Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

In recent weeks, DEFRA’s quangos have made headlines: the Environment Agency is failing to prosecute waste criminals, instead going after virtuous volunteers who are cleaning up the rivers for it; Natural England is demanding more madcap fish schemes at Hinkley Point C, on top of its recommended £700 million fish disco policy, all of which will be paid for by our constituents; and Natural England’s threat to Dartmoor ponies was the quickest U-turn yet by this Government. Does the Secretary of State feel she has control over these quangos?

[Emma Reynolds]

That is some brass neck, given that the whole issue of the Dartmoor ponies was created under the right hon. Lady’s Government. They rejected several of the Fursdon review recommendations and put the future of the Dartmoor ponies in doubt. We are having to clear up their mess, so I shall take no lectures from the right hon. Lady.

[Victoria Atkins]

Oh dear. This may be the last time the Secretary of State gets to give such an inadequate answer to what is a reasonable question about her grip on her Department. But let us look at Labour’s wider chaos. After two years of record-breaking tax rises and the highest number of farm closures, the next version of a Labour Government are coming back for even more, with rumours of a brand-new tax on land value, which will target rural residents from their gardens to their farms. Has Labour learned nothing from its family farm tax fiasco, which every Labour Member voted for?

[Emma Reynolds]

The right hon. Lady lectures us about regulators. We have a tighter grip on our arms-length bodies than the Conservatives did when they were in Government. I issued strategic policy statements to all ALBs earlier this year, writing to the chairs of those organisations to tell them about the Government’s direction of travel. Under her Government, the reason we saw record levels of pollution in our waterways was that they took their foot off the gas and took a blind eye to water companies polluting rivers. And they introduced a system of self-monitoring that was equivalent to Ofsted not sending anybody out to do any inspections of schools.