Food Price Inflation

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

The analysis we have done on food price inflation—I would point out to my right hon. Friend that, in the month of April, food prices on average rose by 1.5%—suggests that around three quarters of the price pressures we have seen can be directly attributed to the price of gas and the remainder to other factors, including rising costs of labour as wages rise for the lowest-paid.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

In my constituency, many people before inflation began to become an issue were already finding it difficult to make ends meet. That is not propaganda; that is a matter of practical reality. Every Member of Parliament knows this about their own constituency. What I looked for from the Secretary of State was some indication that there was action that he and his colleagues in Government were going to take, and there came no answer. What is he going to do to help my constituents, who really are on the breadline?

[George Eustice]

The action that the Chancellor has taken so far was announced earlier this year in the spring statement. It included a £150 rebate on council tax bills, and a £200 rebate on energy bills to dampen and spread the cost of the spike in energy bills. We increased the national living wage in April to £9.50 an hour, and that puts an extra £1,000 in the pockets of the lowest-paid. Obviously, we keep this matter under constant review, as the Chancellor has made clear.

Northern Ireland Border

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

We have consistently made clear through our negotiations with the European Union that the UK Government are motivated on this issue solely by our defence of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. It is because we want to stand behind it and protect the peace that the Belfast/Good Friday agreement has brought that we seek the changes to the Northern Ireland protocol.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

The author of this present problem is the Prime Minister. At a time when Northern Ireland is looming into a real crisis, not simply because of the actions of Edwin Poots but because of the threat to collapse the Northern Ireland Executive, it is incumbent on the Prime Minister to be engaged, and it is disappointing that he is not. Will the Secretary of State undertake to go back and say to the Prime Minister that it is time for him to demonstrate real determination to sort out the overall problem of the protocol?

[George Eustice]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Prime Minister is absolutely engaged in these issues, as are the Northern Ireland Secretary and the Foreign Secretary. Those of us who were in the last Parliament can all recall that finding a resolution to this particular challenge around trade between GB and Northern Ireland was a difficult problem to solve. The Northern Ireland protocol had a solution, but it required both parties to continue to work through certain details to make it work in practice, and that is what we have been doing.

Northern Ireland Protocol: Veterinary Agreement

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when not speaking in the debate, in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. I remind Members that they are asked by the House to have a covid lateral flow test twice a week if coming on to the parliamentary estate. This can be done either at the testing centre in the House, or at home. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated, and when entering and leaving the room.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of securing a veterinary agreement in the Northern Ireland Protocol.

It is a genuine pleasure to serve under your auspices, Ms Rees, and I am delighted to speak on this really important issue.

I want to go back a little over two years and quote what the Prime Minister said when asked about form-filling as a result of the Johnson protocol, which he paraded as a triumph of his negotiating skills. He told the world:

“If somebody asks you to do that, tell them to ring up the Prime Minister and I will direct them to throw that form in the bin…There will be no forms, no checks, no barriers of any kind. You will have unfettered access.”

Two years have gone by. If it were two days, perhaps we would all say, “Let’s just wait and see.” If it were even two weeks or two months, we might say, “We’ll give the Prime Minister a chance to negotiate a solution.” But two years is outrageous.

This debate is not about the Johnson protocol, about which I know those hon. Members present have different views. I say to my friends in the Democratic Unionist party that the majority of people in Northern Ireland are in favour of the protocol, but I know that there are serious doubts about it. This debate is not about the protocol but about the operation of the protocol, an issue on which there is widespread agreement in Northern Ireland.

The situation in Northern Ireland at the moment is quite dangerous. It is building up tensions and concerns, and is possibly being manipulated to the extent that the loyalist community in particular fear for their future. That is why it is irresponsible that, two years on, we have no solution.

The sanitary and phytosanitary controls, which will come fully into operation at some point, are already having an impact, but it is important to acknowledge the very welcome grace periods for chilled meats and medicines. Lord Frost told the Lords last week that he expects those grace periods to continue at least until the end of the year and beyond if negotiations are constructive. Does the Minister expect the grace periods to continue? That really does matter.

Export health certificates have already come into operation for goods being transported from Great Britain to the European Union, and from GB to Northern Ireland. Aodhán Connolly, convenor of the Northern Ireland Business Brexit Working Group, told both the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee and the International Trade Committee that there is no food shortage—that has to be acknowledged—but that not everything is perfect. Big supermarkets in Northern Ireland usually stock between 40,000 to 50,000 lines; in the worst case there was a shortage of 600 lines, but in better cases the figure is in the tens. Therefore, there is no food shortage, but there are some specific shortages. A friend told me recently that she could not get flour or vanilla. Such things are important for some people, and we ought to acknowledge that there are shortages.

Of course, trade volumes are down. Earlier this year, pork sales from GB were down some 70%, and piglets were going to be slaughtered because farmers simply could not sell them on the open market. That was some time ago, but can the Minister provide an update on how trade has been affected. Even with the grace periods, and even though the export health certificates have come into operation only recently, the reality is that the volume of sales has gone down. I have heard very different estimates, so it would be helpful if the Minister could update us?

Under the SPS regime there is a need for forms and documents. Vets have to certify the fitness of animals, either live or slaughtered, and there is a certification process for food products as well. Vets also have to check the registration number of vehicles, to guarantee that they are the same ones that originally carried the food. We do not know exactly how that will work for GB to Northern Ireland. We do know, however, how it works for GB into the European Union, because at the port of Dublin there are physical checks on 4% to 5% of goods, and documentary checks on up to 30%. That is a major barrier to trade for GB producers.

The chief veterinary officer for Northern Ireland says that they need 27 vets to do the checking work that will now be required at the ports, but only half that number are available. There is a real question for the Minister about the number of vets available—not simply at the ports in Northern Ireland, but across GB—to ensure that GB producers can sell to Northern Ireland.

There is already a cost to us in Great Britain and to the EU, and this does not just apply to Northern Ireland. Welsh lamb and Scottish fishery products are also affected, as are the processed foods that the whole of Great Britain sells in considerable numbers. There are, however, real questions, which my Northern Ireland colleagues will want to hear addressed, about whether GB producers will consider it worth selling to Northern Ireland in particular. Supply chains already face challenges and the biggest issue is that of uncertainty. I do not know how much of an answer the Minister will be able to give us but, two years on, producers still have uncertainty hanging over them and are asking whether it is reasonable for them to sell to a relatively small market in Northern Ireland when the alternative is simply not to go through the hassle involved.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for introducing the debate. The very point that he is making is one that is obvious to us. Certainly for my party, including my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart), who is sitting here beside me, the problem is one not only of cost but of bureaucracy, and people are just turned off. In the past they had a simple system allowing them to bring stuff from the UK mainland to Northern Ireland, but suddenly there are all these difficulties. One quick example is the seeds sector for plants and flowers. If someone wants to buy a wee packet of seeds, there is an added £10 or £15 charge, which is ridiculous for a seed packet that costs about £2.50.

[Tony Lloyd]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. It is possible to transport used farm equipment without the need for many checks, and yet a packet of seeds, which is produced in a controlled way, has to have that bureaucracy and those checks, so he is right to be concerned. The central point is that is the bureaucracy that is frustrating for businesses in Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

There is a question for the Minister about the uncertainty. Traders have told us that the trader support service is working well. I am sure that is true, but they also make the point that an education process is needed for producers in Great Britain. How far along are we in securing that process of public education?

As I have said, the damage is already here and now. The sheep industry in Northern Ireland, for example, faces scrapie controls, which means that it will be three years before some sheep farmers can sell their goods into the GB market. Cattle breeders also face uncertainty because of the new regulatory regime. That is not because they move cattle—generally they move fertilised products and suchlike—but because they cannot plan for the future. That is disastrous for the agricultural industry.

The chief executive of Lynas Foodservice, the biggest food processor in Northern Ireland, has pointed out that there are eight different bureaucratic processes to bring mozzarella from Great Britain into Northern Ireland. He estimates that it will cost the business some £50,000 a year to service that requirement. It can do that because it is big, but a small producer cannot compete with that, so supply is going to be a real issue.

The Conservative manifesto was clear—I hope there is still common ground on this—that there would be no

“compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards.”

I hope the Minister will repeat that commitment, because I know it is the mantra that the Government insist on. If that is true, it should be very easy for us to move towards an SPS veterinary agreement. The CBI has talked about the need for a

“bespoke, modern UK-EU Veterinary Agreement”,

specific for Northern Ireland within the context of the protocol. That is supported by Retail NI, the Ulster Farmers Union and every party represented in Stormont. Oddly, it is one of the things that everyone agrees on—as well as that there should be no amnesty for those who committed murder during the troubles. It would be a great unifier if it was not such a negative thing. We should be able to get that agreement.

The Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said in February that the Government want to work on a veterinary agreement so that they can secure the flow of goods and improve the forms. Amen to that. The EU Vice-President told us that a veterinary agreement was “on the table”. Everybody is in favour of it, so what is stopping us? One thing that is stopping us—and the Minister has seen a way to address this—is the lack of trust and the lack of good faith that has been built up. The public diplomacy and rhetoric have been massively unhelpful. It is not something political or a shouting game, but that is what it has become. That has been very unhelpful and it has led to cynicism.

The Minister might want to say that the real ambition is to achieve a trade deal with the United States—not because that would compensate for the trade we have lost with the EU, but because it would allow the Prime Minister to stand up with the big banner headline and say, Donald Trump-style, “I have done a great trade deal”. That is not enough, however, if the price is lower food standards coming into our market, and it is certainly not enough if it prejudices our capacity to deliver a veterinary agreement that could make things easier. Ironically, even in the context of a US trade deal, President Biden has said that he sees no barrier to there being a veterinary agreement between the EU and the UK to protect the situation in Northern Ireland and the protocol.

There are two different models that we can look at. The first is probably a variation of the New Zealand deal, which I know is something that the Government have thought about. It has advantages. I have talked about between 4% and 5% of goods being subject to physical checks in Dublin. If the New Zealand example worked for us, that figure would go down to 2% and documentary checks would go from 30% to 10%. Those are still barriers, though, and the Minister should not underestimate that they would be real for businesses.

The other, much more attractive option is what the EU calls dynamic alignment. In actual fact, we are aligned at the moment. We have not moved our food standards, and nor has the EU. What people have talked about is the possibility of a temporary agreement, which could of course have a guillotine and could be terminated if we sign up to the Australian deal, the New Zealand deal or the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-pacific partnership. We could have a guillotine and move on, but let us have that temporary veterinary agreement, which would allow alignment and enable us to get rid of all the form-filling and other problems. That is the real thing we should play for. So, I ask the Minister, why not?

Well, to a degree we know why not—it is because Lord Frost has ruled it out, saying that he has grave doubts about how long it would take. Actually, that is nonsense—and I hope that the Minister in turn will also tell Lord Frost that it is nonsense—because it would take almost no time. It is the basis on which we were operating 12 months ago, and it would simply mean reverting to a reality already known to businesses in Northern Ireland, Great Britain and the EU.

If we can get this issue right, there is something enormous to be gained, because it would unlock not only the Northern Ireland protocol but the issues experienced GB businesses trading with the rest of the EU. That is something big and really important, and it would stop the erosion of trade.

My final point is that we need to move on to some form of trusted trader scheme. It ought to be easily achievable. It is not magic; it is a very easy thing to achieve. Of course it requires work but, two years on, that work should already have been done.

Perhaps what we really need is a trusted negotiator scheme, and perhaps that would not involve the current Prime Minister. That may sound trivial but this is a serious point, because as long as people play politics with this issue, they will get it wrong. If we can consider the needs of the people of Northern Ireland and the needs of businesses in both Great Britain and Northern Ireland, we can begin to come up with a real solution. It takes a little bit of imagination—not very much—but it takes a lot of political will, and that is what the Minister has to persuade us exists in the Government today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Hanna]

They are issues that flow from Brexit and from the trade and co-operation agreement voted through by a large majority in the sovereign Parliament of the UK. I did not support it. The hon. Member did not support it. But that was the settled arrangement.

[Tony Lloyd]

Could the hon. Member remind us who negotiated the trade and co-operation agreement? Who put the protocol into it?

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. I thank the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) for securing the debate, and for the interest that he has shown. I see that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is not with us at the moment, but I would like to also thank him for his generous tribute. I learned many things on my visit to Northern Ireland, and perhaps one of the most important ones was that, even though a Northern Ireland fishing boat is fishing just a few miles off the Scottish coast, by the time it has caught its haul of prawns and taken them back to Portavogie, it is a Portavogie prawn and has had its passport.

I also concur heartily with the hon. Member for Belfast South (Claire Hanna), who I also met when I was in Northern Ireland. Her constituency is many things. It is very beautiful, in parts, but it is certainly not an agricultural constituency—I certainly did not run out of fingers and toes counting all of the tractors I saw on the Malone Road of a morning.

The very simple reason we are here is because of another one of those familiar three-word slogans, which are so beloved by the Prime Minister: “Get Brexit done”. Of course, what he could not admit at the time was that his particular manner of choosing to get Brexit done would create a trade and regulatory border right down the Irish sea. Those frictions, which are already there, are only set to increase when the UK has to begin enforcing sanitary and phytosanitary checks on imports to GB from the EU and Northern Ireland.

As the hon. Member for Belfast South said, quite accurately, that is happening as a result of the negotiating objectives that Her Majesty’s Government had at the time. The only rationale I can think of for having those objectives was the need to keep options open about the level at which we were willing to impose animal welfare and food standards, in order to open up the possibility of trade deals with other jurisdictions. I know that the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart), who made a couple of very telling interventions earlier, has to be on her way to get back home now. If she were still in the Chamber I would have said to her that, for all the issues around the Northern Ireland protocol, the terms on which the UK as a whole has left the European Union do not work for agricultural producers across the UK either. They certainly do not work for my constituents, and I represent a highly agricultural constituency in the north-east of Scotland. Simply put, the terms that we have agreed to are not working for us either.

While I take a keen interest in Northern Irish politics, I do not take any sides. Let me say that I do understand, I hope, and can sympathise with those in Northern Ireland who feel that they have been distanced or separated from Great Britain as a result of the manner in which we left the European Union. Although I am very clear that a protocol is required, it does not need to be on the terms of the current protocol; if we are going to renegotiate the terms of whatever protocol is there, it has to be done in a constructive way that keeps in mind the objectives of all parts of our jurisdiction. I understand the importance of having seamless trade east to west, as well as north to south, on the island of Ireland. However, we cannot get away from the fact that the very reason that we no longer have that is a function of the choices made by the UK Government.

[Tony Lloyd]

I am following the hon. Member’s speech very carefully. When he talks about the renegotiation of the protocol, even if that is desirable that will probably be a very long-term effort. Would he agree that what would be easier for his own constituents would be a SPS agreement that would allow GB trade from Scotland, England and Wales into the EU, and, of course, from GB into Northern Ireland? That is easy to achieve.

[Richard Thomson]

I agree with the hon. Member’s intervention, and if he will allow me, I will go on to develop some of the many reasons why I believe that to be the case. We should be looking for the most pragmatic solutions in the short term to minimise those self-inflicted obstacles that we now have to trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and also between Great Britain and the European Union.

Businesses have been calling for a veterinary agreement for as long as the Brexit deal has been in place; it is now more important than ever that we get one. Before I was elected to this place I was a local authority councillor. One thing that we had blinking aggressively on our radar was that if there was a no-deal Brexit or something like that, the sheer amount of pressure that would be put our environmental health officers and local vets to try and provide export health certificates to be able to certify goods that were of an appropriate standard for export would be huge. We could not just wave a magic wand a create these environmental health officers overnight. They need a bachelor of science degree, I understand, which takes at least three years, and then they need two years of practical experience on the job. It takes five years from when someone walks through the doors of whatever institution they are studying at until they can sign off their first consignment of fish from Peterhead market. We were very worried about that, and those fears have not gone away.

I find it very difficult to disagree with James Withers, the chief executive of Scotland Food and Drink, when he said at the UK Trade and Business Commission’s session on the UK-EU TCA:

“A veterinary agreement is the single most important step that could be taken to improve exports to the EU, red meat and seafood, two of our most important animal product exports, are caught in a tsunami of bureaucracy and paperwork.”

Let us consider some of the evidence. For a dairy in Galloway in the south-west of Scotland—famed rightly for the quality of its agricultural produce, particularly in the dairy sector—it is easier to export a shipping container of ice cream to South Korea than it is to send a block of cheese across to Northern Ireland to somebody who wishes to buy it. Our food and drink exports to the EU were down 16% at the start of the year, and over the first half of the year they dropped by almost half. Filling out the additional forms that are required takes hours every morning, and businesses are incurring tens of thousands of pounds in additional costs to ensure that they comply with them. Some businesses need to hire customs agents that they did not before.

Adding to the delays are problems with the documentation, which is obviously very complex and takes a long time to fill out. If someone gets something wrong, it banjaxes the whole thing. Sometimes they need to fill out up to 80 pages of documentation compared with the one-page delivery note and invoice that went with shipping pre Brexit. We have heard the saga of seed potatoes. I have some seed potato growers in my constituency. Their standards were already the highest in the world, and they have not diminished, but because the UK is not prepared to sign up to the same level of obligation and standards, they are virtually unable to export to what were always their most productive markets, even though those markets are desperate for the disease-free quality that those potatoes can bring.

If there is an area crying out for pragmatism it is that multi-million pound trade. Europe needs our Scottish seed potatoes—we have always exported them—as does Ireland. There is a reason our producers did not take up the opportunity to export east of Aden despite being encouraged to do so: it is because it is so difficult to do that. They have had a ready market taken away from them. All it requires is a pragmatic realignment, which will once again allow that world-leading industry to get on with doing what it does best. Part of the problem will go away with an agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary standards. Such an agreement has widespread support. Back in June, the CBI was calling on both sides to negotiate a bespoke veterinary agreement, saying that it would end the friction that Brexit has caused, particularly to the food, drink and agri sector. The EU is clearly willing to sign up to such a deal; it has been signalling as far back as February that it would be open to signing that kind of bilateral deal with the UK.

I will cite a couple of business voices on how the matter is perceived in Northern Ireland. Richard Gray of the Carson McDowell law firm said that not one business has raised concerns about the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice or its role as the court of ultimate appeal under the Northern Ireland protocol; nor have any business organisations raised that issue on behalf of clients. Stephen Kelly, the chief executive of Manufacturing Northern Ireland, which represents 5,500 Northern Irish firms, has likewise said that not one of the businesses represented by it has raised issues with the ECJ position. He said:

“Everyone knows a treaty needs legal backup. There have been border problems with the rest of the UK”

but the ECJ is

“nothing but a Brexit purity issue”.

Again, I find that hard to disagree with.

I am sure that the noble Lord Frost has many estimable qualities, but as a negotiator he strikes me as the sort of person who seems to like to pour oil on troubled waters only to set fire to it later, when it suits his purposes to do so. The UK Government should look for pragmatic agreements, and focus on reaching agreements with the EU in this area. It is not just the UK that now has sovereignty; the EU has the sovereignty that it has always had, and nobody’s sovereignty should trump anyone else’s. It should be a pragmatic negotiation to achieve the best outcomes that we can.

The UK Government should focus on reaching the kind of agreement that businesses and the food industry are calling for, rather than focusing on artificial grievances that seem to be peripheral at best to the concerns of most people. The Government have a choice between ideological purity, and the accompanying impoverishment that it will cause for our businesses opportunities, or pragmatism. I dearly hope that the Minister will indicate that pragmatism is winning that battle.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Prentis]

Dynamic alignment is not acceptable to this Government. The difficulty is that we are already starting to see some divergence. The hon. Member for Cambridge and I took part—oh, no, the hon. Gentleman was not there. One of his colleagues took part in an excellent debate earlier this week on getting rid of the VI-1 certification form for wine certification, which is an issue I have discussed with the hon. Gentleman on many occasions in the past.

We are in a position where our laws—not our standards, but our laws—have started to diverge from those of the EU. What we need to achieve, because of that, is an agreement that recognises the equivalence of mutual high standards, facilitates trade, reduces bureaucracy and maintains our regulatory autonomy. The VI-1 certification is just one of a very small number of issues on which we are starting to diverge. We need to start from where we are.

[Tony Lloyd]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Prentis]

I was going to leave time for the hon. Gentleman to respond at the end of the debate, if that is all right. I have a great deal to get through.

[Tony Lloyd]

I would like to intervene at this point.

[Victoria Prentis]

All right, as it is Christmas.

[Tony Lloyd]

My dear deceased friend, Gerald Kaufman, once said, “Never kick a man until he’s down.” I appreciate that it is unfair to be kicking the Prime Minister at the moment of his maximum weakness—the Minister might not want to comment on that. But, seriously, is changing the VI-1 certification worth all the problems that we have heard about today? This is so trivial that I hope the Minister will say, “It isn’t worth it.”

[Victoria Prentis]

Of course all of this is not worth it for VI-1. I merely mentioned the VI-1 certification as one very small example of changes that have been made in recent days. It popped into my head because we have been able to achieve that through a statutory instrument that was passed earlier this week. The point is that we need to achieve an agreement that recognises equivalence of standards. We do intend to diverge from EU regulations in ways that we probably have not even thought of yet.

I can give a few more current examples. There are some more onerous organics regulations that the EU is bringing in early in the new year, which we do not intend to copy. There is a position on gene editing, for example, where we as a nation are extremely keen to forge ahead and look at how that could help with our plant breeding, and the EU is somewhat behind us. There are probably many other examples where we need to achieve an agreement that recognises equivalence of standards, not necessarily complete alignment.

We continue to discuss the Northern Ireland protocol with the EU. We published our proposals in July, as the hon. Gentleman knows. In response, the EU published a series of papers in October. Its suggestions were to do with simplified certification and reduced checks for retail goods, which are designed only for sale to end consumers in Northern Ireland. Our analysis and wide engagement with the industry and consumers in Northern Ireland throws into question the level of actual simplification achieved by the EU Commission’s proposals.

To give certainty and stability to businesses while the discussions continue, the Government have announced that they will maintain the grace periods—the standstill arrangements—and continue to operate the protocol on the current basis. This will include extending the grace periods and easements that are currently in force. The aim is to provide a clear basis on which businesses and citizens can operate while we wait for the discussions to conclude.

We really welcome the EU’s recognition that there are serious problems that cannot be solved simply through the full implementation of the protocol. That was very much a change of position for the EU. We do not, however, think its proposals provide the solution. For example, they do not eliminate even one customs declaration. The 50% reduction in declarations that the EU Commission briefed to the media is actually a 50% reduction in the number of fields in the declaration, with the most burdensome ones still remaining and every movement still requiring an individual declaration.

There are still substantial gaps between our two positions. The proposals do not free up goods movements between GB and NI to the extent necessary for a long-term solution. Nor do they engage with the changes needed in other areas, such as subsidy policy, VAT and governance of the protocol, including the role of the Court of Justice. We still think the gaps can be bridged through further intensive discussions, and those are going on today, probably as we speak. Our preference is still to find a consensual solution that protects the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and the everyday lives of people in Northern Ireland.

In order to make progress it is important that the discussions continue with energy and impetus. There are real difficulties, some of which we have heard about today. More than half the food moving from GB to NI currently benefits from easements, as we have also heard. When we started this in January we hoped that it was a temporary solution for GB to NI movements, and it should have opened the door for a more long-term solution. The EU’s paper does not provide for that. Owing to the additional certification required, movements of chilled meats between GB and NI declined by 95% between January and July this year.

As we have heard, there is a complete prohibition on moving seed potatoes from Scotland to Northern Ireland, as well as on some traditional varieties of GB trees, as we heard from the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart). Under the protocol, moving livestock and pets to and from Northern Ireland requires additional, unnecessary and costly certification and border checks. Our Command Paper proposal puts forward a simple and effective solution to all of these. The EU’s paper on SPS sees minimal movement from the full protocol requirements, and we hope that the EU will be able to move. That said, the EU’s proposals show that what had previously been considered impossible by the EU has become possible: the EU has accepted reduced checks and global certification for retail goods, for example. The proposals demonstrate that the EU is able to move beyond a rigid application of single market rules towards bespoke arrangements for Northern Ireland. We welcome this creativity and flexibility, which show that, with ambition and imagination, we will find a solution.

The article 16 safeguards in the protocol are provided to deal with a situation in which the protocol ceases to support the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. We must always bear that in mind, but we have, I emphasise, put forward a package that is capable of doing the job. It is ambitious because the problems are significant, but it is a genuine attempt to solve the problems, and we are genuinely, and with real enthusiasm, taking part in the discussions.

Unfortunately, the EU banned the import of seed potatoes from GB at the end of last year. We believe that equivalence is the answer here, but in the committee session in September, the EU reaffirmed its position that dynamic alignment is needed between the UK and the EU for equivalence to be agreed. Given that our regime already aligns substantially with the EU’s, we continue to challenge the Commission to reconsider its position. We are very keen to resolve this.

The hon. Member for Strangford mentioned cattle movements to shows and sales. The Government have negotiated new rules with the EU that provide for NI livestock to move into GB and return to NI within 15 days if they are not sold at a sale, without needing to serve residency periods. That is significant.

On borders, for agrifood products, the Command Paper proposal would operate through the same internal UK trade scheme proposed for customs. The full SPS requirements of EU law would be applied for goods going to the Republic, and the UK would undertake to enforce them. There would also still be the means to apply risk-based controls on consignments as they move into NI, but there would be no need for numerous certificates and checks for individual items that are intended only for consumption in NI.

Live animals pose a different order of risk and require a specific approach. As has been said, that was recognised in national rules before the UK left the EU: all movements, including internal UK movements, were pre-notified, accompanied by health documentation and subject to checks. We would propose, broadly, to maintain these arrangements in this model. Similarly, recognising the potential biosecurity risk posed by certain plants and plant products, there should be an appropriate regime for these movements that does not obstruct the movement of standard products, such as seeds and plants for garden centres or personal use.

To conclude, technical discussions with the European Commission continue. They have intensified over recent weeks as the reality of what businesses in GB face and the impact of trade diversion on businesses and consumers in NI have been fully realised. Our preferred solution remains, as July’s Command Paper states, to have proposals that work for all parts of the supply chain and all products. If an SPS agreement is required to support the aims of the Command Paper, we are ready to engage with the Commission on this—absolutely.

It has been a delight to serve under your chairmanship today, Ms Rees, and I wish all hon. Members who have taken part in this broadly good-humoured debate a very merry Christmas.

[Tony Lloyd]

I thank hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has enormous experience of the situation in Northern Ireland, and both he and the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) made valid points about the disruptive effect from the failure of both the EU and the UK Government to properly negotiate an arrangement that made sense. My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast South (Claire Hanna), in her forthright style, made her views clear on the same problem while recognising, as we all must, that the situation is fraught with a danger that goes beyond the narrowness of a veterinary agreement and to the real sensitivities of people on both sides of the conversation in the north of Ireland. This issue is therefore both serious and urgent.

The hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson), on behalf of the SNP, and my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), on behalf of the Labour party, made similar points. Actually, there is enormous agreement among hon. Members. As I said to the Minister, at Christmas time, she may have gone into the stable in Bethlehem filled with straw and drawn the short straw in having to respond to the debate. Nevertheless—I say this kindly—while she gave a technically interesting answer, yes, some of the people at fault are in Brussels, but some are most certainly just down the road in Downing Street, possibly including the noble Lord Frost. The reality is that only a bumbling negotiator would end up in a situation without a plan for alignment of sanitary and phytosanitary products.

The Minister repeated Lord Frost’s words about dynamic alignment, but the marginal changes that we have made in the short run were not worth causing so much damage to the economy of Great Britain and the economy of Northern Ireland. As the hon. Member for Gordon said, it is not just about Northern Ireland; it is also about the ability of Scottish, English and Welsh agrifood and agribusiness to export not simply to Northern Ireland but to the whole of the EU. Failure to create such alignment is bumbling beyond belief. We do not need dynamic alignment; we simply needed to maintain the status quo until proper arrangements were made, and that is the Prime Minister’s failure. As I said, never kick a man until he is down. This Prime Minister is well down, and he most certainly deserves a good kicking for his failure on this important issue.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of securing a veterinary agreement in the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Environment Bill

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

My hon. Friend raises an incredibly good point. People want to see action. This is not something that concerns only politicos; the public want to see proper action as well. We need to put pressure on the Minister to do the right thing, and I am afraid that more pressure will be put on her on a cross-party basis. What she has announced is a step in the right direction, but it does not reach a compromise that is acceptable. We also need to put pressure on the water companies. Water companies such as Southern Water have presided over huge amounts of discharge into our natural environment, but it is not just those companies. Southern has had an enormous focus as a result of its huge fine for deliberately venting sewage into the sea, but we need every single water company to step up. To achieve that, we need pressure from the companies’ shareholders to do so and also pressure from Ofwat.

Ofwat needs to prioritise action to deal with raw sewage outflows into our rivers much more in the business plans. If it is not incentivised or required to do that, it will not do it. That is the power the Secretary of State and the Minister have over water companies under this privatised system. They have the power, but they are choosing not to use it to put in the investment that we need. That is why we need to see further improvement on this amendment, and I suspect that there will be further improvement on it, but I would also encourage the Minister to find a good answer to the question that was posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi):

“When will all English rivers be sewage free?”

That seems a simple question, and our constituents want to know the answer. If she cannot provide the answer, we must recognise that there is a bigger problem here that we need to look at.

Turning to habitats, I am proud that the British people have an ambition to protect the environment. All of us are here reflecting the views of our constituents who want to see more action to protect the environment. Not everyone knows how much carbon is emitted from their community on a daily basis, but we all recognise how many trees there are and the volume of the birdsong chorus in our communities. Nature matters. Dr Andy Purvis from the Natural History Museum has said that the UK has

“led the world in degrading the natural environment.”

We only have half our biodiversity left as a nation; we have lost an awful lot of species and habitats and we cannot risk losing any more.

The habitats regulations, which are the first line of defence in providing strict protections for the UK’s finest wildlife sites and endangered species, are so important, yet clauses 113 and 114 essentially give the Secretary of State the freedom to do what he likes with those regulations. He is required only to “have regard” to the need to enhance biodiversity when making changes, but “having regard” is not sufficient when we are in a climate and ecological emergency. That is why we are seeking to protect Lords amendment 65, which would ensure that powers to amend these regulations did not weaken their important environmental protections and could be used only for environmental improvement. I struggle to understand why anyone would not agree with the case that the Lords have made on that.

The public want to see us protect our forests and woodlands, and they want to see us plant more trees. The Climate Change Committee, the independent body set up to advise the Government, has been clear that we need to raise our current 13% forest cover to 17% by 2050 if we are to have any chance of meeting our climate goals, but we know that the Government’s slow, pedestrian and managerial approach to tree planting means the target will not be met until 2091. Their action does not match their soundbites, as it must if we are to hit our climate goals.

Planting more trees in England is strongly supported by the public, by business, by local councils and, looking at their press releases, by Ministers as well, so why are Ministers failing to plant sufficient trees? It is not because they do not enjoy enough support, it is not because the public will not support further measures and it is not because the public will not support further spending on this, so what are the obstacles and inhibitors that stop Ministers from delivering more trees? We need to see further action on tree planting by mobilising more of the power of the state to get this done.

On an issue where there is cross-party and full public support, we need Ministers to do better than they are at the moment. England is being left behind in the UK’s family of nations when it comes to tree planting, and we are being left behind on the global stage, too. If Ethiopia can plant 5 billion trees a year, including planting 350 million trees in a single day on 29 July 2019, why can we not have similar ambitions and scale of delivery?

Although we should be planting more trees, we must also be careful of losing trees, which is why Labour supports Lords amendments 94, 95 and 66. We know that deforestation, legal and illegal, is increasing alarmingly across the planet, but we also know that, far too often, we measure the impacts only within our own nation. Our global consumption and global supply chains must be taken into account if we are to prevent deforestation. Allowing illegal deforestation to become legal deforestation is a “get out of jail free” card that does nothing to get our planet out of trouble, so we need to see further advances. I am glad the Minister is making progress on certain commodities that come from stressed areas, but I encourage her to go further and do more.

Briefly, could the Minister ask the Financial Conduct Authority to issue new guidelines to financial institutions on deforestation risk? No British bank should be bankrolling deforestation internationally.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

I have a simple question for my hon. Friend, following on from what my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said. How do we differentiate between illegal logging and legal logging? There is no such mechanism known to humankind, so it is a farce, frankly, to say that we will ban illegal logging and allow legal logging in the Amazon rainforest.

[Luke Pollard]

My hon. Friend raises a good point, and it is why we need firm action not only from the Government but from the supply chain. We also need enforcement of our high standards, which must not be undercut in any trade deals. Food and produce produced to lower standards abroad must not undercut domestic industries or our environmental and animal welfare standards.

I thank Labour peers, Cross Benchers and peers from other parties for their work on this Bill. Until the votes earlier, the Bill was in a much better place than it was at the start. I deeply regret that the Government are whipping their MPs to remove many of those improvements, and I hope Conservative Members will consider what further pressure can be put on Ministers to improve the Bill.

On the important issue of river sewage, I want to work on a cross-party basis with Ministers to find a better compromise. I do not think what we have just heard will convince Opposition Members or Conservative Back Benchers, but there is a route through this, and that is firmer action and a clear timeline as to how we will address this problem.

--- Later in debate ---

I know that many hon. Members want to speak, so I will end by thanking the Department for this truly groundbreaking legislation. There is no such piece of legislation anywhere else in the world and we should rightly be proud of that. I hope that this is a starting point and that we can go further to ensure that we get everything that we want from the water companies.

[Tony Lloyd]

Lords amendment 43 addresses a real and important issue. Although I listened carefully to what the Minister said to the House, it simply did not go far enough. We know that the decline in the population of pollinators has been serious. For example, it is estimated that we lose some £500 million-worth of Gala apples every year. If we add up the other fruits and vegetables that rely on pollinators, the economic cost is enormous. But this is more important than simply the economics of the agricultural industry, although that is important.

The decline in pollinators is also about habitat loss, as the Minister said, but the Government are not yet doing enough to restore those habitats. We also know that the impact of pesticides is real. The Minister said that the Government follow the science, but we do not have the science on this. We do not know about the impact, for example, of the joint use of products such as fungicides and pyrethroids. We know a little bit about the impact of neonicotinoids on the honey bee, but we do not know about the impact of neonicotinoids on other pollinators. We simply cannot follow the science if that science does not exist.

When we were leaving the European Union, one of the Government’s commitments was that we would maintain the ban on neonicotinoids because of the known impact. They do not simply kill honey bees directly; they also prevent the reproduction of honey bees and possibly of other pollinators, and make the nervous system of the honey bee no longer functional so that solitary bees, for example, which are also important pollinators, may simply not return home to feed their brood. We do not really know the impact of neonicotinoids, except that it is bad.

The right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) made an important point earlier, when he said that Ministers come and Ministers go. I say to the Minister that an important lesson in life is this: never trust Ministers to make decisions unless we have transparency. We can respect individual Ministers, but we need a consistency of approach that outlasts individual Ministers. On the question of the protection of pollinators, it is important that we have transparency and the capacity genuinely to follow expert science—to build that scientific base, but with expert science.

Earlier this year, we saw that the Secretary of State was prepared to use the exemptions from the neonicotinoid ban to allow the use of neonicotinoids with respect to the sugar beet crop, because there was enormous pressure from the sugar industry and, to a degree, from some sugar beet farmers. In fact, the Government did not follow the science then, because the experts advised the Government that that was the wrong decision, but Government Ministers still made that decision. They were wrong; the experts were right. The funny thing is that a good number of farmers who have been made aware of that feel that they were hoodwinked by the Government. Some have said that they would not use neonicotinoids next year on the basis of what happened this year. That is important, because the reason we need Lords amendment 43 is that it allows us to move on to the basis of genuinely following the science, genuinely protecting the farming industry where that is appropriate, and absolutely guaranteeing that we protect pollinators—not just honeybees but across the piece—from the impact of pesticides and the damage they can do.

I implore Members to think very seriously about this. It should not be a partisan, party issue; it goes way beyond that. If you believe in the value of pollinators, and quite frankly our agricultural system would be destroyed without them, then please—

[Matt Rodda]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech about the importance of pollinators—not just honeybees, although they are hugely important—and the economic and environmental benefits of these very valuable insects. Does he agree that it would have been better for the former Minister to have listened to a broader range of advice about neonicotinoids? Does he also agree that it would have been wiser for the Government to continue to follow the regulation from the European Union and not to try to diverge from that in this important area, and indeed others?

[Tony Lloyd]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I hope that the Minister does listen. Although the Government recognised that there was no need to use the exemption this year because of the weather conditions, that may not apply next year or the year after, so we need to follow the experts in a way that they most certainly were not followed by the Government.

Amendment 43 is not partisan; it is in the interests of everybody. I hope the whole House will seriously think about supporting its retention.

[Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

There is a lot covered in this group of amendments, but in the interests of time I will limit my remarks to the three Ps of pollinators, pesticides and poo. We are beekeepers at home. As I speak, my husband is processing the honey from our seven hives in our kitchen. For reasons I have never fully understood, this seems to involve coating every single implement in said kitchen in honey, so I am quite resigned to going back on Friday evening to a kitchen that resembles the aftermath of a house party thrown by Winnie the Pooh. Wish me luck.

Starting with pollinators and pesticides, the UK already has legislation that regulates pesticides that was transferred from the EU. It takes a tougher, hazard-based approach to regulation rather than the risk-based approach that many other countries use. The Bill requires that pesticides have no unacceptable effects on the environment, having particular regard to its impact on non-target species, which of course includes all pollinators, not just bees. Amendment 43 would replicate part of this existing framework, which sounds to me like a recipe for confusion. It also seems to be jumping the gun on the new national action plan for sustainable use of pesticides, which I look forward to seeing before the end of this year.

So, on to poo. Storm overflows designed for emergencies are now being used as a daily method of sewage management. In Rushcliffe in 2020, Severn Trent recorded storm overflows at three points in the village of Radcliffe-on-Trent alone, totalling 6,854 hours, while in the village of East Leake, the sewage treatment works there discharged 58 times for a total of 715 hours. Yet Severn Trent has still not acknowledged the need for a new pumping station. I welcome the measures in the Bill that will require water companies to publish data on storm overflows both on an annual basis and in real time, especially because it took my team months to extract the data that we needed from Severn Trent.

The Bill also puts a duty on water companies to produce comprehensive statutory drainage and sewerage management plans, including how storm overflows will be addressed. Those plans will cover a minimum 25-year horizon, which is crucial, because much of the problem in Rushcliffe comes from investment in drainage and sewerage not keeping pace with development and new homes.

The Bill also puts a duty on Government to produce a statutory plan to reduce discharges from storm overflows next year. I believe that is the right approach, because it acknowledges two things. First, it acknowledges that reducing storm overflows is the responsibility of a wider range of actors than just water companies. As the Rivers Trust has said, delivering a plan will require contributions from the whole of society, and in particular landowners, developers, highway constructors and homeowners, to divert surface water away from sewers. I am concerned that proposed new section 141A of amendment 45 covers only sewerage undertakers, leaving other significant stakeholders off the hook. We need a comprehensive strategy that addresses the problem from all angles.

Secondly, as implied by the first point, and as has been discussed today, this is going to cost a lot of money. Initial estimates, as the Minister said, range between £150 billion and £650 billion, and it will probably require some fundamental changes to how we do things. Neither of those is reason not to tackle the problem. I firmly believe we should do so, and the Bill makes a first, important step towards doing that, but we need to ensure that we understand the costs, the likely customer bill increases and the trade-offs against other areas that we want to see water companies investing in. While I support the aims of the amendment, and I acknowledge and thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) for all his work in this area and in strengthening the Bill to date, I will not be voting for the amendment tonight. We need to go further, but we need to make sure that is based on data.

The final thought I offer is that although debates such as this naturally focus on what is not in the Bill, I join my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory) in recognising all the great things that are in the Bill and the huge, fantastic job that the Minister has done, including on strengthening protection for ancient woodlands, the conservation covenants, the scrutiny of forest risk products in the supply chain and a legally binding target to halt species decline by 2030. That is just in the part of the Bill we are discussing now, and I think those things are worth celebrating.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Prentis]

It is true that the plant-health requirements for dormant bulbs are different from those for bulbs in growth. My officials and I are willing to discuss directly with my hon. Friend’s constituents the specific issues that she raises. I reassure her that we continue to have discussions with our counterparts in EU about export processes.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

What discussions he has had with local authorities on preventing toxic air pollutants from affecting children’s health.

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

Ministers regularly engage with local authorities to discuss air quality and assess their air-quality plans. I recently met elected representatives from Greater Manchester, Bath and North East Somerset, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stoke, and we have made £225 million available to local authorities, via the active travel fund, to deliver safe cycling and walking routes, including school streets. As we review the air-quality strategy, we will include measures specifically to protect children from pollution.

[Tony Lloyd [V]]

The death of nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah was a family tragedy, but it was made a public scandal when the coroner decided some time ago that her death was caused by air pollution, which was shocking. Yesterday, the coroner decided in his most recent report that there is no safe level of air pollution and called on the Government to bring our air-quality standards up to the World Health Organisation recommended levels, which would mean a significant reduction in pollution. Will the Minister tell the House whether the Government accept that recommendation? If not, we are literally putting the lives of our children at risk.

[Rebecca Pow]

We are of course taking this issue extremely seriously, and all our sympathies go out to Ella’s family. In fact, the Secretary of State and I were pleased to meet Ella’s mother—for which we thank her—and we listened closely to what she said. The coroner’s report was published yesterday and we will respond in due course. The points made are being taken extremely seriously.

Through our landmark Environment Bill, we will introduce a duty to set a long-term air-quality target and an exposure target. To do that, we are meeting all the scientists and academics and all those who can inform us as to exactly the right level to set. We understand that air pollution is a killer and we need to take it very seriously. A £3.8 million air clean-up programme is under way and we are working hard to ensure that that money is targeted at the places where it is needed.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

I commend the work that my hon. Friend and those local volunteers are doing. We have our flood resilience forums around the country. The Environment Agency works with local government on them and on putting them in place so that communities can improve their resilience. More broadly, we have an ambitious capital programme of more than £5 billion over the next five years to invest in flood defences and to protect communities such as his.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

In an earlier exchange about air quality, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), seemed to suggest that because there was no safe level of air pollution in the way it affects in particular our children’s lungs, that is a reason for rejecting a move to make legal the World Health Organisation standards. That is patent nonsense of course, but can Ministers look particularly at the position around our schools? It is where our young children are very vulnerable. Traffic idling can make pollution levels intense, particularly in urban areas. Is it not time now to take proper action and not simply hear fine words? Action now, Minister, please.

[George Eustice]

I am not sure that is what my hon. Friend said earlier, but she was making the point that since there is no safe limit of particulate matter and PM_2.5, what we should be doing is focusing on additional measures such as overall population exposure, and that is indeed something we are looking at through the target-setting process in the Environment Bill.

Marine Protected Areas

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Dame Angela Eagle (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes to normal practice in order to facilitate the new hybrid arrangements. I call Tony Lloyd to move the motion.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the extension of marine protected areas.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Angela. Marine protected areas are of enormous importance not only to our country and our coastal seas, but to the whole world. Our oceans are massively complicated systems and not properly understood, but we know how important they are to human life. For example, some 25% of the carbon gases produced by human activity are absorbed by the ocean. Some of that is good and some of it leads to the acidification of our seas, which is less good. We know, and the United Kingdom Government and the United Nations are in agreement, that our oceans are now at a critical point. Some 1% have protection but scientists think that a minimum of 30% require protection, to allow our oceans to restore and recover.

Sadly, over-fishing and industrial fishing are still with us, putting whole species of fish at risk. The yellowfin tuna, for example, is now endangered and could cease to exist within a relatively small number of years. The massively destructive use of bottom trawlers—those that scour our oceans, ripping up the seabed and the basis for the biodiversity that allows the fish to spawn and flourish—is doing enormous damage across the world and in the seas off these islands of ours.

We also know that the use of the oceans as a dustbin for human activity cannot go on. Plastic pollution is across our oceans. Even in the deepest recesses of the oceans, many miles down, we now find plastic waste from human activity. Using our oceans as a dump for our sewage is simply no longer acceptable. I can remember a time when the sewage boat from Manchester went out into the Mersey bay and dumped sewage—admittedly treated sewage, but nevertheless sewage—into the Irish sea. Such practices have stopped in the UK, but they must also be stopped worldwide.

Of course, there are questions about antibiotics in our seas and the short and long-term impact that will have. There are even questions about the destruction of the efficiency of antibiotics for human use. We need international action, and it is clear that we need United Nations treaties to govern the use of the sea as a resource. There is a call by scientists, for example, for a moratorium on the fishing of mesopelagic fish that lie at a depth of between 200 metres and 1,000 metres. It is up to our Government to operate internationally and to call for action at a global level.

Whether the UK has less influence today post Brexit is a moot point that we can debate on another occasion. It is a real issue, although I welcome yesterday’s announcement of the new fisheries agreement between Norway, the European Union and the UK. That is an important step forward in rebuilding the trust that has been lost recently. In fairness, the UK Government have entered an era where there are some very good examples of our international obligations in care for the sea. The protection zone, for example, around St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha is important. I think that Tristan da Cunha is the largest protected area of ocean on the planet. It was a welcome step by our country and Government.

I want to concentrate the bulk of my remarks on UK inshore and offshore seas. The cycle of carbon capture, and the maintenance of productive fishing as a resource for human consumption, depend on the biodiversity in particular of our inshore and offshore seas. Those things are most likely to have an impact closest to our coast. The sea is massively important as a source of carbon capture, and we can increase or decrease that. On an international level, in practice, before I talk about our own coast, maintaining the mangrove swamps and seagrasses—and more locally our salt marshes—is of huge importance for carbon capture; but biodiversity of the oceans is of fundamental importance.

There are good examples. The Lyme bay experiment has yielded positive results and shown what can be done, with less fishing but more fish being caught. It is a measure of how far the productivity of the oceans has declined that we can now demonstrate that we can increase the productivity of fishing with less intensive methods. When we fish less intensively there is an increase in the number of coastal fish such as pollock, cod and wrasse, which used to abound around our coast but have now become much scarcer. However, they increase once again if we take care to manage the resources around our coast.

Our coasts are not yet in the state that we would want: 25% of the UK’s seas and 40% of our inshore seas are in some form of marine protected area, but we face problems. The Government’s marine strategy report revealed that only four of the 11 indicators of good environmental status are met across our local seas. There are problems to do with nomadic fishing practices: the practices of those who come into an area without having been there before, fish and overfish, and disappear, perhaps for some years, to come back when it suits them but does not suit the biodiversity we are trying to encourage. In 2019 supertrawlers with bottom dredges engaged in 3,000 hours of fishing in our offshore marine protected areas. It is estimated that in the first half of 2020, that level of overfishing had already doubled. We have huge problems and have to take action, or the destruction of our seas will continue.

I am bound to welcome—and I do welcome—the steps that have been taken already, with the creation of the many marine protection areas around our coast. There are hundreds of them. However, we have a patchwork with different rules and regimes operating in different areas. We need to look forward to something to give greater consistency around the coastline. There are differences, it is sad to recall, between the English, Welsh and Scottish coasts. Of course Ireland is a different regime, but Northern Ireland, again, has different practices. We need consistency. I welcome the fact that the Government are looking at Dogger Bank and south Dorset for the banning of bottom trawling—that is so important because of the impact of bottom trawlers—but of course, that means that of the 76 offshore marine protection areas, only two will potentially have that kind of protection. We need a more joined-up strategy.

There has been progress, as I have said. Lyme Bay is a tremendously powerful example of what happens when we take a whole-site approach and say, “We are looking at the protection not just of individual species, but of the total biodiversity of an area.” That is important. The ban on electric pulse fishing has been another major step forward. I am a reluctant Brexiteer even to this day, but that ban has demonstrated that, where we now have the power to use UK law, we can take positive steps and move things forward. The Prime Minister spoke recently about the need to ban the vessels that “hoover up” our oceans, and he was right to call for that, but we need action to ensure that a ban comes into operation.

We need the UK Government to move forward on a total strategy for our shores and oceans. We have some of the best marine scientists in the world, and we have the capacity, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, to be a leader in the demand for international change, but we need a total UK marine strategy that looks after our own shores—both inshore and offshore—and gives leadership on and commitment to ensuring that we cherish oceans around the world as something for the future, not simply as dumps for the past or as a resource to exploit and destroy.

A total international strategy would begin the move towards protecting the 30% of our oceans that we have to protect. The UK Government are committed to that, but not yet. My first call is for the UK to operate internationally to look for the kinds of global treaties that will make a material difference, give protection to our oceans, and bring sustainability for the future. My second call is for a whole-site approach to our inshore and offshore seas to join up the work that has been done across the marine protection areas off our coasts. It is tremendously important that we move in that direction.

Perhaps the most important call at the moment is for some consistency in challenging the practice of bottom trawling by super trawlers, which destroys the ocean bed. As our Prime Minster has already said in recent months, we have to stop those who would hoover up not only the fish, but the seabed, which will take many years to recreate. If we bring an end to bottom trawling in our offshore seas, we will have taken a huge step forward.

I appreciate that this is something that we have to take with care. I know that there is suspicion in the European Union that the Dogger Bank ban is being done for nationalistic fishing reasons, but we have to demonstrate clearly that it is actually being done for scientific marine protection reasons. If we can get those arguments across, we can begin to make a material difference to the biodiversity across our seas.

I say to the Minister that although the Government have done some seriously good things, which I genuinely applaud, I look forward to a joined-up marine strategy that says that we will take the lead internationally to protect our oceans, that we will take a whole-site approach to our marine protection areas, and that we will guarantee that the unacceptable practice of bottom trawling by super trawlers is brought to an end.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. All rural areas need good digital connectivity, including his constituency. The Government have delivered superfast broadband to more than 5 million premises, with 96% of UK premises now able to access superfast speeds. We are investing an unprecedented £5 billion to support deployment of gigabit broadband in the hardest-to-reach areas of the country.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

  Will the Minister make a very clear statement on the Government’s policy with respect to our peat bogs and recognise that they are an enormously powerful carbon sink as well as being important for water retention in flood prevention schemes? On that basis, will he agree to meet me and one or two colleagues virtually who, particularly in the south Pennines area, have a real interest in this issue?

Agricultural Transition Plan

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

As I have said several times, we do not recognise the caricature that the budget has been cut. We were clear that we would maintain the budget in cash terms for each year of this Parliament. That is precisely what we have done.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

I very much welcome what the Minister has had to say about the restoration of peatlands, but can he go a little further in terms of the natural environment? Does he guarantee that there will be less use, for example, of phosphates and therefore less phosphate run-off? Does he guarantee that we will see no return to the use of the pernicious neonicotinoids that are so damaging to our pollinators, which are so necessary to our agriculture?

[George Eustice]

As we have outlined in the paper published today, we want to incentivise farmers to embrace integrated pest management. Across the piece, we are likely to see reductions in the use of synthetic chemistry and the adoption of other processes to tackle the problems of pests and diseases. It is also the case that we want to be able to support the restoration of peatlands and so forth.