terrifying, but dangerous.

There is also a significant cost, both to individuals and to the public purse, as a consequence of the rising incidence of dog attacks. Every single strategic health authority has experienced an increase in accident and emergency admissions due to dog bites. It is hard to estimate the financial cost accurately, but attempts to do so indicate that, over the past few years, it has been more than £2.5 million a year. In Hampshire, the local police have experienced a clear rise in the number of incidents involving dangerous dogs, and there is increasing anecdotal evidence of status dogs being used in the county instead of firearms or knives. Among the criminally inclined, there is a growing awareness that the potential punishments for having a dangerous dog are far lower than for other weapons.

Tackling the issue is expensive for my local police force. Last year, it spent about £30,000 on kennelling fees, but that is tiny in comparison with the Metropolitan police, which spends £9,000 a day and has budgeted for £10 million to be available for the seizure and kennelling of dogs over the next three years. For every dog seized, there is a human cost. As owners struggle to prove that their family pet is innocent of any crime, families are deprived of its companionship, and the poor animal itself is deprived of its liberty and the chance to have a normal existence. The great irony is that the stress placed on a kennelled dog makes that pet more likely to develop behavioural issues.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

This is an important debate. Perhaps the Minister will address this later, but does the hon. Lady have any information about the tests that are available nowadays which show the DNA of a dog’s parents and their breed types in a matter of minutes? We can use technology to accelerate decisions and make sure that dogs that should not be kept in kennels are released back to their families.

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend is right. DNA testing to determine the type of dog is much easier now than it was when the legislation was introduced. It is interesting that, in the past week, the Government have acknowledged the dreadful stress placed on dogs in quarantine and have announced a relaxation of those time limits, yet some dogs whose breed type is under question end up kennelled for several years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

As I have said before, what came over very strongly at the G20 from the Agriculture Ministers of the world’s richest nations was the responsibility we have not only to grow more food sustainably but to aid developing countries to grow more food sustainably themselves. We have good relationships with all our stakeholders and key non-governmental organisations—I would count Oxfam as one of them—and with our DFID colleagues in order to make sure we play our part.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

T4. The Minister has already given a response on the inshore fishing consultation, but will he give my under-10-metres fishermen the assurance that all the responses will be carefully considered, including concerns about the suggested structure and the fact that there will still be people with quotas who no longer fish and have not done so for many years?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)]

Yes, I can give my hon. Friend the assurance that we will look at every response very carefully. We have had about 20 meetings around the coast, which were very well attended, and many of the areas of consultation were explained to the audience in such a way as to allay their fears. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George), we want to make life better for the under-10s and give them a more sustainable future.

Waste Review

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

There were perverse incentives in the regime in place under the previous Government. As I have mentioned, LATS actually deterred the collection and recycling of business waste, so their abolition, which was a coalition agreement commitment, will re-incentivise councils to collect and recycle more business waste. We want to help to make it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular, to benefit.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

In contrast to Cumbria’s recycling rate of 37%, Suffolk’s is more than 60%, no doubt helped by regular weekly food waste collections. We are also giving planning permission for anaerobic digestion. Will the Secretary of State work with me to ensure that the Department of Energy and Climate Change gets through those issues so that more such facilities are available across the country?

[Mrs Spelman]

It is right to applaud householders and the way they have actively become involved in trying to increase recycling rates. That is what people want to do, and the Government’s job is to make it easier for them, including through food waste collections if that is what local people want. I have already said that we will support authorities that do that and I will work with DECC to make that easier.

Farming (Droughts)

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for selecting this debate. I also thank the many hon. Members who have said that they will be present, one or two of whom may intervene during the debate.

This spring has been very dry; March was the driest in 50 years. Suffolk has suffered having had just 13% of its average rainfall across the entire county. Until this weekend, no rain had fallen in my constituency since February; that indicates the general dryness of what we have been suffering. My constituency has a mixture of clay fields, which have been able to absorb some water over the winter, and, predominantly, sand fields, on which a significant amount of agriculture relies.

I recognise that the consumer will probably do okay out of all this, because there is no prospect of a hosepipe ban in my part of England, and I understand that that is equally unlikely in other parts of the country. I also recognise that some farmers welcome these temperatures and are not worried about the lack of rain, because it is producing bumper crops of fruits and similar produce.

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

If this drought continues, it will affect not only those in rural constituencies but the pocket of every constituent of every Member of this House in six months to a year’s time. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is therefore extraordinary that there is no Opposition Member, shadow Minister or shadow Whip in the House—in fact, nobody on the Opposition Benches at all?

[Dr Coffey]

I share my hon. and learned Friend’s great concern. More than 10 of us are in the House, which is unusual for an Adjournment debate. Hon. Friends present represent rural constituencies and urban constituencies. Given that some of our colleagues from across the way claim to represent rural areas, their farmers and constituents will be disappointed.

My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right to say that this situation will come to impact on every single person in this country. One of the challenges that our farmers face is that irrigation is needed to meet the quality standards that our supermarkets demand for what they will sell on their shelves. This is also about the price that we are prepared to pay for our food. There is an impact not just on the price of a potato or an onion, but on the feed for our livestock because of a lack of forage and hay, which will have repercussions next winter. We will all pay a heavy price for that.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend might be surprised to hear a Member from west Wales complaining about the lack of rain, but does she agree that her point about feed price will have a significant downstream effect on dairy producers, who are beginning to realise that their industry will be affected in six to eight months’ time?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend and my hon. and learned Friend are right to recognise that this issue will impact on everyone. If our countrymen are happy to see greater imports, perhaps we will be protected from the price surges, but I believe that given the choice most people in this country would prefer to buy British, so we must do something as a consequence.

As I said, this issue does not affect all farmers or all counties across the country, but it does impact on the bread basket of our fair land. In my constituency, spraying has started early. Irrigation has long been part of the agriculture of Suffolk Coastal, which has a similar climate to north Africa. We have imported technologies from Morocco, Israel and similar places in recognition of the fact that we have one of the driest areas, although I recognise that one of my colleagues believes that his area is drier. This issue is impacting not just on agriculture, but on wildlife. Landguard nature reserve near Felixstowe is facing similar troubles and the lack of water is having an impact on biodiversity.

I will come on to the realities affecting farmers in my part of the world. The people who abstract came together in 1997 to form the East Suffolk Water Abstractors Group. They work with the Environment Agency to abstract correctly and appropriately to balance the needs of different water users. Most people have a quota for the year. Some people have taken a gamble by starting to spray early compared with previous seasons. They are concerned that they might be restricted later in the season. Thus far, the Environment Agency has not shown the flexibility that it did in 2009, when it allowed people to abstract later. I recognise that the Environment Agency has been proactive on this front and is working with farmers and other people to manage the situation. I pay tribute to it, because it is difficult to strike the right balance. However, there is no question but that people in my constituency are worried about the potential lack of water for their crops.

Some people abstract from ground water. Thus far, the aquifers are coping, but there is genuine concern about what will be available later in the summer and in the early autumn if there is no further rainfall. The situation is more worrying for people who abstract from the rivers. This matter has been referred to by other Members who are worried about the impact on biodiversity. I believe that we should be more worried about the impact on food and agriculture. Frankly, other things can be cosmetic and temporary, whereas if farming is wiped out in certain areas of our country, it will greatly disadvantage food security.

What is the risk to rivers? In my constituency, the Blyth is running very slowly. Other parties, such as the internal drainage boards and the water companies, sometimes help by pumping water out to increase the flow. However, some of the farmers in my constituency are facing the reality that, by the end of next month, they may no longer be able to abstract at all. That is particularly worrying. Will the Minister say what co-ordinated action is being taken by the Environment Agency, internal drainage boards, water companies and farmers to understand how we can ensure that abstraction can continue?

I recognise that back in 2006, the last time we had a particularly dry summer, there was some voluntary activity that worked very well. People ended up abstracting every other day, and they managed to cope through that summer. I am keen to ensure that there is similar preparation in future.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I inform the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a practising farmer.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the world is a much more precarious place with regard to food than it has been for many years? Our world reserves are much lower than they have been, and countries such as China are importing much more maize and wheat than they ever used to. A shortage of production in this country for this harvest is therefore likely to have a much greater effect on household bills than it has in the past. Will she join me in urging the Government to adopt every flexible measure that they can, particularly in relation to water?

[Dr Coffey]

I thank my hon. Friend for that correct point. In my view, water is the new oil, and we need to ensure that we are careful with it where we can be. We have already seen cases of commodity prices spiking thanks to demand from the far east, particularly China, and we have felt the consequences. I agree that we need to be able to feed ourselves as best we can and not be subject to unnecessary spikes.

The rural development programme has given some priority to the management of resources such as water. In my constituency, the East of England Development Agency has undertaken some relevant projects. I do not have the details, but I am led to believe that 100,000 cubic metres of new storage facility will be made available in the summer. I would like the Minister to give us an understanding of the influence that he could have in helping the future programme of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the existing programmes that are under the auspices of development agencies, to address the real need that exists. I understand that licences need to be made more flexible so that more water can be harvested in the winter, and that the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 changed the parameters so that those harvesting 10,000 cubic metres took on a significantly greater regulatory burden. What can we do to remove that burden and encourage co-operative reservoirs?

I will put in a bid for my area. A tiny part of my constituency managed to get in on the Leader programme, and I know that Suffolk is one of the pilot counties for the “Total Environment” scheme. I hope that we will be able to move forward after 2013 and allow Suffolk to form more co-operatives, so that funding can be diverted towards water storage. That would be good for farmers, for consumers and for the environment, and I am sure the Minister will put his mind to it.

I know that the farming community has great confidence in our Minister. He is a Suffolk man who was born in my constituency, and he was a farmer. [Interruption.] He still is a farmer—I apologise. I was not fully cognisant of that. The industry is looking for flexibility for the Environment Agency and for local farmers and stakeholders, and on that point I am more than confident in handing over to him.