Oral Answers to Questions
Stephen Morgan Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
The Attorney General
The hon. Gentleman has long campaigned on these issues, so I know that he feels particularly passionately about the region as well. I am absolutely happy to commit this Government once again to upholding, where ever we can, international humanitarian law. Across this House, there is a great deal of consensus: we want the fighting to stop now. We are calling for an immediate pause to get aid in and the hostages out, and then to progress to a permanent ceasefire. We applaud the part of the ICJ’s provisional measures order that calls for exactly that.
Stephen Morgan
It is seven weeks since the ICJ issued its interim ruling on Israel’s conduct in Gaza. The Netanyahu Government have failed to comply with that ruling, and we are still waiting for the UK Government to urge them to do so. Will the Attorney General today call on Israel to take the steps it was ordered to take by the Court?
The Attorney General
We do not feel that that case was particularly helpful at this moment in the negotiations. We absolutely respect the ICJ—I have appeared there myself—and we of course understand that the interim measures order is binding on the parties. As I said to the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), elements of that order are extremely sensible, and we wholeheartedly respect them. We call, as the ICJ has done, for aid to go in and the hostages to come out immediately. That is the right way to proceed if we are ever to achieve a permanent ceasefire and, ultimately, a resolution of this dreadful conflict. However, we do not think terms such as “genocide”, without a formal final ruling of the Court, are particularly helpful to use.
Water Company Performance
Stephen Morgan Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Rebecca Pow
I clearly understand the concern among the public. I count myself as one of them. I have said many times, as have other Ministers, that sewage in water is unacceptable. But let us not mislead; let us get our facts straight. As I said earlier, 72% of our bathing water is classed as excellent and 94% is classed as good. That is a tremendous record that has been achieved under this Government. It has improved year on year and will continue to improve. All the actions the Government have put into place will tackle the issues the hon. Gentleman talks about. They will tackle unacceptable pollution all round, and that is what we need. It is about not just sewage but getting the right infrastructure in place—the £56 billion the water companies will be investing, required by this Government, and all the other measures, not least working with farmers on the pollution they cause, through our new slurry infrastructure grants and so on. A comprehensive and holistic programme is now in place, which was not in place under previous Governments.
Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)
Labour’s plan to clean up the water industry would include cutting sewage discharges by 90%, mandatory monitoring of outlets and automatic fines for discharges. Will the Minister enact it, for the benefit of Portsmouth people, with immediate effect?
Rebecca Pow
There is already a comprehensive system of enforcement. As I said, we are now consulting on the £250 million potential cap and what might be the realistic cap, to really make a difference and put a stop to unacceptable pollution incidents.
Flooding
Stephen Morgan Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)
It is only right that I begin by paying tribute to our blue light services, volunteers and local government workers who helped Britain to weather the storm of unprecedented flooding. With three major storms, Storm Jorge being the latest, February saw record rainfall. We also know that the last 10 years have been confirmed as the warmest decade on record. As a representative of a coastal community, which bears the brunt of the rising sea levels resulting from climate change, I find that deeply concerning.
More than 10,000 homes and 700 non-residential properties are at risk of flooding from the sea in my constituency. In order to quell the threat, Portsmouth City Council is embarking on the largest coastal defence scheme this nation has probably ever seen—the Southsea sea defence scheme. The 4.5 km stretch across the coast will be the first line of defence against flooding for the next 100 years, but are the Government doing enough to support such schemes? The council has told me that it has struggled to obtain full funding under Government rules. Support from Ministers needs to go beyond simply part-funding projects.
Another point that must be addressed is the current Government’s failure to recognise the interaction between flooding and heritage sites. A case example is Southsea castle in my patch, which is a major cultural English heritage asset. As expected, sea defence works surrounding the Henry VIII-constructed fortification require extra care and diligence in stabilising its groundwork, but the way that the Government currently give out funding fails to recognise the increased cost incurred to protect heritage sites. I fear that other local authorities will no doubt encounter that problem as the climate crisis worsens. I would like to ask the Minister if she will address the way that Government funding is structured to consider the extra costs of protecting cherished heritage sites.
The Government also need to set out what they expect local enterprise partnerships to do when it comes to protecting communities from flooding. In my constituency, Portsmouth City Council has been making efforts to secure money from the LEP in a bid to bridge the shortfall in Government funds. That has been at times a real challenge in Portsmouth, arising from the rigid LEP funding structures.
Coastal communities such as my own are not only facing additional threats of flooding due to climate change: they are also at risk because they have been hit hardest by austerity. As the House of Lords Select Committee report shows, communities such as Portsmouth are dealing with a toxic cocktail of even less funding than their neighbours and being forced to face more climate change challenges. There is a clear imbalance that needs to be redressed. The Prime Minister has previously committed to hosting a flood summit, bringing together regional partners and stakeholders, and I echo the concerns we have previously heard that we need to ask the Minister when this summit will take place.
I am asking the Minister lots of questions today. They are questions that I would have asked her in person, but sadly, the Minister previously offered me just 15 minutes for discussion of the biggest sea defence scheme in the country and cancelled two consecutive meetings after repeated requests, one just hours before the meeting. Our coastal communities are rich in leisure, tourism and heritage activities. Their loss would be our nation’s loss and they must be protected. There are gaps in the Government’s current strategy that need to be addressed. It is high time that the Government took notice of this fact and started properly supporting coastal communities such as Portsmouth.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I am afraid that I have to reduce the time limit to three minutes, if there is going to be a hope for everybody to be able to make their very short remarks.