Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Farron and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

rose—

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I call Jim Farron.

[Jim Shannon]

Me or him, Mr Speaker? [Laughter.]

[Tim Farron]

Mr Speaker, perhaps if I start, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) could finish.

In order to safeguard renewable jobs and to create new ones, will the Minister consider a specific project that has hydro-turbine manufacturers such as Gilkes in Kendal, and many others around the country, working alongside our farmers to make use of streams, becks and rivers that go through farmland to create renewable industry and, indeed, new jobs?

People Granted Asylum: Government Support

Debate between Tim Farron and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 26th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government support for people recently granted asylum.

It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance, Mrs Harris. I refer everyone to the entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests that I receive support in my office from the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy project.

When an individual receives a grant of refugee status, it is a moment of unspeakable relief, even of celebration, as they finally have assurance of protection and knowledge that the next part of their life will be in the UK—after great tribulation and tragedy, they have safety and security. Refugees go through monumental struggles to reach that point, but it is only one part of their journey to rebuilding their life here in the United Kingdom.

It is very clear, particularly from what we have seen over the past year, that improvements have to be made to enable refugees to build fulfilling lives here and to use and develop the skills that they bring. To be genuinely welcoming to genuine refugees makes sense economically and for the health of our communities. It fulfils our international obligations as well as being a clear moral obligation.

To welcome refugees is not to give them preferential treatment over others, but to ensure that they do not have to overcome unnecessary barriers as they seek to get on with their lives—indeed, to start a new life—and contribute to our society.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing forward this debate on a very important subject. I am pleased to the see the Minister in his place; I know he will do his utmost, as he always does, to respond. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that those who arrive here not illegally in boats, but having gone through a very selective process and been granted asylum, should be given aid and support to begin their new life? The first step must be to help them integrate into British communities and our way of life.

[Tim Farron]

Yes. I will refer to that later, but we know that the large majority of those who present themselves and seek asylum in this country, however they arrive, whether through regular or irregular means, turn out to be genuine refugees. We seem to be failing them and ourselves as a society if we do not commit to helping them to integrate, even before they receive official status.

Over the past year, we have seen an increase in the number of decisions on asylum applications because of the Prime Minister’s focus on trying to clear the backlog of legacy cases. I welcome that, because people should not be waiting for years for a decision on their asylum case. Accurate and timely decision making should be a hallmark of an effective asylum system. Indeed, it would be the best deterrent against those who are not genuine refugees seeking asylum here. Yet, of course, the backlog is still huge. In excess of 100,000 people are waiting in limbo, which is unfair on them and hugely expensive for the taxpayer.

We should be clear that the increase in newly recognised refugees this year is not because of an increase in people arriving by small boats or any other means, but because the Government are playing catch-up, having inexcusably allowed that backlog of human misery to build up in the first place. With more people being granted refugee status, there has been significantly more pressure on the part of the system dealing with those who move on from asylum support to refugee status, in what is often referred to as the “move-on period”.

Girlguiding UK: British Overseas Territories

Debate between Tim Farron and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of Girlguiding UK in the British Overseas Territories.

This is an issue that all of us here have a deep interest in. There are many others who I understood would try to be here, but I understand why they are not—there are always reasons, such as the weather in the past few days. None the less, many others wish to make a contribution. When it came to this debate, many Members took the opportunity to sign the early-day motion when it was down, and it is obvious to me that many people have deep concerns about what is happening.

I give special credit to two ladies in Westminster Hall today: the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) and the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins). They are well aware of the issue and I thank them for coming along; they will make contributions that will greatly add to the debate. I am pleased to see the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), and in particular the Minister in their places. We know that the Minister is always a dear friend to us all, and we have high expectations of his response. There is absolutely no pressure on him whatsoever, but to be fair to him I think he will realise what we are trying to say, why it is so important and why we believe this debate is crucial.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for selecting this debate and allowing me to speak on the topic, along with others. I declare from the outset that I am not a Girl Guide—that is probably fairly obvious. However, as a scout and a member of the Boys’ Brigade many moons ago, I have an affinity with my fellow youth organisations and a desire to speak out for those who, like me, have benefited greatly from being part of such a wonderful organisation and what it does, what it creates and how it can shape young people for the adult life of tomorrow. The fact is that the Girl Guides, Scouts, Girls’ Brigade, Boys’ Brigade, the Campaigners and many other similar organisations really sow seeds into the lives of young people, promoting teamwork, teaching new skills, and giving children the confidence to be with new people and try things that are out of their comfort zone. That is what they do: they mould, create and challenge. They give an opportunity for insight into what adult life can be like.

I was a proud member of the Boys’ Brigade and my boys followed that tradition, which their children now follow as well. I cannot say enough about all that is positive about such organisations. There is a much-loved Girl Guides organisation that has four units in Newtownards, my major town in the Strangford constituency—that is in one town alone—and it is easy to see why. The structure, the care and the wonderful volunteers make it so appealing to children, and it really is not an exaggeration to say that it makes up the fabric of community life, not simply in towns such as Newtownards and Strangford, but in rural and isolated villages throughout the Strangford constituency, because many parents take their children to the Girl Guides in Newtownards and elsewhere. I have attended many events hosted by the Girl Guides; I remember one in particular when I was the mayor of Ards and North Down Borough Council—it was a long time ago, in 1991 or 1992. I knew some of the leaders of the Girl Guides in Newtownards, and they invited me down. We had a wonderful night with the young girls and what they did that night, along with the leaders as well, so that occasion has always been memorable for me.

When it comes to speaking for the Girl Guides, I am happy to do so, because it really is an organisation that can do great things. I have always been impressed by the level of love and thought put into making the guides relevant and interesting for each new generation of children; it has a positive mindset. However, I was so sad to learn that the decision had been taken to close the Girl Guides in British overseas territories, including our army bases. For that reason, I requested this debate, along with the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North and others, so that we have a chance to discuss it and others have a chance to add their voice, along with mine, in asking the Minister to intervene and make contact with Girlguiding UK to offer support and help to enable the overseas aspect to continue. That really is so vital.

It bears reiterating that British overseas territories are precisely that—British. Others, like me, have a real love of their Britishness. I regularly tell people that I am British, because I believe in it. I love it. I like to tell others that we have something special. As such, there is an expectation that we can partake in things that are quintessentially British, such as being part of the local Rainbow group. It saddens me that the message sent out is that of an inability to work across the difficulties to allow these groups to continue to meet. I understand that there are difficulties, but we should look to the motto “Be prepared”; we should be prepared to go the extra mile to find a way to make it work. I ask the Minister to be prepared and to go that extra mile, as well.

In 2023, there were around 2,600 members of British Girlguiding Overseas in 36 countries and territories. I understand the risks that have arisen with the passage of time and the child protection obligations. Last night, the hon. Member for Watford (Dean Russell) introduced an Adjournment debate on AI scams. I just relate this story, because it is important; it shows that society has changed and that people can buy into scams and find themselves in difficulties. I made an intervention in that debate about elderly and vulnerable people.

In the days of my youth—you and I are probably of a similar vintage, Mr Chairman, so I suspect that they were the days of your youth as well—we did not lock the back doors. There was no necessity to do that. Life was different then, but life has changed. I understand the difficulties and necessities that have arisen with the passage of time and the child protection obligations. It is really important that we get those right, because society has changed and we have to protect people more than ever. However, those 2,600 members are left without that precious opportunity to be part of something global, something diverse, something useful—something that they can appreciate in a community that appreciates them. That is the importance of this issue, and the importance of holding this debate.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member and fully support him in what he seeks to achieve. In June, in the same announcement that Girlguiding made over its desire to sell its centres in overseas territories, it announced that it would sell five centres in the UK including Waddow Hall in Lancashire, where many young people from my communities in Cumbria have enjoyed outdoor learning experiences. The Waddow Hall Trust is seeking to keep Waddow Hall as an outdoor education centre. Does the hon. Member agree that expanding access to outdoor education for all young people at primary and secondary school could be a real lifeline for centres such as Waddow Hall?

[Jim Shannon]

Yes, I agree. We need some extra thinking about how we move forward and how we retain—or better use—some of the centres, and I am sorry to hear about that happening in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. The doors are not closed yet, so hopefully there will be a resolution that can take us forward.

In April 2023, Girlguiding UK announced plans to end British Girlguiding Overseas—the BGO operation. The trust said that its decision reflected the challenges and risks of running organisations across those different regions. On 1 September 2023, girl guiding in the middle east, Africa, Asia, Benelux, France—European regions—was ended. Girl guiding on military bases ended at the same time. Girlguiding UK said that its girl guiding will continue in the UK’s overseas territories for the first few months of 2024—we are in those first few months now—after which a further update will be issued.

Christmas, Christianity and Communities

Debate between Tim Farron and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your guidance, Dame Maria, and a privilege to follow several hon. Friends, in particular my friend the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for being bold enough to secure this debate, and for delivering a great speech. I hope that I have done nothing that he needs to forgive me for.

Christmas, Christianity and community are all massively important. It is great to have this debate at this time of year. Over the past few days, I have had the joy of visiting Christmas markets at Shap and Orton, and Grange Christmas tree festival, where I gave a little talk. I read a lesson at Kendal parish church carol service, and attended the wonderful nativity at Kendal’s Dean Gibson Roman Catholic Primary School, which included the privilege of giving the award to the winner of my Christmas card competition, Anna Kay. Her design of a Herdwick sheep inside a Christmas wreath—it could not be more Lake district—is being delivered by our wonderful volunteers to 40,000 houses.

I visited several other schools that had taken part in the competition, and joined in their Christmas celebrations. What a joy all of that is. At my church in Kendal, our Christmas celebrations reach many more people than would normally attend our services. I know that is the case for churches the length and breadth of Westmorland and Lonsdale and, indeed, the whole country. I do not need any persuading that Christmas is important to communities, locally and nationally. It brings us together, family by family, street by street, village by village, town by town.

The shared acknowledgement of the importance of this festival as a time of rest and a time for family is significant for the collective life of our country. However, for those working in healthcare, social care, the police, the fire services, hospitality and many other professions, including some in my close family, it is a time of continued, if not enhanced, busyness. We are grateful to all those people; we pay tribute to them and thank them.

Traditions are important, and we have them in our family. We decorate a tree in the midst of the woods near our home in Westmorland. We do the same family walk every year on Christmas eve. We share the annual festive disappointment of an en masse family trip to Blackburn Rovers, and we watch the same films over and over. Without even checking, I know the entire script of “Home Alone” and “Home Alone 2”—not “Home Alone 3” or “Home Alone 4”, because they are abominations.

[Jim Shannon]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tim Farron]

Happily. Is the hon. Gentleman a defender of “Home Alone 3”?

[Jim Shannon]

No, the most wonderful Christmas film is “It’s a Wonderful Life”, with James Stewart. That tells everything about everyone’s story, and how people influence one another. That is what we do in this House, so to me, that is the best Christmas film ever.

[Tim Farron]

I would say it is a tie between “Home Alone 2”—because I think Tim Curry makes it—and “It’s a Wonderful Life”. The other tradition on Christmas eve is watching “It’s a Wonderful Life”; then I sit around with my brothers-in-law and watch the “Father Ted” Christmas special—I know all the words to that, too.

Some decry the loss of the Christian message from Christmas, seeing that as an undermining of British values. I understand that concern, although I do not think it is anything particularly new. Commercialism and escapism have been displacing the Christmas message for decades if not longer, and a nice, feel-good, schmaltzy, vague magic has been allowed to displace the meaning of the nativity for longer than I have been alive, at least. I have had the best parents, but I was not brought up to go to church, although I was raised in an era when the assumption was that we believed in God—probably the Christian version. Nevertheless, the first Christmas story that I remember having read to me as a very small child was “The Night Before Christmas”, which begins:

“’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse”.

I remember the thrill of being read that by my mum, as I perched on my bed on Christmas eve, ready to be tucked up. I was aged three and a half. There was an empty stocking hanging expectantly, and a tingling sense of excitement. Lovely and traditional though it was, it has no more to do with the Christian message of Christmas than “Home Alone”, “Love Actually”, “Elf”, or any of the other stories that we enjoy at this time of year, so before we get too upset about Christmas being joylessly erased by winter festivals and all that, let us not forget that the Christian message has always been seen as something of an inconvenience—something uncomfortable to be brushed aside, whether it is Christmas or not. In fact, Christmas is one of those rare occasions when you can more easily get away with talking about Christianity. This debate is a case in point.

My contention is that Christianity has always been and always is counter-cultural. It is meant to be. It is deeply disturbing and even offensive. I am reminded of Lucy asking Mr Beaver about Aslan in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. She asks nervously, “Is he a tame lion?” “Oh no,” says Mr Beaver, “he’s not tame, but he is good.” He is good. Jesus is not tame; Christianity is not tame; and Christmas is not tame, but He is, and they are, good. I would say to people: if you are prepared to allow yourself to be disturbed and offended, you will discover that He is good—good for you, even.

Christmas is all about stories: there is Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol”—best performed, of course, by the Muppets—“It’s a Wonderful Life”, the “Home Alone” films and the many legends of Father Christmas and the trials of his reindeer. The Christmas story, however, is a different kind of tale altogether. It is told in just two of the gospels in the New Testament—Matthew and Luke—and the jarring thing is that the writers expect us to believe that the nativity is history. Just before Luke launches into the account of the nativity, he starts his book with this:

“Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.”

Those four short verses tell us something pretty shocking about the story that is to follow, in which the God of the universe writes himself into our story. He comes into the world that he created as a baby, born in poverty in an obscure corner of the Roman Empire. He comes into the world for one chief reason: to suffer and die in our place, so that sinful human beings can be forgiven our wretchedness and have eternal life. Luke’s verses tell us that this story cannot be a fairy story. It cannot be a fable or a feel-good, festive yarn. Given Luke’s introduction, this story can only reasonably be one of two things: fact or fabrication. When we look more carefully into the evidence of the eyewitnesses, we see that fabrication soon falls away as a plausible theory, too.

Maybe we get a shiver down our spine when we think of the magic of Christmas. How much more of a shiver might we get if we realised that what we read about in the nativity is true? The fact that millions have accepted that continues to be crucial to our society. The nativity tells the story of a teenage mum who, along with her husband and new child, becomes a refugee from a tyrant, lost in an empire that cares little for them and that values them as nothing more than tax fodder. There is so much there for so many people to identify with. It is a reminder that God never considers us an irrelevance or an insignificant and anonymous number; every hair on our head is numbered, and our names are written on the palm of His hands. Commercialism and escapism will not make Christmas mean anything, really.

Maybe our difficulty is that we feel inclined to miss Christmas, or at least to celebrate less, because, after all, look at the state of the world—what is there to celebrate? God looked at the world and saw the mess it was in. He did not hide under the covers; He entered in at enormous cost, because He loves us. Christians are to be the hands and feet of Jesus in our communities, as my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, running the food banks, providing support for those in debt or poverty, housing the homeless, befriending the lonely, and loving our neighbour in practical ways. That is not because we seek to earn God’s favour, but in joyful response to the fact that by His Grace, we already have it, and Christmas proves that we have it.

If the Christmas story is true, yes, it is disturbing, but it means that there is justice. It means that evil does not win; good does. It means that there is love beyond our wildest dreams. It means that there is ultimate truth, and that there is meaning in every life, and in every part of every life. It means that human rights actually exist. They are not just a passing 21st-century fashion; they are the invention of the inventor of everything. Because we have ultimate dignity of bearing the image of God, that means every other human being does, too. No Parliament, President, despot or dictator can change that one jot.

Christmas is also a time of personal sadness for some. It may be the time when we feel the loss of loved ones the most. Christmas is a time of great joy for me, but all the same, this Christmas will be my 20th without my mum. I mentioned earlier that the first story I remember my mum reading to me was “The Night Before Christmas”, and the last thing I read to my mum in her hospital bed was this from the last book in the Bible, the Revelation:

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with humans, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’”

If Luke is to be believed that the nativity is eyewitness testimony, we can believe those things, too. It means that there is real hope, even for a scumbag like me. Happy Christmas.

Sustainable Farming Initiative

Debate between Tim Farron and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point; I will come to that in a little while, because I think that does explain a lot of why that underspend has happened. It is easy to see how it has happened; it is not a mystery. It is down to two things: first, the Conservative Government have been very good at phasing out the old BPS, and secondly, they have been relentlessly incompetent at bringing in the new schemes, including for the reason that my hon. Friend set out.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs figures show that around £460 million has been removed from farmers’ pockets in the form of the BPS phase-out, which eclipses the increase in environmental payments of around £155 million. Much of that has not even gone to farmers. It has instead found its way into the very deep pockets of large landowners, including new entrant corporate landowners, looking to do a bit of greenwashing at the taxpayer’s expense.

In the spring of 2021, the Government promised to spend £275 million on SFI schemes in the 2022-23 financial year. Yet, in reality, excluding the pilots, they spent literally nothing—zero pounds, zero pence. This year, the Government plan to spend just shy of £290 million on SFIs. One question for the Minister is: how much of that money will actually go to farmers in this current financial year?

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I understand clearly what the hon. Gentleman is saying but I would respectfully like to put forward a suggestion. There are examples where the schemes have done good. For instance, there are some wonderful farm shops in my constituency, such as Corries butcher’s, a good scheme set up some years ago, and McKee’s farm shop. For those farmers who can afford additional farm shops, this is a wonderful way to diversify in an effort to boost income and ensure functioning sustainability. Does the hon. Gentleman agree—I think he does—that small financial incentives could be a way to support our local farmers to diversify, and that could be introduced through the sustainable farming incentive? In other words, we can all gain.

[Tim Farron]

I go back to what I said at the beginning. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there are clear advantages in the scheme, and we support its principle. The problem is that they are outweighed across the piece by the negatives.

What does the botching of the transition mean for individual farmers? Last week, I met a group of farmers in north Westmorland at Ormside near Appleby. One told me that SFI would replace just 7% or 8% of what he is losing in basic payment. Another explained that if he maximised everything in his mid-tier stewardship scheme and got into all the available SFI options, he would replace only 60% of what he received through BPS. The others in the room looked at him with some envy: he was the least badly affected.

Last month, I met a group of farmers in South Westmorland, in Old Hutton near Kendal. One told me that the loss of farm income meant that he had to increase the size of his flock to make ends meet. He knew that in making that choice he was undoing the good environmental work that he and his family had been doing for years, but he could see no other way to keep afloat. That is a reminder that the Government’s handling of these payments means that they are often delivering precisely the opposite of what they intended.

Apprenticeship Levy

Debate between Tim Farron and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

This is two days running that I have been called directly after the proposer of the debate. I am in a state of anguish and shock that I should be called so early.

I am pleased to be here. I am also pleased to see my good friend, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) leading today’s debate, and I look forward to other contributions from the shadow spokespersons. We have a Minister in place—I am not saying anything that is not true, because we all subscribe to this—who eats and sleeps education; a Minister who works his butt off to do the best for all pupils. Whenever he is here to answer, we all know we will get the answers we seek, because he has the same passion for the subject matter as we all have. I mean that honestly and with all sincerity, because that is how I feel about him, and I suspect others feel every bit the same.

I am aware of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North’s involvement in the APPG on apprenticeships as co-chair, and I thank him for all his work. I am a bit biased, because he is the guest speaker at my association dinner in Northern Ireland, and I am very pleased that he is coming to speak to us next year. As a true Unionist, he will be able to encourage my association members on the things that matter for us here at Westminster and elsewhere.

As I am sure everyone is aware, there are different rules regarding apprenticeships in the devolved nations, so I come here to give a Northern Ireland perspective, as I do all the time. There are two different systems. The Minister does not have responsibility for Northern Ireland, but I want to sow into the debate the thoughts we have back home. The levy is paid into an apprenticeship service account, and funds in the account must be spent on apprenticeships, training and assessment. Since 2017, there has been a large fall in the number of apprenticeship starts. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) referred to another methodology for taking advantage of moneys that have not been used, and I support that. In fairness, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North gave an indication that he, too, would be appreciative of it.

At the end of the 2021-22 financial year, the total value of the levy funds in apprenticeship service accounts was just under £5 billion. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all receive a share of that funding through the Barnett consequentials. Some of the moneys go to us in Northern Ireland, but also to Scotland and Wales, so there is a spin-off, of which we can take advantage. Apprenticeship funding is crucial for society. I believe it is absolutely critical to put people on the path to work, especially young people who have no desire to go to university and who are insistent on learning a skill to better their future. I see the importance of apprenticeships to many young people who have taken up apprenticeship jobs. They ensure opportunity and are really important.

I will give a classic example that I often think of and refer to. I know of a mechanic in my constituency of Strangford who is now 25. He left school when he was 15, and was keen to do something with his hands. He started as an apprentice in a local Ford dealership on £3.67 per hour. My goodness! Apprenticeships are never highly paid. They certainly were not highly paid when he was 15. He has worked his way up the system through his apprenticeship, and qualified as a mechanic, and on the journey, he learned all the necessary skills to become a fully qualified technician for Royal Mail. What a really good example of what apprenticeships can do, and how they can change lives and give people opportunities!

Apprenticeships allow young people to learn high-level professional skills. Skills policy, including responsibility for apprenticeships, how they work, and how apprentices work their way up, is a fully devolved matter, so each Administration across the United Kingdom has developed an apprenticeship policy tailored to the needs of its skill priorities. Regionally, that is done through the Northern Ireland Assembly, and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment. As I have stated many times, Northern Ireland has a large agricultural industry, which is especially evident in my constituency of Strangford. I live on a farm, and there are farm-related opportunities for apprenticeships. To give two examples, Dale Farm and Lakeland Dairies offer apprenticeships for young people.

In addition, City & Guilds offers level 2 and level 3 agriculture apprenticeships through NI Direct. That is a fantastic way to get people involved in the industry, especially in the rural community where I live, where there are not as many opportunities as there could be. Apprenticeships in the rural community are on offer, and our young people can and do take advantage of them, which is good news. I know that the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale has the same interest, because he lives in a rural community as well, so we understand the role for apprenticeships and how we can move forward.

[Tim Farron]

We did not plan this, but it is really good of the hon. Gentleman to let me intervene. He makes important points. I represent a community in which there are well over 1,000 farms. We have a real issue with succession of farmers, and bringing new people into the farming industry. Less than 60% of the food that we consume in the UK is grown in the country, which is deeply troubling. The answer surely must be to bring more young people into farming. Does he agree that the Minister should look carefully at how we can enhance agricultural and other farming apprenticeships, so that we can make it attractive and financially possible for young people to enter the industry and feed us all?

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Gentleman makes a salient and important point that underlines the issue for us as representatives of predominantly agricultural constituencies. Our role in the rural community is to feed others, and we have the potential to feed even more of our nation, which will reduce the amount of food that we have to import. Hopefully, we can look towards a time when we can be almost self-sufficient; we will never be fully self-sufficient, because we cannot grow some of the stuff that we import, but his point, which I wholeheartedly support, is that we have opportunity. When the Minister sums up, perhaps he can give the two of us—and others in this Chamber—some encouragement on the way forward.

There is no doubt that apprenticeships work and are good for society. There is much pressure on young people to go to university and get a degree. I am not saying that they should not, but not every person is of a mind to do that. Not every person has the capabilities, the functioning or perhaps the focus to make that happen. I have three boys who are now young men, and my neighbours down the road, who are also farmers, had three boys around the same age, and they all went to school together. I knew early on that the oldest of those young boys was never going to get on at school and get all the qualifications that it gives. He only wanted to work on the farm. That is where he wanted to be, and where his love was. Those are the things that we need to focus on. Whenever the hon. Gentleman speaks highly of agriculture and how we can move forward, I endorse that, because I have examples of what he is talking about in my constituency.

When apprenticeship opportunities are successful and are proven to work in the United Kingdom, they deliver opportunities, and lifelong jobs and commitment. If apprenticeships are worse off for the levy, then I urge the Minister to look at other ways in which the moneys could be used. Despite this being a devolved issue, I believe that the Minister has an interest in the situation in Northern Ireland, and a sincere responsibility to ensure that it does not fall behind. I recognise, of course, that this is about Barnett consequentials, and the moneys that come from here to us.

Apprenticeships are about ensuring that underachieving females and males can succeed. It is great that today we can talk about apprenticeships giving opportunities, and jobs for life. In other words, they are about giving not just our children, but our children’s children, a future that we all endorse and would wish for—a future in a stronger United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, where apprenticeships matter and make a difference.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Tim Farron and Jim Shannon

Report stage
Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I will speak in favour of new clause 5, which would ensure an annual report including,

“the number of sentient animals killed or injured”,

as a result of pollution, a description of water companies’ actions to protect animals and an assessment of the impact of Government policy on those two things. I will also speak briefly in favour of new clause 6, which we do not intend to push to a vote, which would establish an annual report into the ways the Government have taken into account animal sentience when establishing new trade deals.

Turning to new clause 5, Cumbria contains two national parks, the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District, the latter being a world heritage site. The richness of our biodiversity throughout Cumbria is of great importance, not least in our rivers and lakes, whose ecology is of global significance as home to countless species. Yet Government policy threatens that diversity and damages animal welfare. In 2020, across the United Kingdom, water companies were permitted to dump raw sewage into our waterways on 400,000 occasions for a total of 3.l million hours, at enormous cost to the lives of aquatic and semi-aquatic sentient animals. At the River Lune near Sedbergh, we saw the longest discharge in the country lasting for 8,490 hours. At Derwentwater, a discharge of 8,275 hours took place. Is it any wonder that only 14 % of Britain’s rivers are classed as being in a “good” state?

The Government’s Environment Act 2021 acknowledges the problem and sets an ambition to reduce the pollution in our rivers caused by the dumping of raw sewage. Of course, as we all know, the Government had to be dragged kicking and screaming by Opposition Members, their own Back Benchers and members of another place to even do that.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Is the hon. Member aware that today’s papers have indicated that while some of the beaches in the UK have the blue flag designation that shows that the water should, in theory, be acceptable, that designation is sometimes not acceptable either?

[Tim Farron]

Yes. Often rivers can meet an acceptable standard but in reality not be healthy places, particularly as regards biodiversity and wildlife. The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point and makes the case as to why the increased scrutiny that the new clause would bring about is that much more important.

The ambition of the Environment Act, which was given Royal Assent last year, is open-ended. There are no meaningful targets or timescales to prevent water companies from dumping raw sewage into our rivers, harming fish and other animals. In 2020, water companies made £2.2 billion in profits. At the same time, as I said, they were dumping sewage in our waterways on 400,000 separate occasions. What kind of accountability is that? What kind of justice is that? What kind of impact is that having on our wildlife? The new clause would expose that.

Between 2018 and 2021, there were only 11 prosecutions of water companies for dumping sewage in our lakes and rivers. United Utilities, which serves Cumbria and the rest of the north-west, was responsible for seven out of the 10 longest sewage leaks in 2020, but, outrageously, was not fined even once. Despite the damage done to the ecology and animal life in rivers such as the Leven, Crake, Brathay, Kent, Lune, Sprint, Mint and Gowan, discharges are permitted either because Government will not stop them or because hardly any of the offenders are ever meaningfully prosecuted. The meres, tarns, waters and lakes of our lake district are all fed by rivers into which raw sewage can be legally dumped. I am particularly concerned about the ecology of Windermere and the failure to take sufficient action to protect the animal and plant life that is so dependent on England’s largest and most popular lake. The new clause would hold Government and water companies to account so that our wildlife and our biodiversity is protected.

New clause 6 addresses the impact of trade deals on the welfare of sentient animals. This country has concluded trade deals with Australia and New Zealand, and any scrutiny of those deals is now effectively meaningless because the Government have already signed them. Yet the impact on sentient animals will be enormous. Free trade is vital to liberty, prosperity and peace, but trade that is not fair is not free at all. These trade deals are not fair on animals and not fair on the British farmers who care for our animals. In Australia, for example, huge-scale ranch farming means the loss of many times more animals than in the UK because of the absence of the close husbandry that we find on British family farms. Some 40% of beef in Australia involves the use of hormones that are not allowed in the United Kingdom. Cattle can be transported in Australia for up to 48 hours in the heat without food or water. These are clearly lower animal welfare standards. By signing these deals without real scrutiny, the Government have endorsed that cruelty and enabled it to prosper at our farmers’ expense. Lower standards are cheaper, so these deals give a competitive advantage to imported animal products that have reached market with poorer animal welfare, thus undermining British farmers who practise higher animal welfare standards. That is why the new clause is important—because it seeks to hold Ministers to account and to limit how much they can get away with sacrificing the welfare of sentient animals at home and abroad in order to achieve a politically useful deal.

Despite this, this Bill has much to commend it. However, the new clauses would allow the Government to look the British people in the eye and say that they were prepared to take on powerful vested interests in order to protect animals and our wider environment. In seeking to press new clause 5 to a vote, I urge Members in all parts of the House not to take the side of the most powerful against those creatures that are the most defenceless.

Project Gigabit

Debate between Tim Farron and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman on bringing this matter forward for debate. The fact that there are representatives here from many parts indicates the importance. Does he feel that, when it comes to funding, the hardest-to-reach parts of the UK find the cost of installing as a group project an issue, as it is for some of my constituents? Then it can be extended to the smaller parts of communities and further afield. Does he feel the Minister should respond clearly to what he has said, and ensure that all parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland can benefit?

[Tim Farron]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. For us, B4RN has done something unique from a not-for-profit angle, to fill in the gaps from the grassroots up. That is a model that we should see emulated in other parts of the country, rather than have it accidentally—I would say—snuffed out by a good idea at Whitehall that turned out to be a bad idea in practice.

Affordable and Safe Housing for All

Debate between Tim Farron and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon]

When it comes to the issue of land that has been banked for development, some 1 million homes are set aside for that purpose. Does the hon. Gentleman feel that there should be a timescale on when that land can be dealt with? Does he also feel that, within the land banked development plan, there should be provision for social housing for people who cannot afford housing by going for a mortgage?

[Tim Farron]

I agree with all those points. It is vitally important that land that can be used for housing is made available for affordable housing—for homes for local people that they can afford.

It is worth bearing in mind that there are other problems in the planning system. In my part of the world, south Cumbria, we have three planning authorities—the district council, the Yorkshire Dales national park and the Lake District national park. One problem there is not the overweening power of the planners, but the overweening power of developers to be able to run rings around the community. The viability assessment, for example, allows a developer to get planning permission for developing, let us say, 30 or 40 houses and then, having agreed to build a dozen or so affordable homes, to tell the planners, and indeed the local community, “We’ve changed our mind; we’ve found a few rocks, so we won’t go ahead as we had promised.” The planners’ lack of power to ensure developers do what the community wants them to do undermines local democracy and undermines the ability to deliver affordable homes to local communities.

One hugely worrying aspect of the Government’s proposals is that developers will be able to build up to 50 homes without any affordable homes among them whatsoever, which will be massively ruinous to a community such as mine where the majority of developments are smaller than 50 houses and where the average wage is less than a 12th of the average house price. I heard the Secretary of State’s offer earlier about first homes and I will take him up on his offer. In the South Lakes we will offer to be a pilot for first homes, on the understanding that it is not a replacement for the existing provision for affordable homes through the planning system. I am all ears because we need to do everything we can to ensure there are local homes for local people.

I mentioned in an intervention a desperately worrying thing. People talk about an increased number of homes being available, but in the past 12 months we have seen a reduction in the number of homes available for local people in south Cumbria, and other parts of the country as well, as second home ownership has rocketed, in part fuelled by the Government failing to think through the impact of the stamp duty holiday. Eighty per cent. of homes purchased in Cumbria in the last 12 months have gone into the second home market. They are not lived in. What does that mean for the local community? It means we are robbing that community of a permanent population.

People can talk about levelling up, but it does not look like levelling up to me when we see a school closing because there are not enough permanent homes locally to send children to that school. Levelling up does not mean very much to us in Cumbria if there is no demand for the bus service, so the old person who wants to attend a GP appointment 10 miles away cannot physically get there; and the post office shuts down because there are not enough homes in the village to sustain the post office all year round. That does not look like levelling up; that looks like the Government deciding to ignore the plight of rural Britain, including my part of Cumbria.

Therefore, I urge the Secretary of State to look at my early-day motion, which has the backing of the Lake District national park and the Yorkshire Dales national park, calling for councils in England to be given the same powers they have in Wales to increase council tax on second homes, but also to intervene to change planning law to protect first homes in communities such as mine, so those places do not become ghost towns. It is deeply troubling that there is nothing in the Queen’s Speech that allows us to tackle the explosion of second home ownership, which is undermining community in places such as mine.

I want to say a few words about the Building Safety Bill. That is an opportunity for those of us who care about those who are the victims of the staggering unfairness of the cladding scandal to seek to address it, but it would be even better if the Government were to do a U-turn now and decide not to lay at the door of those people who are blameless the price incurred by those who are guilty of recklessness and lethal decisions in both the development side and the Government regulation side of the development of properties over years. It is outrageous that we are apparently about to penalise the innocent for the failures of the guilty.

We must protect our environment, create a planning system that listens to local people and protects our landscape, and make sure that we have homes that are available and affordable for local people, so that our communities in the likes of the lakes and the dales remain sustainable. My great fear is that the Secretary of State’s plans are all about listening to the people with the power and ignoring communities such as ours, which are in desperate need of support.

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Debate between Tim Farron and Jim Shannon

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Wednesday 24th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD) [V]]

I too wish to support the Bill and the amendments made in the other place. I am deeply concerned, though, about the practice of the Government’s moves to meet their own self-imposed universal service obligation.

In my constituency, we are looking at around 1,000 properties—domestic properties, never mind businesses—that will not meet the USO. Indeed, even when we factor in those properties that can be supported via 4G to receive that kind of basic broadband connectivity, hundreds of properties in places such as Coniston, the Langdales, north Windermere, Ambleside, Hawkshead and Cartmel Fell are left still unable to access the Government’s targets or avail themselves of them, and have no source of appeal and no form of redress. The only thing they can do about it is to shell out tens of thousands of pounds of their own money, if they are able and willing. It turns out that the Government’s universal service obligation is not universal, and is not an obligation. That is going to, and does, hit rural communities such as ours all the more.

I am also concerned that, as has been mentioned by others in this debate, the Government’s commitment to full fibre roll-out has fallen by the wayside to a significant degree, and a breaking of manifesto promises is now clearly taking place. The commitment to £5 billion being spent in this Parliament has dropped to less than a quarter of that amount—less backhaul, more backsliding. That is deeply concerning for rural communities such as ours that thought they could rely on the promise that was made to them. The Government’s reappraising of its targets—that is, the breaking of its promises—will mean that rural communities such as mine miss out the most, which is deeply regrettable. Through conversations with BT and others, we now calculate that nearly half of my constituents will not get ultrafast full fibre broadband for at least another decade. That is not acceptable, and not in keeping with the spirit of this Bill.

I will focus on two final points. The first is that our experience during this pandemic tells us something very important about the nature of work. Here I am, speaking to Members from Milnthorpe in Cumbria while simultaneously being in the House of Commons. People working at home and making use of broadband connectivity has been transformative, and in one sense we are very grateful to be in this situation at this time, when we have this technology available to us. Imagine what it might have been like 20 or so years ago, when this technology was not available!

However, with so many more people working from home, we begin to realise that the Government’s fixation and focus on download speeds is somewhat misleading—maybe not intentionally, but it is misleading. For so many people in business working from home, it is upload speeds that matter. They are the benchmark of whether or not we are genuinely, properly connected. I can think of people in our big town of Kendal with upload speeds of less than one megabit per second, who are meant to be working from home, running companies of many dozens of people with large turnovers. That is not conducive to communities like ours. I have one of the most entrepreneurial communities in the country, with one of the highest numbers of people working for themselves when compared with any other community elsewhere in the United Kingdom. We are really proud of that, yet the Government hobble us by not having ambitions that are ambitious enough to allow people to work from home and within their communities, and to enable them to contribute to our economy. Let us focus on the reality of connectivity and realise that the Government’s own ambitions are still very unambitious, given the new world that we find ourselves in.

My final point is this: we are very proud of, and very grateful to, our mountain rescue services, and indeed all our emergency services here in the lakes and the dales. Only recently, a leading member of our mountain rescue teams here in the Lake district suffered very serious injuries rescuing a member of the public, and we remember how vital their service is, both the service given voluntarily by the mountain rescue services and that given by the professional emergency services. We owe them so much, and one of the things we owe them is decent connectivity. In three parts of my constituency, and in many other parts of the country, we have promises from the Home Office for new emergency service masts. In my community, that means the Langdales, Longsleddale, and Kentmere. Those Home Office masts are vital to the safety of people in those communities, and to the emergency services that often operate in those communities. They are also vital because they then provide a platform for commercial delivery for mobile telecommunications in vast, underpopulated—but not unpopulated—areas.

The Home Office continuously puts off the erection and bringing into operation of the Longsleddale, Kentmere and Langdale masts. At the moment, we understand that the Home Office has no plan to activate those masts for another three or four years. Will the Minister put strong pressure on the Home Secretary to act swiftly to make sure that our emergency services, the people they come to aid and the wider community in the lakes have the benefit of those masts and have them quickly?

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I am pleased to see the Minister in his place. The Bill is very important, and I welcome it. The Bill and the Minister’s direction of it have given us a chance to tidy up the process, and it does just that. I support the aim of the Bill to tackle absent landlords impacting on broadband, to ensure that they face a greater obligation to facilitate the deployment of digital infrastructure when they receive a request from their tenants. That is in-built, and I support ensuring that tenants are not waiting months to get a simple permission or access.

Covid-19

Debate between Tim Farron and Jim Shannon

Monday 14th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Point taken, Madam Deputy Speaker. Thank you very much for calling me.

This has been the most peculiar of years. When we look at the media coverage of where we are with the virus, the vaccine, all the political issues that go alongside that, and the challenges over how the Government are handling things—well, badly or indifferently—many of us overlook what an appalling tragedy this has been and continues to be. Sixty-four thousand people in this country have lost their lives. Around 600 people or more in my county have lost their lives, and I knew dozens of them. One thinks about those people for whom Christmas will be not just lonely, difficult and challenging because of the restrictions we are all under, but a time of deep distress because they have lost someone close to them in the last nine months. When we see debates about the necessity of lockdown or restrictions of one kind or another, we need to remember what it is we are seeking to do: it is to save lives, and it will continue to be to save lives.

The tragedy that has hit my community, as it has every other community, feels almost too much to bear. We are a community where the average age is 10 years above the national average age in the United Kingdom. We are an area that, after London, is the next most visited place in the United Kingdom—the Lake district. Arguments are made about whether that meant that we had a higher than average incidence of the virus early on. We do not know that; what we do know is the way in which communities have responded to the virus.

In community after community, whether in our large town of Kendal, in Windermere, Grasmere, Ambleside and Sedbergh or in smaller places like Dent, Coniston, my own village of Milnthorpe, Arnside and Grange—everywhere I could mention in my patch, which is bigger than Greater London, and by the way I could mention another hundred—people have stepped up to take responsibility and have been desperate to meet the needs of their neighbours, though their own needs may be very significant. I pay tribute to every single one of them. I am proud to represent the south lakes and to represent those communities. Diverse though they are, they are also utterly determined to support one another.

There are so many within those communities who deserve our thanks and support, such as those working in care homes. I talked to one lady who worked in a care home, and not even a particularly large one, in my community. Back in April, on one night she saw nine residents lose their lives—in a single night. That was a tragedy for every single one of those people and every single one of those families. What does that mean? What does it feel like to be somebody who works in a place like that, administering love, care and concern for people as they go through their last moments? What is the cumulative impact on the mental health and wellbeing of people working in those communities?

We say thank you very often, and it is right that we do so in this place, but I want people who work in care homes, personal carers and those who work in the health service to know that we are not saying it glibly—we really, really mean it. We are utterly in their debt for the way they have cared for people at their moment of greatest need.

I think also of another group of people in a community like mine, where unemployment has gone up nearly sevenfold over the period of the pandemic: people who work for the Department for Work and Pensions in the jobcentre. They are people who serve people—people who perhaps were living in a state of relative comfort back in February or March, and then discovered that everything had collapsed around them. They are there for people at a moment of desperate need. They are not the only people, but I just want to draw them to the front of our attention. I thank those people on the frontline who have been supporting others who found themselves in need of benefits when they never thought in advance that they would.

I could say so many things about those who have stepped up to the mark at this time, but I also wish to pay tribute to those who have ensured that we have got to a stage where a vaccine is imminent—it turns out that we do need experts, after all. I am utterly indebted to those people, be they in this country or elsewhere, who have used their expertise and brilliance to do in 10 months what we would normally expect to take 10 years. Here is the thing that concerns me: we are close, potentially, to seeing light at the end of the tunnel and we can almost sense people beginning not to dip for the tape but to just let their guard drop. On behalf of everyone in this Chamber and beyond, I just want to say that this is the moment for utmost vigilance.

My dad was sharing that very thought with me the other day and he made the analogy with those tragic people who fell in the hours before the guns stopped on 11 November 1918. What a particular tragedy it was to be those who died at the end when the end was in sight. That is what we have ahead of us now, which is why if we need to tighten up restrictions over Christmas, miserable though that may be, we must think, “For pity’s sake, don’t we want our loved ones to see summer? Aren’t we prepared to make some restrictions now?” We know we are not going to have to live with this for years and years. We know that the light at the end of the tunnel is now visible. That is a glorious thing we can cling on to, but it is not an excuse to let our guard down—in fact, it is the opposite of that.

I want to encourage Ministers to think carefully about how the vaccine is administered. Of course, it should go first to those who are the most vulnerable, and those working in care homes and in the national health service. I have talked about the scale of my constituency, so it is great that we are likely to have a centre in Kendal and in Windermere, and we are looking at centres being rolled out through the primary care network, through GP surgeries and the like. I encourage the NHS within Lancashire and south Cumbria to ensure that there are centres in places such as Grange-over-Sands and Sedbergh, and other more rural, remote parts of Cumbria, so that this is not hard to access, particularly for people who are older and more vulnerable.

A community such as mine, which relies so heavily on tourism, with half the workforce working in tourism, has been deeply hit by the coronavirus. We operate on a feast and famine basis in hospitality and tourism, with the winter famine and the summer feast, and then back to the winter famine. The problem for us is that we have had three winters in a row. The Government’s investment in hospitality and tourism early on was of real benefit. Those £10,000 grants ensured that many businesses that would have failed were able to take advantage of the unlocking through the summer, so July and August were not a bad couple of months for hospitality and tourism in the lakes and the dales. I suggest to the Government that their failure at this point to repeat that grant support on that scale risks throwing away all the advantages they got from supporting hospitality and tourism in the early part of the year. What is the point of investing billions into it only to let those companies die in the next couple of months, so that when we are able to get back to some kind of normality, rather than having a hospitality and tourism industry ready to fight back and bounce back, we may have a bunch of dead businesses? So I encourage the Government now to repeat those £10,000 loans, to support hospitality and tourism.

I also encourage the Government to recognise the challenges faced in areas such as mine, which have been in tier 1 and are now tier 2, and are adjacent to tier 3 areas. The Lake District and Yorkshire Dales are in tier 2, but our neighbouring huge communities, the big population centres, are tier 3 So we are not compensated in the same way as businesses in tier 3 are, but we are massively affected by the fact that people in tier 3 cannot travel to take advantage of the wonderful facilities available in south Cumbria. I encourage the Government to consider making sure that support is provided.

[Jim Shannon]

With the advent of the vaccine for covid-19 almost here, does the hon. Gentleman feel that an extra push at this time for the goal of being covid-free should be what we all focus on? If we do that—collectively, singly and all together—we can make it happen, and that should be the positive message we are trying to send out from the Chamber tonight.

[Tim Farron]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The fact that we know that the vaccines are now on their way surely changes how we look at all this. It means we now know we are not throwing billions and billions into a pot where we will never see the bottom. We know some kind of end is in sight, so what a terrible waste of tens of billions of the public’s money it would be, were we to be penny pinching in the last part of this pandemic. That is why we should back hospitality and tourism, which is the fourth biggest employer in the country and the biggest employer in Cumbria. It is essential to our economy as a whole and is worth £3.5 billion to the Cumbrian economy every year. This is the point; to invest in hospitality and tourism to see us through to the end.

In my community, there is a preponderance of businesses afflicted by having been excluded from support. Something like 4,000 people in my constituency alone were given no support. We are often talking about people who became self-employed in the past 18 months or so—the directors of small limited companies, hairdressers, personal trainers, taxi drivers and the like—but got nothing throughout this period. People on maternity leave have had their support cut at one end or the other. Often, these are the people—the entrepreneurs—who we will desperately rely on to build back our economy once we are through the coronavirus. Not only is it lacking in compassion for the Government to not back those people who have been excluded, but extremely stupid when they are the engine of our recovery, or at least they would be, if only the Government would help them.

A source of employment and a very important sector within my constituency and constituencies like mine is the outdoor education sector. It has been overlooked in many ways, although I am pleased to be part of the all-party group that the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) chairs, which is looking at how we can support outdoor education.

It is worth bearing in mind that about 15,000 people work in outdoor education around the country, and 6,000 of them have lost their jobs already, largely because residential stays have effectively been banned by the Department for Education under advice from the Department of Health and Social Care. I understand that, although I would argue that residential stays at outdoor education centres are at least as safe as children going to school in the first place.

It is important that we save our outdoor education centres, which are hugely at risk at this point, not only because it is right to save them, but because this is the moment to deploy them. I and others in this Chamber have talked about the impact this period has had on the mental health of young people and their disengagement with education. Those children have lost three months at school, but some of them went back two years as a consequence of all this. In our outdoor education centres, we have the skill and talent to engage young people in learning, to foster a love of learning, to improve their mental health and wellbeing and to engage them with the education process again. Will the Government bring forward a specialist package, as they have in Scotland, to make sure that we lose no more outdoor education centre jobs and protect all our outdoor education centres?

Finally, I will say a couple of words about health in general, but in particular mental health. In my constituency, we saw the closure of our adult mental health ward, the Kentmere ward, at Westmorland General Hospital for covid reasons. We understand why that is the case, and we are pleased that the foundation trust is now putting £5 million into redeveloping that service and opening again within the next year. I encourage Ministers to put pressure on the Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust to make sure that happens as soon as possible, and also to ensure that it remains a site to support people of all ages and all genders with mental health problems. It is incredibly important that we do not end up at the end of all this with a more exclusive and less accessible mental health service available in South Lakeland.

Finally, cancer. We have learned during this period that there is a backlog in cancer treatment of around 100,000 people. Cancer Research UK estimates that 35,000 additional deaths may happen as a consequence of covid through people dying as a result of cancer. We believe that for every four weeks’ delay in diagnosis and, indeed, in treatment starting, we see a 10% drop in the likelihood of surviving that cancer. I want to encourage the Government to look carefully, if belatedly, at the comprehensive spending review submission that the all-party parliamentary groups on cancer, including the radiotherapy group that I chair, put to the Treasury, but which the Government did not match or fund. That proposal would allow us to massively expand radiotherapy, which would be a way not just of treating people who would normally expect to get radiotherapy but of ensuring that we substitute for those other treatments that are not possible due to covid-19. It would be an absolute tragedy if we ended up losing tens of thousands of people to cancer through this period because the Government did not catch up with cancer when they had the chance to invest and to do so.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Tim Farron and Jim Shannon

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 4th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow so many well-informed, logical and compassionate speeches in this important debate. In the Home Secretary’s party conference speech a few weeks ago, she talked about the vast importance of refugees using legal routes to come to the UK. I think all hon. Members present agree and all—or most—are bemused as to why she would close off a route such as this, which is relatively modest, as has been said.

The ire that is focused on criminal gangs is absolutely justified, but we push people into the arms of those criminal gangs if we close off safe and legal routes. Wherever the negotiations with the EU end up, the chances are that we will need to bring in our own domestic policy that offers young people and families the opportunity to be reunited on these shores.

I will make four quick points. First, the numbers are few. The reaction of some newspapers, and from the mouths of some Ministers and others, is a colossal overreaction to the numbers of people actually travelling. Yes, it is more than we would want—it is a sign of something utterly heartbreaking—but we are not talking about the tens or hundreds of thousands that some of us have seen in south-eastern Europe over the last few years. The numbers are few, so let us not overreact with the sabre-rattling rhetoric that we sometimes hear from the Government and the Conservative party.

Secondly, the stakes are high, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) encapsulated. I remember being on the shores of Lesbos a few years ago as a boat came in, and talking to a family afterwards—a five-year-old girl, three-year-old girl, mum and dad. The dad ran a garage in Syria and the mum was a nursery schoolteacher. They were relatively comfortable, but they took a colossal and unspeakable risk, because staying was more risky. The stakes are high, so how dare we put barriers in their way?

Thirdly, the objections are poor. I often hear people talk about the pull factor, but there is a push factor, for pity’s sake. Those people will try to find a way to our shores by a safe and legal way, or by utterly brutal and dangerous ways, unless we provide those safe routes.

Finally, this is not worthy of us. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) rightly talked about our national character. I think it was a couple of days ago that Sir Ben Helfgott was honoured in the Pride of Britain awards. I am massively proud of Ben Helfgott because he is one of the 300 Windermere boys. There were 300 young people—mostly children—rescued from the death camps after the end of the second world war who came here and were resettled literally on the shores of Lake Windermere. They were accepted, brought back into some kind of civilised existence and set on their way, and they achieved wonderful things like Ben did. That is the Britain that I know and love. Accepting refugees from Uganda, from Kosovo—that is what makes Britain Britain. It is just beneath us to be finding reasons and excuses not to say yes to the entirely reasonable Lords amendment that provides a safe and legal route for family reunion, and prevents people from being pushed into the arms of dangerous criminal gangs.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for gently asking the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) to leave time for me to speak; I thank the hon. Gentleman for doing so. I will take no more time than anybody else. I also thank the Minister for the discussions that he has had with the Democratic Unionist party, particularly with my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), who said that they were very useful.

I have concerns about the long-term detention of mentally ill people, who would be vulnerable detainees. Will the Minister outline in his response how he believes the Bill addresses the deficiencies highlighted in the troubling cases of ASK and MDA in 2019? I am sorry that I did not have the chance to give the Minister these notes in advance; I intended to do so, but overlooked it. Concerns have been expressed to me that at-risk adults do not have sufficient protection, and everyone who has spoken has highlighted the importance of full protection, which is even more necessary for vulnerable people.

Like other hon. Members, I have some concern about children who have lost parents—children who are in France, as the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) mentioned, with a relative in the United Kingdom. We need to ensure that those families can be reunited; we should be trying to do that.

The Minister and I have talked on many occasions about immigration issues and the rights of European economic area nationals to come over here to work on fishing boats. I understand that the issue is not for this Bill, but the Minister indicated some time ago that we would have a meeting. In fact, if it had not have been for covid-19, we would have had that meeting in Portavogie in my constituency of Strangford over Easter. I feel very strongly about the issue and want to make sure that it is on the Minister’s horizon. I know that he was keen to have that meeting. I was also very keen, along with the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and other Members who wanted to address the same issue, which is why I wanted to put it on the record again.

Let me quickly mention another issue. I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief. We have asked the Minister and the Government to consider allocating a proportion of places to people who are fleeing countries in, for example, the middle east. I am thinking of Christians from Syria, Iran and Iraq. I would like to see whether it is possible to specify a percentage who could come to the United Kingdom. I thank the Minister and the Government for the relocation of some Syrian refugees, who were able to integrate into my constituency of Strangford. They came in from Syria with absolutely nothing—some were not even able to speak the language—and the whole community came together to ensure that they were looked after, including the Housing Executive, church groups, community groups and everyone else. That is a lovely example of how things can work. The Government enabled it to happen, and I thank them for that. However, there are other Christians and Christian families who, I believe, should have the opportunity to come and relocate here as well.

A nation is marked by its compassion for others. Every one of us in this Chamber for this debate, including the Minister, wants to see that compassion used in the legislation to ensure that those who our hearts burn for are able to come here.

Finance Bill

Debate between Tim Farron and Jim Shannon

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 1st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

There has been much talk of Roosevelt and the new deal but, as the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) said, the Roosevelt new deal comprised 40% of US GDP and the Prime Minister’s announcement 0.2% of UK GDP. The new deal rhetoric is right—let us congratulate the Government on that—but the reality is utterly limp.

We stand on the precipice of a recession, probably the worst of our lifetimes, and so it is good to hear Conservatives, for the first time in generations, looking to the great liberal economist John Maynard Keynes for inspiration. This is a time to boost demand and economic activity, to create jobs by direct Government intervention. We will do that by borrowing to invest, and we should do so on a colossal and ambitious scale. Yesterday’s announcement of £5 billion investment would transform Cumbria, if all of it was spent there. No serious person thinks it will even make a dent in the UK-wide economic situation.

Nor does that investment, of course, comprise a green infrastructure revolution. Yet, if we really are to build an economy that is better, that is the revolution we would choose. An active, ambitious Government would invest not £5 billion, but the £150 billion that the Liberal Democrats propose, over the next three years. That way, we would stand a chance of ending the recession before it starts, protecting and creating jobs and preventing hardship. We would also stand a chance of leaving a legacy that future generations will thank us for.

In working together, in a collective national endeavour to build the sustainable infrastructure we need, we can generate the national unity and common purpose that has been absent ever since the debate about our relationship with the rest of Europe turned into a self-destructive culture war. We can unite the country, avert the recession and save the planet all in one go, but it will take an awful lot more than 0.2% of GDP.

So what should we do? We expect to see as few as 3,500 social rented homes built across the entire country this year, the lowest number in history. In my constituency alone, we have 3,000 people languishing on the housing list. We need new homes, genuinely affordable homes and zero-carbon homes. The Government must fast-track the affordable homes programme and spend it on building new, zero-carbon social rented homes.

The Government must also launch a nationwide programme of energy insulation, starting with the homes of those with the lowest incomes, and they must also use this time of fast-tracked legislation—since they are in the mood to do it—to reform the Land Compensation Act 1961 to prevent land values from being inflated, so that we can make zero-carbon homes more affordable to build and more likely to be built.

Transport is key to rural communities such as mine, and to the environment and the recovery. In the north-west, transport spend per head of the population is still barely half of what it is in London, despite the promises made when the northern powerhouse was established. Bus services in London receive a £722 million annual subsidy; in Cumbria, we receive nothing at all. What little money exists rarely makes it north of the M60—not much of a powerhouse, and not very northern.

Our communities in South Lakeland have done a spectacular job putting together community bus services, such as the Western Dales Bus service connecting Sedbergh and Dent with Kendal and the surrounding communities, to plug some of the gaps caused by the steady loss of services, but we should not have to do that. The lack of subsidy means that fares are extortionate, which is a huge challenge, especially for low-paid workers. The 5-mile journey from Ambleside to Grasmere costs £4.90; a journey of equivalent length in London costs £1.50.

Bus services are essential to life in rural communities such as ours—essential to boosting our economy, moving to zero carbon and tackling isolation. They are also key to Cumbria’s vital tourism industry. Between 16 million and 20 million people visit us each year, and 83% of those visitors travel to us by car. With the right interventions and conditions, our visitors will travel sustainably.

We ask for a comprehensive, affordable rural bus service connecting all our villages to our main towns regularly and reliably. We ask for a network of electric hire bike stations. There should be such stations at all railway stations, in village centres, and at major bus stops, and action to make cycling easier and safer throughout Cumbria. We ask for the Lakes line, which connects the English Lake district to the main line, to be electrified. It is shameful that the Government cancelled electrification plans in 2017 for utterly bogus reasons. Now is the time to keep that promise and electrify this iconic line, which serves Britain’s second-biggest visitor destination after London. We ask that there be a passing loop on the Lakes line at Burneside to enable a huge increase in capacity, and we ask for Staveley station to be made accessible, so that it is no longer out of reach of those with mobility difficulties, who cannot make it up the 41 steps.

We ask that the Government show their commitment to industrial renewal and to tackling the climate emergency by investing in wave, hydro and tidal power in the most beautiful but—let us be honest—wettest part of Britain. Why is it that the UK, with the highest tidal range on the planet after Canada, spends so little on the reliable power that water offers? We are proud to have Gilkes in Kendal, beacon to the hydro energy industry. Let us back it, and others like it, so that we can get Britain working, sustainably.

For Cumbria and Britain, building back better and greener is possible—essential—but it means doing more than just using Roosevelt’s name; it will mean deploying Roosevelt’s courage.

[Jim Shannon]

I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on this important topic. I declare an interest as a landowner. Many years ago, I used the initiative to provide saplings to landowners free of charge, and I planted 3,500 trees on my farm—my father’s farm, as it was then. Over the years I have watched them grow, and have seen wildlife flourish. I am very proud of my biodiversity foray. However, I would never have thought to use some five acres of my farm to plant trees had not the relevant Department publicised and encouraged the scheme, and made it easier for me.

I understand that the Prime Minister has this week indicated that 1.5 billion trees will be planted between now and 2050. That will raise forest cover across the United Kingdom of Great Britain from 15% to 17%. I would have liked more than that, of course, but I welcome it; we should welcome that very positive announcement. It is clear to me that Government initiatives on the environment make a difference. I am not talking about ceasing production of diesel cars or other preventive measures; I am talking about initiatives from which the constituent feels the benefit. Constituents knew that they could get money for scrapping their old carbon-emitting guzzler car, and could put that towards a more environmentally friendly car that cost them less in road tax, and they did it. They knew that they could get a grant to help install solar panels on their roof and for insulation, so that they did not have to use as much oil, and they did it. Battery storage is one of the projects in my constituency. We hope to see it going forward as one of our very positive green energy projects. I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) is in discussions with the Government about hydrogen vehicles. He also asked a question of the Prime Minister today about buses.

Medicines and Medical Devices Bill

Debate between Tim Farron and Jim Shannon

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Jim, you could have carried on a bit longer, couldn’t you? It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

When it comes to the regulation of the introduction of new, innovative medicines, treatments and technologies, I am bound to say that cancer will be at the forefront of many of our minds. It is an area that deeply concerns every single one of us, and it could be severely impacted if we do not get the negotiations right. The NHS long-term plan, which is full of very good and wise things, recognised the significant problem that we have in the United Kingdom with our cancer survival rates. Our survival rates, and it has been the case under many Governments of different colours, are among the worst in Europe. We have the second lowest survival rate for lung cancers and below average survival rates for nine of the 10 major cancers. The terrifying statistic for us personally is that one in every two of us is likely to get cancer at some point in our lives. That means we will, all of us, almost certainly be touched by cancer in some way in our families at some point during our lives, if we have not been already.

The need to step up our efforts to fight this horrific disease is amplified by the current context. We have seen a 60% drop in cancer referrals and a 20% fall in the numbers of those starting treatment during the covid crisis—for obvious reasons, and some of them justifiable reasons. Clearly, there are people who are at risk of their immunity being suppressed during the virus or who could gain the infection via surgery during the pandemic, so we understand why clinicians make such decisions.

[Jim Shannon]

The week past was Men’s Health Week, and I know the hon. Gentleman is of the same opinion as me about the importance of highlighting prostate cancer. Bowel cancer is another example. Those are two of the cancers that take people out of this world very quickly. I know the Minister will respond very positively, but is it his understanding that those are two of the cancers that, critically, we need to address early on?

[Tim Farron]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. The two statistics I rattled out—and not for the first time, even today—are the 60% drop in referrals and 20% drop in treatments beginning. The referrals one is broadly down to people not coming forward because they do not want to trouble the NHS. It is massively important to amplify what I know Ministers and clinicians are saying around the country, which is that if people are even the remotest bit concerned, they must come forward and seek advice, because the NHS undoubtedly is open. Some of the cancellations of treatment have been for other reasons, such as not having had full access to kit and, in the early days, NICE advising against it taking place when perhaps it could have done. However, I am pleased that the Government have managed to make significant progress in recent weeks.

The statistics on the reduction of people coming forward for treatment and for referral, and on the reduction in treatments beginning, are, of course, all true, yet the numbers of people with cancer at this point is the same as it would be in any other year, give or take. That tells us that we are in danger of seeing a serious peak in late diagnoses, and, therefore, sadly, in people tragically not living as long as they would have done otherwise.

In the context of the Bill, removal from the European Medicines Agency would do our people harm. Choosing to go from being part of an organisation that represents 25% of medicine sales on the planet to one making up only 3% will inevitably see us fall down the list for those applying for new drugs and treatments. In that case, the wisest course of action would be to negotiate associate membership of the European Medicines Agency. We must be at the cutting edge of cancer treatment, yet we will hobble ourselves if we reduce access to new treatment and scale back research and development.

Of course, Britain’s membership of the EMA is no guarantee of progress. I am thinking particularly of radiotherapy technology. NHS England has just agreed to roll out the commissioning of stereotactic ablative radiotherapy—SABR technology—and to bring it forward by a year. This comes after an arduous 10-year battle for this precise and powerful treatment to be rolled out to every cancer centre in the country. To be clear, 100% of radiotherapy centres are equipped to give this treatment, but only half of them are currently commissioned to do so. I am very grateful to Ministers and in particular to the one in her place, who intervened to ensure that all centres will now be commissioned. We are very grateful.

The reason given time and again by NHS England for wasting this resource was that it did not have enough data. This is relevant, because this was a treatment being used effectively across Europe with significantly improved outcomes. If this is the case when the data is there, I dread to think what the impact will be of having reduced access to data on medicines and medical devices when we are outside the EMA.

If effective and co-ordinated implementation does not follow regulation, regulation becomes utterly meaningless. Many colleagues have rightly raised concerns about maintaining access to the best possible treatment for those in the UK, but we also need to recognise that countless people are not able to access the treatment that they need and that has been approved even now. The idea that this could be further curtailed and cost further lives is deeply troubling. Indeed, it would be an outrageous injustice. The process between the approval of a medicine or medical device and its use to treat illness and save lives is hugely important, as the experience of the development of radiotherapy in this country proves.

Public Health

Debate between Tim Farron and Jim Shannon

Monday 15th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron]

My remarks were merely a bridge from the excellent speech of the hon. Member for Broxbourne.

The restrictions that we are discussing have been a huge imposition on our lives and livelihoods. I would argue that they have been necessary to protect us, our loved ones and especially those who are most vulnerable in our society. Millions around the country have made colossal sacrifices. In every community, countless people selflessly battled with loneliness, and families and businesses plunged into financial insecurity, even destitution. Our communities in Cumbria have been among the hardest hit. In Westmorland and Lonsdale, there was a 312% increase in unemployment last month—the highest in Britain. For thousands back home, it is not a case of fearing that financial hardship might come at the end of the lockdown; it has already arrived. Thousands are at risk and hundreds are in the midst of destitution.

In Cumbria, we are deeply concerned about the survival and sustainability of the tourism and hospitality sector in particular. I want to focus my remarks on how the restrictions affect that industry. Visitors come from Britain and all over the world, not only for the landscape, but for a world class industry that receives and serves them. We have the best pubs and restaurants using local produce, the best accommodation and the best attractions from steam railways to lake cruises. We have heritage and history from Wordsworth to Donald Campbell and an innovative first-rate retail sector that is integrated with that visitor economy. Cumbrian tourism normally brings in £3 billion a year. It is the biggest employer in Cumbria and of course tourism is the fourth biggest employer in the country.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The news from back home in Northern Ireland today is that the hospitality sectors can open on 3 July. That means the restaurants, the cafés, the coffee shops, the pubs and the visitor centres are opening. Is that an example of what should and could happen here for the hon. Gentleman’s constituency?

[Tim Farron]

I am grateful for that relevant intervention. The point is that we need to do what is safe and compensate those people who are unable to go about their normal business if it is not safe. I am not one of those people who says, “We just follow the science.” A judgment still needs to be made on the basis of the science, but we need to have the guidance up front and early. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, Northern Ireland is opening up on 3 July and perhaps England will open on 4 July, but we need the information on which to base those decisions.

In the Lake District national park—the most populated national park in the country—80% of the working-age population works in tourism and hospitality, an industry that has basically closed down for the past three months. It is not the case in every part of the country, but the tourism in the national parks and in the coastal zones of the UK is largely cyclical. Visitors rely on the feast of the summer to see them through the famine of the winter. Lockdown turned our summer to winter. Even if businesses are permitted to open in a limited capacity, the restrictions on customers will continue to prevent them from making up all that lost income. If the tourism economy is able to fully reopen only in the autumn, we condemn people to three winters in a row: three winters of making a loss; three winters of financial hardship. As the Government ease the lockdown restrictions, it is entirely sensible for the Chancellor to begin the slow unwinding of the furlough scheme for many businesses. After all, there is light at the end of the tunnel and hope for the future—but not for everyone. We must not fall into the trap of thinking that the ending of the lockdown will mean that business can begin to make profit again; being open for business is no guarantee of having business. A business cannot pay its staff even 10% if it is not making any income to pay them with, and that is going to be the case for a good number of businesses in the tourism and hospitality sector. If the Government insist on no exemptions to the phasing out of the furlough from August, many businesses in Cumbrian towns and villages will be forced to lay off huge swathes of their staff or to fold altogether.

As well as the huge increase in job losses on my patch, 37% of the working population are now on furlough—that is the fourth highest level in the country and the highest by far in the north of England. If we do not recognise that the tourism and hospitality industry is in a unique and precarious position, we will simply end up killing hundreds of otherwise healthy businesses in the autumn, in which case, what would have been the point of the Government’s expenditure so far? The furlough scheme would just become a waiting room for unemployment, and I will not settle for that.

Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

Debate between Tim Farron and Jim Shannon

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson). I recall the Crewe and Nantwich by-election in 2008—the weather was quite nice, and I congratulate him on his first victory. I spent some time in Eddisbury in, I think, ’99 for the by-election, when Stephen O’Brien, his predecessor but one, was first elected, so I know where it is—there is a good chippy in Winsford, if I remember correctly. I genuinely mean it when I say that the hon. Gentleman was an excellent children’s Minister. This will massively hamper any rise he may subsequently make, but if the Prime Minister should be thinking of a reshuffle, he could look no further than him. I also thank him for paying tribute to his excellent and very principled predecessor, Antoinette Sandbach, my former hon. Friend.

Let me make a little confession. Some years ago, before Brexit was even a thing—back in the day when the Prime Minister thought it was madness to even countenance leaving the European Union—I said that I could see one advantage in the United Kingdom departing the EU: I could see how we could spend the common agricultural policy money better than it is often spent through the current system. That does not mean that I predicted that a future Government would spend it better, but I could see how they could—that is an important caveat.

The Bill is necessary and provides a modicum of certainty for farmers as we leave the European Union in just a few days’ time. It permits a small island of temporary predictability in a sea of uncertainty. It kicks the can a few yards down the lane, but it will do nothing to disguise the chasm that is opening up for farmers as we leave the EU. The Government believe that they have a mandate to “get Brexit done”, but nowhere is the nonsense behind that statement laid bare more than in the case of our farming industry.

I will tell the House what Brexit has done: according to the Secretary of State last week at the Oxford farming conference, it has done for the basic payments scheme—which constitutes 85% of the income of the average livestock farmer—starting in less than 12 months. It has done for free access for British farmers to their most important export market—90% of Cumbria’s farm exports are to the European single market. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to be believed, it has also done for our alignment with the single market and will therefore usher in a new era of red tape, costs on farm businesses and non-tariff barriers to trade.

The idea that a 12-month stay of execution for farmers equates to certainty is, frankly, laughable. Even if the Government were to make a commitment for the whole Parliament, anyone who thinks that even five years constitutes the long term in farming cannot be taken seriously.

The Government’s stated position—reiterated again at the Oxford farming conference—is that the BPS will be phased out over a seven-year period from next January. I am privileged to chair the all-party group on hill farming and I was very pleased to hear the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), refer to the importance of hill farming to our country as a whole. In our view, it is a dangerous thing to start phasing out the basic payment when we have yet to clarify what will replace it: the ELMS—the environmental land management scheme—which will be available for some farmers in 2024, we are told, but not all farmers until 2028.

With all due respect, farmers lack confidence in Governments of all colours and their ability to deliver an as yet undefined new payment on time because they have consistently failed to deliver existing payments over the last two decades. Being told for certain that you will lose 85% of your income while being offered the dubious possibility that you might have something else in future is unlikely to get Britain’s farmers dancing in the street.

The Bill is a necessary one-year fulfilment of the obligations of the withdrawal agreement. It is not a real commitment to farmers. Even if the Government were to bodge together extensions of one year at a time for the inevitable slippage on the roll-out of ELMS, what does that do for the ability of farmers to plan for the medium term, let alone the long term?

Why does this matter? It matters because over the transition period of seven years, the Government’s plan will reduce Britain’s capacity to feed itself in the future. We think far too little about food security. Some 50% of the food that we consume is imported. Twenty years ago, the figure was more like 35%. It is an extremely worrying trend. If the ability of farmers in the UK to make a living and compete is further undermined, this situation will only get worse. That will be bad for the environment, for British farmers and for the security of our country, as we cut ourselves off from our most important trading partner.

We need to think of the bigger picture and the long-term impact. You can tick the boxes with legislation such as this and “get Brexit done”, but that is a slogan with a heavy price tag—a price tag that in the case of our farmers could be fatal. The production of food must be considered a public good, but it is certain that the loss of BPS with an as yet undefined replacement will see people leave the industry. Some will flee before it gets too bad, others will be forced out when they cannot make ends meet. To put it bluntly, if we are to deliver public goods through farming, we need to make sure there are some farmers left to deliver those public goods by 2028. Without those farmers, who will deliver biodiversity programmes? Who will deliver natural flood management schemes? Who will deliver growth and maintain the woodlands and peatland necessary to absorb CO₂? In Cumbria, including the lakes and the Yorkshire dales, who will maintain our footpaths and our rare historic breeds? Who will beautifully keep and present the landscapes that inspired Wordsworth and inspire 16 million people to visit us every single year?

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

This morning, the National Trust held an event downstairs. It was keen to show what it was doing on the environment. It has plans across its 500 properties to plant more trees and thereby be the lungs of the United Kingdom. There are many groups and landowners doing lots of things to help to tackle climate change.

[Tim Farron]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Farmers are at the forefront of tackling climate change—they see the climate changing before their eyes, they are the eyewitnesses to our changing planet and the damage being done. In the uplands, in Cumbria and elsewhere, it is they who have the ability to help to protect the towns and villages from flooding by planting more trees, managing the land and more generally ensuring the carbon sink that will help to protect our planet. Without them, who will maintain the backdrop to the tourism economy in Cumbria, which is worth £3 billion a year and employs 60,000 people? Indeed, 80% of the working-age population of the Lake district currently earn their living there.

How can farmers be expected to invest in the long term if they can only look ahead one year at a time? Like most farmers, I accept that in the long term BPS needs to be replaced by public payment for public goods— no argument there—but “public good” needs to be defined widely enough for farmers to make a living, especially farmers in the uplands of Cumbria. I am not saying, therefore, that we should scrap ELMS and keep BPS forever, but I am saying that the Government should not delude themselves into thinking they can make radical change as seamlessly as they appear to think.

The Bill is necessary and we will support it—not just not oppose it—but it does not answer the need to pave the way for a new system. The Government cannot be permitted to do the bare minimum to fulfil the obligations of the withdrawal agreement, with no thought to the impact in real terms. The Government must protect British farming and therefore the environment—and therefore food security, rare breeds, heritage, landscape, our tourism economy—so will the Government now commit to transition arrangements that allow farmers to survive that transition? In short, I say to the Government: do not remove a penny of BPS from anyone until ELMS is available for everyone.

NHS Dentists: Cumbria

Debate between Tim Farron and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 3rd July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the provision of NHS dentists in Cumbria.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I am grateful for the opportunity to raise an issue of enormous importance to my constituents and many others around Cumbria.

NHS dentistry in Cumbria has reached breaking point. More than half of all adults in our county have not had access to an NHS dentist in the last two years, while one in three of our children does not even have a place with an NHS dentist. In rural areas such as ours, lack of access to an NHS dentist results in families having to make ludicrously long journeys to reach the nearest surgery with an available NHS place. Often, people are not able to make, and simply cannot afford, those journeys for a simple check-up.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman refers to his constituency, but the problems occur across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Does he agree that the lack of dentists in rural areas is incredibly disconcerting? Perhaps we need to look at bigger incentives for those willing to open a rural practice, and incentivise those training in dental surgery, since one in five has to wait three months to have dental surgery. In other words, a rural strategy is needed.

[Tim Farron]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point; in a moment I will come to some answers to those problems. The challenge is especially acute in rural communities when it comes to attracting and retaining dentists to work in NHS practices in places that are relatively close to people’s homes.

Second Home Ownership: Cumbria

Debate between Tim Farron and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered second home ownership in Cumbria.

It is a pleasure and an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Cheryl.

My constituency is an awesome place, with the Lake district, the Yorkshire dales, the Arnside and Silverdale area of outstanding natural beauty, the Cartmel peninsula and the rolling hills of south Westmorland alongside the stunning old grey town of Kendal. It may come as a surprise to some that we are Britain’s most popular visitor destination outside London, but it comes as no surprise to us; we know we are awesome, and we are delighted that over 40 million people a year visit us because they agree. Some 60,000 people work in Cumbria’s tourism industry, an industry that is worth £3 billion a year to the economy, and last year the Lake district was granted UNESCO world heritage site status, which has already seen a further increase in visitor numbers to our area in the year just passed.

We are proud to be a place of welcome and a place of warmth and generosity. However your Cumbrian journey begins, however you chose to stay with us, we are glad you are with us, and that includes folks who have a second home. However, this debate is an opportunity to face up to some facts: while we want to extend nothing but kindness and acceptance to all, including those who have a second home in Cumbria, I cannot ignore the fact that the rights of those who can barely afford a first home are being eroded by excessive and increasing second home ownership in so many of our communities.

I will start by clarifying what we mean by the term “second home”. When we use that term, we do not mean holiday lets, which are a significant part of the all-year-round tourism economy. A second home is a property owned by someone whose main home is elsewhere and who lives in that second home pretty rarely, maybe for a few weeks or weekends a year. There is no getting away from the fact that high numbers of second homes rob communities of a permanent population and the consequent demand for local services. They rob those communities of life and vitality, and they can rob them of the resources they need to be sustainable.

Second home ownership also contributes to pushing up house prices beyond what is affordable for most local families. There are 3,819 registered second homes in South Lakeland, but that is unlikely to be even half the picture. Given that second home owners, thankfully, no longer benefit from a council tax discount, they no longer have a financial incentive to register their property as a second home. It is assumed, then, that the majority of owners now simply do not register at all, and 3,819 is therefore likely to be a colossal underestimate. Anecdotal evidence suggests that second home ownership has risen significantly since the time when there was an incentive to register, from 7,000 properties in South Lakeland in 2006 to a likely figure of around 10,000 second homes or absentee-owned properties today.

Ten thousand homes. That is 10,000 homes that do not have a permanent occupant, 10,000 homes not sending children to the local school and 10,000 homes not providing weekly demand for the post office, bus service, pub, church or village store. When second home ownership gets to a critical level, the absence of a permanent population begins to have tangible consequences. Schools in places such as Satterthwaite, Lowick and Heversham have closed because there was not a year-round population big enough to sustain them. Several of my schools today have fewer than 30 pupils. They are brilliant schools, but every time a house in the village is sold to a second home owner, they see their future becoming a little bleaker.

Bus services have been pared back out of season in the Lakes and the Cartmel peninsula for the very same reasons. The village store in Backbarrow closed 18 months ago and awaits a new buyer as the number of full-time residents in that village continues to dwindle. With not enough kids going to local schools, not enough people visiting the local shops and not enough people using the local bus service, it all means that those services end up becoming non-viable and that beautiful places can become empty places, with communities struggling to survive.

Over the weekend, I visited a small hamlet in the Lakes—I will not name it—where there are a dozen houses, precisely half of which are second homes. All the residents of the remaining six properties are pensioners and, as it happens, are under serious threat from their private landlord, who is contemplating evicting them to sell the houses as holiday homes. I am dealing with that matter separately, but even as things stand, each of those residents fears being the last one left as their community dwindles away. A few weeks previously, I met an older gentleman in the Rusland valley who exemplified their fears. He was the last permanent resident of his small hamlet. The only people he ever saw were the people who came and went, renting the homes in his neighbourhood; I would not exactly call them neighbours. He was isolated and, frankly, deeply unhappy.

Last week I made an early-morning visit to the Troutbeck Bridge Royal Mail sorting office, to thank the team for their immense work in the run-up to Christmas. While I was there, the manager of the sorting office told me of an older lady who had been found by the postie, 18 hours after she had had a fall. The settlement near Ambleside where she lived was almost entirely second homes and she was the only full-time resident. She no longer had any neighbours, and in this extreme case that could have cost her her life.

The Government have talked a lot in recent times about loneliness. It is something we are all the more conscious of as a society as Christmas approaches, when the absence of community and family are felt so acutely. Despite their loneliness agenda, the Government have so far done nothing to address the fact that second home ownership is leaving vulnerable people in the shells of once-thriving communities. Those are homes that should be lived in, not just maintained.

The problem affects larger communities too; I could list countless other examples in communities such as Hawkshead, Coniston, Grasmere and Dent, each with around 50% of its properties not lived in all year round. Then we have Elterwater, with a staggering 85% of its properties owned by those who are absent for most of the year. Hon. Members will be unsurprised to hear that Elterwater’s post office closed a few years ago.

It is no surprise that the loss of vital services so often follows the loss of a permanent population. To put it bluntly, excessive second home ownership kills villages. We are a resilient and proud people in Cumbria, working hard to make our own luck. I think of the community-run shop in Witherslack, the community-run post office in Storth and the affordable housing groups in Coniston and Grasmere—all proof that local people are determined to fight against the tide and keep our communities alive and thriving. It feels to me that this is another of those issues that the Government overlook because they have taken their eye off the ball, trapped in the dark forest of Brexit and incapable of focusing on the day-to-day challenges that our country faces.

I am determined to give our communities the best chance to defeat the threat of second home ownership and I am here to tell the Minister that this is a problem that can be solved. The good news is that there is a clear set of actions that the Government could take if they wanted to, to breathe life back into our communities—three actions in particular. First, they could close the business rates loophole that incentivises even greater levels of absentee second home ownership. At the moment, some second home owners are avoiding local taxation altogether. They claim their second homes are let for holiday accommodation, but then make no real effort to let them out at all. As a result, they can bring the homes within the business rates system, instead of paying council tax on them. However, because their “business” will have an income of less than £12,000 a year, it will qualify for small business rate relief, and therefore no council tax or business rates will be paid at all, so no contribution whatsoever will be made to local services. This, frankly, is a scam, and one that hurts communities like mine.

I commend the Government for launching a consultation on tackling this loophole, but it seems to me that they could take action now, and that the action they need to take is pretty obvious. The Government should bring the law in England into line with that in Wales, where an owner needs to prove that their property has been let for a minimum of 70 days per year in order to qualify as a business. At a stroke this would mean that thousands of second homes would be brought into paying tax and contributing towards the local communities that they damage by their absence.

Secondly, the Government could give local authorities the power to levy higher council tax on second homes. Earlier this year, the Government announced that they are introducing provisions to allow local authorities to triple the council tax on homes left empty for five to 10 years, and to quadruple it on those empty for more than a decade. That is a welcome move, but it raises the question of why the Government have not extended those powers to second homes. If they were to do so, councils could choose to set a higher rate of council tax on second homes in those places where there is a threat to the sustainability of the local community.

Closing the business rates loophole and allowing local authorities to increase council tax on second homes would have some impact in dissuading people from buying second homes in those towns and villages that are most under threat. I suspect that someone who can afford at least £500,000 for a second home will not be put off by another £2,000 or £3,000 a year in council tax, but the key purpose of these moves would be to secure additional funds, to be used to provide compensatory subsidies to schools, post offices and bus routes suffering from the lack of a permanent population, and to pump-prime new affordable housing developments for local families, to give those communities a fighting chance of reviving and surviving.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing the debate. He puts forward worthwhile suggestions on how to sustain local villages. However, loneliness is also an issue, as he referred to. Does he feel that church groups and organisations can play a key role in sustaining those people who live on their own in small, dispersed communities? Does he feel that, along with sustainability, the Government should also address loneliness and the role that churches can play?

[Tim Farron]

I think that churches play a big role in communities, and not only in that they are often physically present and can be the last thing that survives as a community centre in a village whose permanent population is contracting. The challenge to Christians is to look out for those lonely people in need. A church is more than just a building, as the hon. Gentleman knows.

Across South Lakeland, average house prices are 10 times average household incomes, and in some villages it is 20 times. I am determined that local families in Cumbria should be able to live and to make a living in the communities that they grew up in. The new homes that could be built by those additional funds could make a vast difference to thousands of local people. In the last few years, South Lakeland District Council has enabled the building of 1,200 new affordable homes for local families in places like Grasmere, Ambleside, Hawkshead, Sedbergh, Windermere and Coniston. I get letters from residents in those communities who are the polar opposite of nimbys: “In my back yard, please” say so many people throughout our area who want their village to survive and thrive.

Thirdly, although taxation measures will make a difference, the Government should act on planning law. Second homes should be made a separate category of planning use. If I wanted to change my home into a chip shop, my kids would be utterly delighted but I would have to apply for planning permission for change of use. However, if I wanted to sell my home to someone who would use it as a bolthole for four or five weekends a year, I could do so freely, yet in a very real sense the use of that home would have substantially changed.

To turn a first home into a second home should require planning permission from the local council or the national park, and I would expect planners to say a flat no to such applications in one of the many communities already under the greatest threat and pressure from excessive second home ownership. By taking this action, the Government could enable an immediate cap on second home ownership and would, over time, allow second homes to move back into being permanent family homes, rebuilding, reviving and renewing our communities.

One feature of representing an awesome place is that the problems we face can often be disguised—easy to miss at first glance as we are blinded by the glory. The blight of excessive second home ownership is one such example. It is a blight that I want the Government to tackle today. I want you, Dame Cheryl, and the Minister to come on holiday to the lakes and the dales, to enjoy Cumbria and to know that you are welcome. The Minister of course does not need inviting to the dales, but he will get my point.

I do not want any second home owner out there to think that I am having a personal go at them. I am not. However, my job is to fight for our communities so that they can remain awesome. I ask the Minister to do those three things without delay, to help us to keep them so.

Kentmere Mental Health Ward, Westmorland General Hospital

Debate between Tim Farron and Jim Shannon

Monday 13th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention and wish to express great solidarity with her in the campaign that she is running in York. It is of great concern to me that the CQC will make recommendations that will require improvements, and potentially not offer solutions to maintain a plausible and sustainable provision instead. The judgment we have to make is, “Is a good service that is not perfect better than no service?”, and of course the answer is going to be yes.

As I said, the quality of care in Kentmere ward at Westmorland general hospital is excellent, as stated in the report, and the staff are excellent. The ward needs upgrading—that is a given—but its closure would harm the health of some of the most vulnerable people in our community. It is utterly unacceptable that those people will have to be shipped off to Barrow, Whitehaven or Carlisle rather than being treated much closer to home in Kendal. What is more, there is no guarantee that those far distant wards will have the capacity to accommodate them. Already, patients sometimes face the immense journey to Manchester, for example. For many less well-off residents, a round trip to these alternative wards of up to 100 miles, with many hours on the bus or train, will put family and loved ones beyond easy reach. It is the patients who would be harmed if they were cut off from their families and friends and missed out on all-important visits. Instead of the reassurance of familiar faces and surroundings, they would face this dark time alone and in an unknown place.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman know whether any issues have been raised by veterans’ organisations or by veterans themselves? Ex-soldiers and former service personnel are clearly—

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

Does the hon. Gentleman know whether there is a need to address that issue? A lot of veterans in my constituency need help. Does his constituency have the same problems as mine?

[Tim Farron]

The hon. Gentleman draws attention to an extremely important matter, namely the plight of so many veterans. It seems that we are happy for brave women and men to provide loyal service and to put their lives on the line for us, but they are often dropped when they return from duty. There are incidences of mental health concerns for them and their families in the years after their return, and I am not clear that we as a general community provide the support that we should. That support can sometimes be provided by the community, but sometimes it needs to be provided in a physical setting as well. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

A recent Government report showed that the closure of this ward in South Lakeland would leave our part of the world with among the worst access to mental health services in the entire United Kingdom. Out of the 6,688 open ward stays in adult acute mental health in-patient care in England alone over the past year, only 263 patients —4% of them—received care 30 miles or more away from where they lived. The closure of the Kentmere ward would leave vast numbers of South Lakes residents—including all of Kendal, as well as many other rural areas—even further away from those services, as the closest alternative in-patient ward is in Barrow, 35 miles away from Westmorland general. The most likely alternatives are further away still: Carlisle is a 45-minute drive, at best, and Whitehaven and Manchester are both more than 70 minutes away, if the traffic is kind.

The provision of replacement community support, which has been offered to compensate for the closure of the ward, would be inadequate. More community support would, of course, be welcomed, but that must be in addition to, not instead of, the 12-bed unit. Increasingly, the majority of patients in the unit are under section, and one cannot section people in the community.

By the way, when people are sectioned, there is an immense impact on our local police force. Closure of the unit in Kendal would mean that our local police force, which is already heavily stretched, under-resourced and under pressure, would have to take patients vast distances across Cumbria to far-off mental health units, taking officers off the beat and threatening the safety and security of our rural communities.

The last time I spent a night out on the beat with our local police force, I was stunned by how much of its time was spent dealing with various kinds of mental health issues. Indeed, that was pretty much all it did on that occasion. Anecdotally, police officers locally tell me that up to half of their workload can involve dealing with people living with mental health conditions. Their dedication and compassion in being the first line of support for incredibly vulnerable and often distressed people and their families is overwhelming, and I am proud of them. However, our police are already working beyond their physical capacity; the closure of Kentmere ward would just add to that pressure. It is unacceptable.

Local people recognise the damage that closure of the ward will have on patient welfare and are once again uniting to make their concerns heard as we stand together to fight to put a stop to the proposed closure. There has been an overwhelming response from local people to the campaign, and as of today our petition has reached 5,500 signatures.

Last week, we were encouraged, in the face of such massive public opposition, as we were able to secure a much welcome but temporary victory: the trust announced that a final decision is to be postponed while it looks at whether the ward can be upgraded and improved to meet CQC standards, which means that it will now stay open and continue to admit patients over the summer. The vulnerable patients I met over the weekend continue to get treatment close to home. If we had not achieved this victory, they would already be being carted off to Barrow or Carlisle—far from home, and far from loved ones. News that new admissions will continue to be made throughout the summer is also welcome.

I am grateful to the trust for listening to our concerns and thinking again. I personally thank every single one of the thousands of local people involved in our campaign. Between us, we forced the trust to hold back on closure. I am especially grateful to volunteers from South Lakeland Mind, and to the local media outlets that have shown such strong support to the campaign. This is only a temporary reprieve for Kentmere ward, and our work is far from complete. My message to the people of South Lakeland is that this is the moment to step up our campaign, energised and encouraged by this success and spurred on by victories in campaigns for our hospital over the last few years. My message to patients and their families is: we will stand with you and we will not give up, because we must not give up.

It has been very clear from my discussions with the trust over the last few days that its default position is still to close the ward. I have one very specific request of the Government this evening. Will the Minister clearly instruct the Cumbria Partnership trust not to close this vital ward? While the trust looks at upgrade options and alternatives, I ask him to make it very clear, right here and right now, that closure is off the table.

I have spoken to many local residents about the matter over the past few weeks, but a conversation I had with one lady struck me particularly hard. She is regularly treated for her mental health condition at the unit, and she was clearly extremely distressed by the thought of having to trek miles from home to receive care if the ward were to close. Her condition has been visibly exacerbated by the tangible threat from this proposal. A decision by the Minister to instruct the trust, tonight, not to go ahead with closure could directly alleviate the worry and anxiety of that lady and many more like her.

The long-term effects of closing the unit would be far greater than the short-term savings. If the Government are serious about mental health, they must put words into action and prove it by stepping in and preventing the closure of this vital ward. The closure of the ward would be a serious backward step for mental health care in South Lakeland, and the Minister has the opportunity to prevent it. On behalf of the people of the South Lakes, I ask him now to take the opportunity to save Kentmere ward.