Oral Answers to Questions

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jo Churchill]

We need to get those targets right. In the Environment Bill, which should be back in this place shortly, we have committed to setting a target, but it is important that we get the evidence right to set the right targets. Those targets will be based on evidence. We are currently reviewing the air quality strategy. We will be looking at a revised strategy in 2023. The PM₂ target is on a population basis. We also need the population exposure targets so that in areas such as hers, where we know that there are hotter spots, we can work directly with local authorities—we all own this challenge—to get the right targeted measure in the right areas. The overall target is important, but so are those targeted, individual approaches.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

As you know, Mr Speaker, in Newcastle-under-Lyme we suffer with poor air quality from the odorous emissions of Walleys Quarry, which have had a serious impact on respiratory disease. That includes the case of the five-year-old boy, Mathew Richards, who won his judicial review against the Environment Agency. Does the Minister share my concern that the Environment Agency has frustrated attempts by investigators to access the public register? Does she agree that it must be open to having the register inspected by those trying to get to the bottom of how this scandalous situation has been allowed to develop?

Environment Bill

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) and the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) for their points of order, and completely understand the concerns that have been expressed. I also understand that the authorities have been informed by the Speaker’s Office about the situation. Mr Speaker has also informed me that there may be a statement later if necessary and that these issues would be covered in it. I suggest that we leave it at that. Thank you.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

I associate myself with the points of order from my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) and the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). May I also briefly pay tribute to Sir David Amess and James Brokenshire for all their many decades of combined public service? I think it is fair to say that in both cases, it was always service with a smile.

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Leeds Central. I rise to speak to Lords amendment 3, as did the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish). A number of my constituents have understandably raised this amendment with me, given the terrible experience that we are still having in Newcastle-under-Lyme with the emissions from Walley’s Quarry. It is clear from the experience of my constituents, particularly those nearest to the quarry in Silverdale, Knutton and Poolfields, that poorer air quality has a profound effect on the physical and mental health of a community. The predominant concern with landfill gas is obviously hydrogen sulphide, but there is also methane, sulphur dioxide and particulate matter, which is the source of the amendment.

I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow)—the previous waste Minister—for her engagement on this issue throughout. I also thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones), for her engagement and for coming to Newcastle-under-Lyme. This is not a party political matter and it has not been treated as such in the community; it is a matter of justice for the residents who are suffering so terribly. I welcome the new waste Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), to her place, and thank her for her promised visit to Newcastle-under-Lyme, which I am sure will be arranged shortly through her diary.

Lords amendment 3 would require the PM_2.5 air quality target to be less than 10 micrograms per cubic metre before 1 January 2030 and to,

“so far as practicable, follow World Health Organization guidelines”.

I firmly believe that we must improve air quality in all its senses as soon as possible, but I thank the Department for its engagement on the issue. Like the Chair of the Select Committee, I accept the Government’s view on the amendment—that is, that rushing to put targets in Bills in unwise and consultation is needed. I think that consultation is needed for two reasons. First, any target needs to be fully evidenced and deliverable, because, as we have already seen experienced elsewhere, there is not much point putting targets into law that we do not think can be delivered. Secondly, the target has to be widely accepted by the public and business. We have to take our constituents with us on all elements of this agenda. We saw yesterday with the heat and buildings strategy that a number of people are not that willing to make the sacrifices that might need to be made. That is why the Government have to take into account the sacrifices and changes that we are going to ask people to make if we are to make our lives greener and better.

As DEFRA’s own report after a workshop on modelling PM_2.5 concentrations says, there is quite a lot of difficulty in accurately modelling where we are going to be five or 10 years from now on a range of different policy scenarios in relation to emissions reductions. It is clear that the vast majority of the country will be well below the 10 microgram per cubic metre limit, but the report also identifies that primary emissions of fine particulate matters in urban areas such as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) will remain an important factor. There is considerable uncertainty on the future trajectory, but it might mean removing up to half of all cars from roads, including electric vehicles, as well as potentially a ban on solid fuel burning. This may be what some Opposition Members think is necessary, but it would be a very significant change to our way of life. It would necessitate action from all parts of society—individuals, businesses and public bodies—to manage that transition. It is not something that should be taken lightly and without due consideration. We have to take our constituents with us on these things, rather than putting impressive-sounding but unachievable targets into law.

All that said, I do welcome the Government’s commitment, as the Minister said, to a swift and thorough consultation on these matters. I hope that as part of the target-setting process she promised will take place in the coming months, sufficient consideration will be given not only to health in the literal sense but to mental health and a wider sense of wellbeing in terms of air quality. The experience we have had in Newcastle-under-Lyme is not just that there has been an effect on people’s physical health, particularly on those with pre-existing conditions, but that living with the odour has definitely impacted my residents’ mental health, and again it has been worse for those with pre-existing conditions.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I was going to speak on the targets issue but in the face of the time available I am not. On the question of air quality, I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Without wanting to over-egg it, there is an issue about the lack of monitoring equipment. In my own authority, it turns out that the air quality monitoring equipment in certain areas has not been functioning properly for the past three years; it has been giving out false readings. It is really important that we have quality data that people can have confidence in so that we can take them with us that air quality is actually improving. Perhaps, through him, the Minister can take that on board.

[Aaron Bell]

I thank my hon. Friend. I could not agree more about data. I used to work in data before I was in this place. My experience with landfill was that once we got the monitoring stations around there, people would start to have more faith in the data. It is still not real-time and that needs to be addressed. However, I appreciate that that is not speaking directly to the amendment, and I think Madam Deputy Speaker wants me to wrap up.

When the Minister does the consultation, I ask her to look more broadly at the issues of odour and hydrogen sulphide, as well as limits on those, and perhaps to look at some of the suggestions I made in the ten-minute rule Bill on odorous emissions in the previous Session. What we have gone through in Newcastle-under-Lyme is an exemplar because it is about something people can smell rather than something they are breathing. There are lessons for us to learn from that and lessons that DEFRA can take forward in its consultation.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I would just like to inform the House, further to the points of order raised previously, that I understand that the gallows has been taken down and arrests have been made under the Public Order Act.

Walley’s Quarry: Response of the Environment Agency

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

I am grateful to have secured this Adjournment debate. Through you, Madam Deputy Speaker, may I pass my thanks to Mr Speaker not only for granting this debate, but for his advice on the matter of landfills? I know that he has suffered from an issue in his constituency of Chorley as well.

I have raised the issue of Walley’s Quarry many times in this place since I was elected in 2019, including in a debate in Westminster Hall in February 2020, which the Minister will remember, as she responded to me then, and I am grateful for her continued engagement since then—in the Christmas Adjournment debate at the end of last year, and again in the ten-minute rule Bill that I introduced on 9 March, the Landfill Sites (Odorous Emissions) Bill. But I am here yet again because I will not stop representing my constituents on this issue, and I am sorry to report to the House that the situation has worsened even further since those prior mentions of Walley’s Quarry in this place.

In Newcastle-under-Lyme, we are now experiencing not only an environmental catastrophe but a public health emergency. My constituents are genuinely frightened about what is in the air they breathe and the impact it is having on their health and the health of their families. They are also pretty angry that it has come to this, as am I on their behalf. In the interests of time, I will not rehearse the whole storied history today, as a lot of it is on the record in the other debates I mentioned. Instead, I will focus on the newest developments and what has happened in recent months.

I would like to stress that this is not really a local issue. Not only is it so big that it is affecting neighbouring constituencies—I am grateful to see my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) here—but it has now become a national issue, in that Walley’s Quarry generated 85% of all odour complaints in England to the Environment Agency in March. It has also generated national coverage in the newspapers and across the BBC and ITV, and that is because things have moved on considerably this year. There have been five breaches by the operator of its permit, and the Environment Agency has had to issue an enforcement notice, which I will come back to later.

I would like to start by focusing on the impact that this is having on people’s health, and I will quote the letter that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care wrote to the chief executive of the Environment Agency, expressing his “grave concerns” about the current situation, recognising the distress and disruption it is causing to the local community and highlighting how imperative it is that the Environment Agency exercises

“the full range of their regulatory and enforcement powers”

to resolve the problems at the site—a sentiment with which my constituents and I wholeheartedly agree.

I recently conducted a health and impact survey, which I published earlier today on my Facebook page and via my newsletter and Twitter. I had over 1,000 responses in the first 24 hours. The survey is based on over 1,400 responses, and the findings make pretty shocking reading. I shared it with the Minister earlier today, and I have sent it to the various bodies involved. Some 64% of respondents reported a significant or severe impact on their mental health, and that rose to 73% among those living in the areas immediately adjacent to the site: Silverdale, Knutton, Poolfields and Thistleberry. Similarly, 60% of respondents reported a significant or severe impact on their sleep, and 52% said the same about their physical health. Again, the figures are higher for those living closest to the site.

I will quote some of the testimony from residents that I put into the report. Claire from Silverdale says:

“My son is having weekly nose bleeds, my whole family is suffering with dry skin, throat and eyes. We are staying in the house much more than we usually would with the doors and windows shut as the smell outside is horrendous. My heating bill has increased. We only moved into the area in December 2019 and we are greatly regretting this move. We had been saving for 16 years to move into a house like this. It was our dream home and now that has all been ruined.”

Ian from Newcastle says:

“Some days we feel like prisoners in our own home.”

Sandra from Porthill says:

“I have lived in Newcastle for over 30 years and it is frustrating to see this blight causing so many issues and not being able to hold someone responsible for controlling the odour. I’ve shopped in Newcastle town centre for decades and even I don’t want to go there when it stinks.”

Members will understand how difficult this is for me, as a Member of Parliament for Newcastle. We have so much good going on in Newcastle, but a cloud is being cast over us by what is happening at Walley’s Quarry. I have sent the report to the Environment Agency, Public Health England, the borough and county councils, the Secretaries of State concerned and the operator.

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the amazing work that he is doing in connection with this landfill site in his constituency and on representing his constituents so fantastically on this issue; I wish him luck with everything he does on it. I, too, have a waste site in my constituency; there has been a fire there for the last three weeks due to illegal dumping on a site that had actually been abandoned. Does my hon. Friend agree that there must be stronger powers for local authorities to intervene when illegal activities are occurring on sites, so that we can better protect our communities in the way he seeks?

[Aaron Bell]

I thank my hon. Friend; what is going on in her constituency is also completely unacceptable. I should stress that there are other sites in my constituency—illegal waste dumps—that are causing huge problems: one at Doddlespool and one at Bonnie Braes. Again, the Environment Agency appears to be hidebound and unwilling to act in the face of blatant law breaking by people—in one case, someone who has already been convicted. The problems are not unique to what is going on in Silverdale at this legal quarry.

The health concerns that I was raising a moment ago are not just anecdotal but backed up by evidence from local GPs. Only this morning, a hospital consultant was quoted in the press talking about a particularly heart-rending case of a five-year-old child, Matthew Currie.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I did not interrupt the hon. Lady because we are trying to get back to some kind of normality, but I have to make the point that that was a very long intervention—a very interesting one, of course.

[Aaron Bell]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) for that intervention; I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) and for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton), neither of whom can be here today. The support I have had from all Stoke MPs on this matter has been greatly appreciated.

I stress the fact that the odour is now reaching into Stoke—up to Talke in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South can smell it in his own house, over six miles away. The problem, if anything, is getting worse. I also have testimony from people who work at the hospital explaining how damaging it is for both patients and staff.

On 27 April, the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) held a Westminster Hall debate. It was about air quality in London, but nevertheless 126 of my constituents submitted some really moving testimony; I thank the House of Commons engagement team for providing it to me. Mary wrote:

“The effect on mental health is worrying. Many people feel trapped in their homes, which often are filled with the dreadful stench. Can’t open windows or enjoy going out into gardens. Depression and isolation are quite profound—people are feeling at their wits end and some are expressing suicidal thoughts. We are desperate for it to be resolved.”

Thomas said:

“It’s made me and my whole family physically sick, it’s made my eyes sore to the touch, I cough constantly and live with a headache most of the time. I live with landfill gases that are ruining my life.”

We can agree that no one should have to live like that. They are not exaggerating—I have been out to smell it for myself on many occasions. At 3 am after the election count, I went out on to the Galingale estate, which has the worst of it—it was absolutely appalling. I do not know how anyone woken up by that landfill at that time would get back to sleep again.

The operator and the Environment Agency have been given years of warning about this issue, which has been repeatedly flagged—before I was elected, by campaigners such as Councillor Derrick  Huckfield, by me in this place, and by residents. The concerns were growing. All that has sometimes been dismissed by the operator as a social media campaign; I am sorry to have heard the same at times from the Environment Agency. The problem is real, and I will keep pushing about it until we see stronger and tougher action.

On the Environment Agency, first there was a report before I was elected—a previous monitoring exercise. It was a very weak report that did not even identify the source of the odour, which understandably damaged my constituents’ trust—they know perfectly well where it is coming from. In September last year, I wrote to Sir James Bevan calling for fresh monitoring on the back of the complaints that I was receiving in my inbox. But that was not forthcoming—it was not felt that that would be useful at the time. We can draw a conclusion about where we have got to now; I will explain that in a moment. Had the Environment Agency taken my warnings more seriously back then, perhaps the current crisis could have been forestalled or minimised.

When it comes to the current crisis, I feel that the Environment Agency has been more concerned with its own reputation than with my town of Newcastle-under-Lyme. It does not do Silverdale any good to be called the UK’s smelliest village, as it was on 30 April by The Sun. We take no pride in the news coverage that we have generated, but there is a lot of it. We have been covered in The Guardian, The Independent, The Sun, the Sunday Mirror, the Mail on Sunday, Radio 4’s “Today” and the “Jeremy Vine” show, to name just a few.

There are many more positive stories that I would rather be talking about instead—all the investment coming into Newcastle-under-Lyme as we build back better; the future high streets fund; the towns fund; and Newcastle College getting through to the final round of becoming an institute of technology. Those are the stories I want to be talking about in this place. I do not want to be talking about stinking landfill, but I will keep talking about it until we get it sorted.

There have been failings of the Environment Agency over the past year. It eventually did install the monitoring equipment, in February. The installation preceded the worst weekend that we have yet experienced—the weekend of 26 to 28 February. There were over 2,000 complaints to the council that weekend and over 1,400 to the Environment Agency directly. There would have been more, but people could not get through on the lines. However, after that weekend it turned out that the monitoring equipment had not actually been switched on, so there was no record of it, and because the Environment Agency thought it was switched on, it did not send anybody out to substantiate it, so we have no empirical evidence at all to substantiate what I believe was the single worst weekend we have experienced, other than the number of complaints. That is an astonishing dereliction of duty by the Environment Agency. I would laugh if it were not so serious.

The Environment Agency has berated my constituents for all the calls they have made to its call centre. It encouraged people to email instead, but the email address fell over and broke a couple of weekends ago, so people had to go back to calling in again. I am sorry if my constituents’ complaints are inconvenient, but it is imperative that the Environment Agency understands the scale of the problem.

We come to what has happened this year. The Environment Agency did issue an enforcement notice against the operator. It also found five breaches of the permit, one of which was significant, and set a deadline of 30 April for the capping of cell 1 and the temporary capping of cell 2—there are four cells. It was expected—and I was told on a call with the Environment Agency—that those mandated works should bring about a significant improvement in odour levels fairly quickly after 30 April. The operator got the capping done with minutes to spare, but, if anything, since 30 April the opposite has occurred. Indeed, we are getting reports from further away than ever, including places such as Madeley in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash).

Not unreasonably, the EA’s priority is to address the odour before taking punitive action against the operator. However, 20 days on from that deadline, we have no idea of the action that it intends to take to punish the operator for its many failings. I think that, in advance of that enforcement notice, the operator jumped before it was pushed by voluntarily suspending tipping, but it has now gone back to tipping without any explanation as to why we have so much odour. Why will the Environment Agency not suspend operations until it has figured out what is going on?

The Environment Agency now proudly says that it is auditing the loads before they go into the tip—seemingly for the first time. Six loads have been turned away in the past week. How many similar loads have not been turned away in the past? What exactly is in this landfill? It is hard to believe that it is only now that Red’s customers are sending inappropriate waste to the tip and that this has never happened before.

I will be careful here, Madam Deputy Speaker, but multiple contractors and employees of the company have made allegations to me that I believe are criminal in nature. Investigations are ongoing, so I am not going to repeat those allegations verbatim, but if they are true, Red has serious questions to answer about what has happened in the past at this site. I have passed the allegations on to the Environment Agency’s crime team. I encourage anyone listening to this debate who has evidence that may be important to come forward and discuss it with that environmental crime team, which is separate from the operations team and staffed by former policemen and policewomen. I have had personal assurance from them that they will carefully consider any evidence brought to them, that all allegations will be taken seriously and that they will pursue all credible leads.

As for the operator, it has stopped answering my letters. It did not answer my letter of 22 February or an open letter of 19 March. It will not answer questions that need answers or say what is causing the problem. Either it does not know or it will not say, and I honestly do not know which is worse. It has offered no plan for making things right and compensating those affected. Its communications are a travesty. In fact, the chief method of communication with some of my residents appears to be via lawyers’ letters or a discredited residents association that does not speak for any of the residents in the area. It has refused to publicly stream its liaison committee; understandably, councillors from both parties have felt unable to participate on those terms, given the present crisis.

Instead, the operator has been on its social media celebrating its fast-growing profits and its appearance on The Sunday Times profit track list. In the year to December 2019, it claimed profits of £6 million. I believe that those profits were made at the expense of my constituents’ health and wellbeing, and I hope that the company is setting them aside for remedying the issues with the site and putting things right with the community. It alleges that it has found an alternative explanation for the hydrogen sulphide—disused mineworking—but it cannot or will not corroborate this. It will not even share the basis for these claims with the EA, and the Coal Authority has now said publicly that it has found no evidence at all for this claim.

I can only conclude that the operator is trying to muddy the waters and evade its responsibilities. It misrepresented the Environment Agency by saying that it had consulted it about the resumption of tipping. The Environment Agency had to clarify that it was only notified. To quote the excellent letter that my friend Councillor Alan White, the leader of Staffordshire County Council, sent to the operator on 14 May, “The operator must accept that it has moral responsibilities as well as legal ones.” Finally, in the past month, it has changed its name, from Red Industries RM to Walley’s Quarry Ltd. I am sure that that is because of the damage this is doing to its brand, but I say to it here: it can change its name, but it cannot change the facts of this case, cannot change its culpability and cannot change its liability

Let me come to the data we have seen from the monitoring that has been put in—I am grateful for the monitoring. The 30-minute data—it shows 30 minutes at a time—from the Galingale View monitoring site, which has had the worst of it, showed that in March odour levels were above the World Health Organisation annoyance threshold for 38% of the monitoring period. This was frequently the case at night and in the early evenings, so it was stopping people getting people to sleep or waking them up early. There was a peak of 1,200 micrograms per cubic metre, which is over 160 times the annoyance threshold, which is 7. On that “worst weekend” we had at the end of February the level was probably even higher, but we will never know. As for the 24-hour data, on which the public health test is assessed, there is a much higher limit of 150 over 24 hours, and that was breached twice in March. I do not believe that has ever happened in a landfill in the UK before. Yet the Public Health England commentary on this March data said:

“Based on the current data up to the end of March we would stress that any risk to long-term physical health is likely to be small, however we cannot completely exclude a risk to health from pollutants in the area. Short-term health effects may be experienced such as irritation to the eyes, nose and throat. Individuals with pre-existing respiratory conditions may be more susceptible to these effects.”

I am struggling to get my head around PHE thinking that it is okay for people to experience headaches, nausea or dizziness for hours at a time—that is not normal. We have gone from a position that I saw in ministerial written answers last year—that

“the level and type of odour arising from such operations should not be causing annoyance”—

to one now that tacitly accepts not only annoyance, but minor, repeated health issues. That is completely unacceptable; it feels as though we are a lobster being slowly boiled. Residents are supposed to accept the premise that if there are no long-term health consequences, it is somehow acceptable that we have these short-term ones. That is a creeping normalising of a completely unacceptable situation—I believe the modern term is “gaslighting”. We are being gaslit and gassed at the same time.

So what about what the council is doing? Not unreasonably, many constituents have inquired about the possibility of Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council, ably led by my friend Simon Tagg, acquiring a statutory nuisance or abatement notice. However, as the Minister will know, that is a challenging process. First, it would require a lot of work on the part of council officers to make the case. The council has been hamstrung by the EA’s own failings and it has raised those directly with the Minister in a letter sent yesterday by its chief executive, Martin Hamilton. Nevertheless, the scale of the problems means this is not something the council can ignore and it is moving towards a position of serving an abatement notice, in the light of the suffering of borough residents.

I hope the Secretary of State would give the necessary permission for a prosecution of that abatement notice, should it prove necessary. If the council needs to take that action, it will be because the EA has failed. It should not fall to a borough council to spend £70,000 of local taxpayers’ money on legal advice and landfill experts, or to ask its staff to work around the clock because the performance of a national agency has been so inadequate. Yesterday’s letter, which the Minister will have, requests an independent inquiry into the performance of the EA over the long term, and I completely back the council on that. Why has the EA ignored every warning sign until it was too late? That is not how a responsible regulator should behave.

In conclusion, the message from me and my constituents is clear: enough is enough. Minister, put some extra funding into this emergency situation if necessary and step in if the EA continues to mismanage the situation. It has been repeatedly too slow to react and behind the curve. She should install fresh leadership if that is what is necessary, but we must have an urgent resolution—we cannot carry on like this. As no one, least of all the operator or the regulator, seems to understand the root cause of the problem, there is no reasonable conclusion to the saga of Walley’s Quarry that does not involve it being shut down. Ultimately, the site needs to be capped off.

Oral Answers to Questions

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Commons Chamber

The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners was asked—

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

What steps the Church of England is taking to support the Government’s plans to ban conversion therapy.

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

What steps the Church of England is taking to implement its 2017 commitment to end conversion therapy.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)]

The Church of England’s General Synod passed a resolution in 2017 calling on the Government to end conversion therapy, to prevent vulnerable people from being subjected to potential spiritual abuse. The Church remains committed to this and will work with the Government on how it can most effectively be framed.

[Aaron Bell]

I thank my hon. Friend for his answer and am glad to hear that restatement of the General Synod’s position in 2017. Do the commissioners agree that the Church must reject any assumption that any one identity or orientation is preferable to another and that any one-directional pursuit of a particular orientation amounts to conversion therapy?

[Andrew Selous]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. The Prime Minister remains resolutely committed to prohibiting the imposition of any harmful and unnecessary practice in this area, without criminalising clergy and Church members for non-coercive pastoral support that individuals ask for.

Oral Answers to Questions

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Commons Chamber

The hon. Member for City of Chester, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, was asked—

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

What assessment the Electoral Commission has made of the adequacy of the length of time of the statutory election period.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester)]

The Commission recently submitted evidence to the Joint Committee on the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, setting out the background to the current minimum timetable of 25 working days for UK elections and the administrative and regulatory implications if the timetable were to be shortened. While the specific period is for Parliament to decide, the Commission emphasises that sufficient time must be allowed for campaigners to put their arguments to the electorate, for voters to decide how to cast their vote, and for returning officers to deliver the election process.

[Aaron Bell [V]]

I thank the hon. Member for his answer. As he says, this point has been exercising the Joint Committee on the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, on which I and many other Members of this House sit. Election periods have grown considerably longer over the years, which is not necessarily in the best interests of our constituents and democracy more widely, especially when an election is called to resolve an impasse. Will he be willing to inquire further from the Electoral Commission as to what the shortest potential statutory period that could reasonably adopted is, and then write to me or the Committee?

[Christian Matheson]

I will indeed inquire about that. Informally, the suggestion to me has been that the Commission does not particularly want it shortened too much further because of all the administrative burdens and the administrative marker points that electoral registration officers and others would have to go through, but I will pass on the hon. Gentleman’s request and ask the Commission to write to him.

Flooding: Staffordshire

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered flooding in Staffordshire.

Storm Alex this weekend has been an all too timely reminder of the havoc that flooding can wreak. In January 2020, we saw some of the very worst flooding in Staffordshire for a century. The River Sow in Stafford burst its banks. Throughout my constituency, from Bishop’s Wood to Ranton, from Lapley to Hopton, my constituents have yet again suffered from flooding.

I am grateful to a number of Staffordshire colleagues for coming today to provide support on this important topic. I am sure they will provide numerous illustrations of how their constituents have also been impacted by flooding in Staffordshire.

Staffordshire has done more than its fair share of house building over the last few years. Increased development in Stafford is important, given its strategic location in the UK, but with that come consequences for residents. It is vital that our local infrastructure is able to cope. Increased surface run-off means that, over the last 20 years, homes that were never affected before have suffered from flooding, once-dry sports grounds are now regularly unusable due to being waterlogged, and local businesses are often left counting the cost due to floodwaters preventing them from opening, or destroying their goods. Something needs to be done to tackle these issues. I fear that if we do not act now, the situation regarding flooding in Staffordshire will only get worse.

The major problem in Staffordshire is who to call when your house starts to flood. We all know who to call when a crime is being committed, when someone falls ill or if there is a fire, but there appears to be no answer for flooding. There is literally no one available to answer that call. I have repeatedly had constituents calling me and my constituency office, often at midnight, as water has been pouring into their homes and there is no one to help. It is simply not good enough. I am urging the Government today to create an emergency three-digit flood phone number—for example, 555— that everyone in our country knows to call if they are experiencing a flood emergency.

We already have the technology available. It could work like the 101 number that puts people through to their local police force. In this instance, it would put my constituents in touch with someone in Staffordshire who is able to help them with their flooding situation. The emergency flood phone number should run 24/7, because flooding is an emergency. When water is pouring through your letterbox in the middle of the night, the place where you live, your livelihood and even your life could be risk.

That brings me to another question that, frankly, the Government need to answer. It appears to be a very simple question: who is the lead authority responsible for flooding? Many agencies are involved with handling flooding, but when I speak to them, none seems keen to take overall responsibility. That is not good enough for residents.

Let me give an example from my constituency. Tixall Road was flooded for nearly a month and no agency sorted it out. The main roads from Great Haywood and Little Haywood were blocked due to floodwater; residents told me they had to go on a detour of many miles and it cost local businesses, such as the Canalside Farm shop whose customers come from far and wide, a huge amount of money.

What was I told when I tried to find help for my constituents? The agency responsible for the road said it could not deal with it because it “wasn’t their water,” as the water had come from a field. That is just one of numerous examples of the complete lack of joined-up thinking in relation to flooding, and I am sure the House will hear more examples from my colleagues in their speeches this afternoon.

Of course, I called all the different agencies that are meant to help with flooding but no one was willing to move the water on Tixall Road, and all gave me a different reason why it was not their problem. But it was a problem; the weeks went on and the villagers still could not get on with their lives. They were still cut off by floodwater, farmers’ crops were being destroyed in the fields and local businesses were suffering. The only official response was that the police came along and closed the road. I agree that that was necessary in the short term, but shutting the road did not solve the fundamental problem that it was still flooded and no one could use it. In the end, the residents had to remove the water at their own expense. In my view, that should not have happened and they have been badly let down.

In order to try and find a solution to such problems, I held a flooding roundtable this summer with all the key stakeholders in Staffordshire. They all told me how seriously they take flooding, but not one of them was prepared to say that it was the lead flooding agency or to take responsibility for the specific examples that I gave. It was almost farcical. Let me make this clear: the situation regarding flooding in Staffordshire is not a joke, and this bureaucratic runaround is the same problem that my constituents face every day.

I said earlier that there was a need for a telephone line for constituents to call if they were experiencing flooding, but in tandem with that I am calling for a flood control centre, which is something that I have raised repeatedly, and which has significant local support in Staffordshire. We need a flood control centre with a real person at the end of that telephone number, in Stafford, who is able to do something to help my constituents. It is frankly not good enough for my constituents to have water pouring through their front door, and to call number after number and be sent from pillar to post, when all the while the water is rising and their home and possessions are being destroyed.

Even worse, I have been told by constituents that, on the rare occasions that someone has agreed to help them with flooding, when the agency has arrived it has informed residents that it cannot do anything because, “It is the wrong type of water.” I repeat—“It is the wrong type of water,” and the agency says it is not responsible for it. Another constituent told me they were informed by an agency that, “The water was in the wrong place for them to deal with it.” My constituent was well aware that the water was in the wrong place—it was in her living room.

I am sorry, but this situation is unacceptable. I do not believe that it is my constituents’ job to figure out where water is coming from or the type of water it is. What they want is to have a lead authority for flooding, an authority with statutory responsibility for helping people suffering from this problem—no ifs, no buts, just a lead authority to help them.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Theo Clarke]

Mr Hosie, are we allowed to take interventions?

[Stewart Hosie (in the Chair)]

You are allowed to take interventions from people on the call list.

[Aaron Bell]

Thank you, Mr Hosie. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the system is too fragmented; to give an example from my constituency, parish councillor Mike Joynson in Halmer End reported exactly the same problem, but this time it was with developers—there was a dispute about whether it the utility company or the developers were involved. Again, if we had a single point of contact and people knew who was responsible, it would make it much better for people in both her constituency and mine.

[Theo Clarke]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The whole point of today’s debate is to say that creating an emergency three-digit telephone number would mean that all our constituents had a direct number to call in flooding emergencies, which would be linked to our Staffordshire flood control centre, and that having an agency with statutory responsibility for flooding would lessen the impact on our constituents.

We must also have a long-term plan to try to prevent people’s homes from being flooded in the first place. To give another example from my constituency, Sandon Road is flooded all too frequently. As rain begins to fall, it is always the Marston and Sandyford brooks that start to overflow and the water often floods into my constituents’ homes. I recently attended the Sandon Road residents’ meeting, where I was distressed to hear at first hand the impact that regular flooding is having on my constituents. I pay tribute to Councillor Jonathan Price for all his efforts to try to help the residents of Sandon Road.

I am very grateful for Government-supported schemes such as Flood Re, which provides insurance for constituents who would otherwise be unable to access it. It is a vital safety net and very helpful when the worst does happen. However, we should strive to do better. Insurance cannot prevent the fear of flooding that my constituents have every time it rains. Insurance cannot replace priceless items such as family photographs, and floods can often destroy and take away the lives of many of my constituents, with days, weeks or even—in many cases—months being blighted by the impact of their homes being flooded. I therefore believe we need to do more to stop water getting into people’s homes in the first place.

Councillor Price helpfully put out a letter to local residents in Stafford last week in which he said that he has arranged the delivery of sandbags in case of imminent danger of flooding. While that may slow down the water, I am afraid it will not stop it coming in eventually. That is the crux of the problem. While it is vital that we continue to provide short-term emergency support for residents affected by flooding, that will only be truly successful for the residents of Sandon Road and elsewhere in Stafford if it is accompanied by properly funded long-term measures.

I welcome the Conservative party manifesto commitment to £4 billion in new funding over the coming years for new developments as part of a £100 billion investment in infrastructure. I was also pleased to hear the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs confirm in March that the Government will honour that commitment and spend £4 billion on flood defences over the next five years. Agencies have told me repeatedly that they do not have the funding to maintain and improve the waterways in Staffordshire to combat flooding effectively, so I look forward to working with the Minister and the Department constructively to see how some of that funding can be used to tackle the significant problems in Staffordshire.

I believe that, having left the European Union, the Government have a great part to play in promoting the role of farmers and landowners in preventing residential flooding. We should encourage our farmers to protect land, improve access to the countryside and take measures to prevent residential flooding. Farmers in Stafford should be congratulated on the work they are already doing in this area. I recently visited farmland in my constituency that is very prone to flooding, which has been replanted with willow trees. The area has become a thriving sanctuary for wildlife. I urge the Minister to investigate making such schemes more attractive to farmers, to allow compensation for some of their land to be flooded and to ensure that we can encourage nature as well as protecting homes.

The impacts of climate change will mean that, unfortunately, there will be an increase in both the severity and frequency of flooding in Staffordshire in the future. It is therefore vital that we have robust plans in place to deal with flooding not only over the next year but for the next decade, and to look to the future.

I am afraid that, when we try to look up the true picture of what is going on with flooding in Staffordshire, it is very hard to find out. I have welcomed the Government’s reviews into flood risk management and flooding, but it has been difficult to find a clear picture of the impact of flooding today. The people of Staffordshire completely understand that the Government do not have the power to control mother nature and that they cannot expect the Government to stop the rain from falling or the rivers Penk and Sow from flooding. However, they are asking for our help. They want help to know who exactly to call when water is pouring through their front doors, help to encourage and properly compensate farmers whose land is being submerged by flood waters in order to protect their neighbours’ homes, and help to fund flood management schemes to ensure that no one in Staffordshire lives in fear that one bad spell of rain could leave their house or their family home destroyed.

I am not demanding the impossible from the Minister. I do not expect her and DEFRA to hold back the tide, but I am asking for the measures I have outlined to be implemented to help us to tackle flooding and level up the country so that whether someone lives in Westminster or Stafford, they will know that the Government are doing their best to protect them, their family and their home from the devastating effects of flooding.

--- Later in debate ---

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. It is also a pleasure to follow my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) who was with me at the opening ceremony for the Etruria valley link road the other day, which will increase the links between her constituency and mine to the mutual benefit of all our constituents.

I congratulate the other Members who spoke, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke), who secured this debate. She is a doughty champion for her constituents in Stafford. As she said, too often residents across Staffordshire are passed from pillar to post, frequently between the council and the water authority, and they are supposed to somehow referee between the authorities. It should not be for them to do that. It often falls to us to do it, and we are happy to. Our constituency staff teams do a great job, but it really should not be for them, either. There should be a solution put in place, and I know the Minister will respond to that.

Over recent months, I have been contacted by constituents whose properties have been flooded as a result of heavy rainfall, capacity issues in the sewers and blocked gullies. In most cases it appears to me that the main cause of blocked gullies is not debris, although that is sometimes the case, but tree roots. Sneyd Avenue in my constituency of Newcastle-under-Lyme is a clear example of that. Owing to a culmination of capacity issues and blocked gullies, residents of Sneyd Avenue have experienced serious flooding for several years. One constituent who has lived there since 1982 says that it is getting increasingly worse.

Following hydraulic modelling undertaken by Severn Trent Water, for which I thank it, it was identified that six properties are at risk of being flooded once every two years as a result of water capacity issues. Severn Trent had previously uncovered a taproot in the drainage system that required a precision cut to be removed. Tree root ingress is a main cause of blocked drains, pipes and sewerage systems in the UK. It is common for fine tree roots to gain access to the drainage system, and once inside they develop into taproots and root masses. That is what comes through to me in my constituents’ correspondence.

Staffordshire County Council is responsible for the highway drains. I know that it routinely cleans the gullies, based on the road classifications, but there is also a need for improved management and preventive measures with regard to the tree roots. For instance, CCTV drain inspections can identify drainpipes that are in close proximity to trees and hedges before a serious problem, such as root ingress, develops.

Flooding in Newcastle-under-Lyme appears to occur most frequently in the residential suburbs to the south of the town centre in areas such as Clayton, the Westlands, and Thistleberry. Many of the streets in those areas, such as Sneyd Avenue and Howard Place, are lined with trees, and therefore the tree roots are likely a contributing factor.

Earlier this year, on 12 August, communities across north Staffordshire experienced widespread flooding after scorching temperatures led to very heavy rain and thunderstorms. It led to some of the worst flooding that residents had seen. Together with the local borough and county councillor for Newcastle South, Mr Stephen Sweeney, I went to see residents of Lincoln Avenue in Clayton to see for myself the damage caused.

Lincoln Avenue rises gently uphill in both directions from the centre of the road, and the houses in the dip have long been plagued by flooding during heavy thunder- storms. Severn Trent addressed the issue approximately 15 years ago, but unfortunately the issue is now back and I can see for myself the damage caused. Again, it seems that tree roots are the issue. My constituents certainly believe that and have been advised of it by people who know about such things. I am pleased to report that Severn Trent has responded to me and undertaken to survey the local sewerage network.

I understand how disruptive floods are. I have heard about the awful cases in Burton and Stafford, although not so much in the Moorlands, in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), who is no longer here. I entirely appreciate the frustrations of all the constituents whose properties have been flooded, especially when it has happened on multiple occasions. In one case in my constituency, an elderly constituent could not return to her home for several months, and still has concerns about it flooding once again.

As the winter months approach, it is vital that Severn Trent Water and Staffordshire County Council work together to alleviate the significant disruption caused by flooding. They should employ the appropriate technology, such as hydraulic monitoring and CCTV drain inspections. I look forward to working with all my colleagues, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford, who secured this debate, to find a solution to the problem.

Landfill Sites: Odour

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered odour emanating from landfill sites.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I thank Mr Speaker for granting this debate, and welcome the Minister to her place. I am pleased to have secured this debate on the important matter of odour emanating from landfill sites, which is an issue of great concern to a number of my constituents, particularly in Silverdale, Knutton and Poolfields—

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. Because of a Division in the House, the sitting is suspended for 15 minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Aaron Bell]

The waste industry is one that most people would rather not think about, but that is not an option for people who live close to a landfill site, because of the impact that it can have on their lives. I am sure that other Members here will recognise some of the problems we face from experience in their own constituencies. It may come as a surprise to some that there was in fact a great deal of interest in the debate from other Members hoping to speak, but with it being only a 30-minute debate, unfortunately they will have to do so through interventions. It seems that the people of Newcastle-under-Lyme are not alone in their worries. I will give other Members the chance to put on the record their constituents’ concerns, and I will share a few comments from Members who cannot be here today.

I commend the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for the incredible amount of work going on to reduce waste going to landfill. The Government are working hard to minimise waste and to promote recycling and resource efficiency. We are moving towards a circular economy in England, and I acknowledge that, as we actively encourage individuals and companies to recycle more and produce less waste, in time we will become less reliant on landfill. Nevertheless, for the time being, landfill sites remain an important part of waste management in this country.

In my constituency of Newcastle-under-Lyme, odour is not a new issue. It has been a problem for a number of years and causes a great deal of anxiety and stress for those affected. We have one landfill site in my constituency, the Walley’s Quarry landfill in Silverdale. Problems arising from the site have been reported on and off for many years, but my constituents complain of the odour increasing during the last 12 months.

I will expand on the history of the site in a moment, but there is an important point that I highlight first: we must take into account the character of an area when considering the issue of odour. In the countryside, for example, it is perfectly reasonable to expect a certain amount of odour from farming activities or similar. However, this landfill is not located in the countryside; it is in a built-up area, with residential properties within around 100 metres of the site boundary in multiple directions. True, some of these properties were approved and built in more recent years, and no doubt some will say that the principle of caveat emptor should apply in those circumstances, even if the odour issues have been getting worse. However, a number of longer standing properties belonging to people who have lived in their village and community all their lives are also badly affected, and it is in that context that the debate and the concern of my constituents should be understood.

The landfill has been in operation since 2007 and has planning permission for the tipping of non-hazardous waste until 2026, after which it will be capped with inert material. A number of improvements and technological advancements have been made to the landfill over the past few years, and I recognise that the operator, RED Industries, complies with the law as it stands, which requires it to use the best available technology to minimise emissions and odour. However, despite these best efforts, there remains a persistent odour issue affecting residents in neighbouring communities.

As the name suggests, Walley’s Quarry is a former clay extraction quarry that was converted to landfill use. The local borough and county council objected to the original application in 1997 but were overruled by the then Secretary of State, John Prescott. Local campaigners have since raised this issue over a number of years, including the former county and borough councillor for the area, Alderman Derrick Huckfield, who convened many meetings with affected parties, his residents and the Environment Agency. More recently, local residents Graham Eagles and Steve Meakin established a local “Stop the Stink” group and Facebook page, and in around a fortnight secured 2,400 signatures on a petition that they set up. I have not been able to verify each and every signature, but I believe that this response and the response that I had on the doorsteps during the election campaign and on my own Facebook page are an accurate expression of the strength of feeling in these communities.

There is also a liaison committee for the landfill, which brings together the operator, the local community and the local council, which has been ably chaired by my council leader, Simon Tagg. However, the feeling among residents and many committee members is that it is too often just a talking shop. RED Industries attends the meetings and has supported a number of local projects with its communities fund. However, it has been unwilling to concede that the site does in fact smell, in spite of the Environment Agency’s findings, which I will come to shortly. This has understandably led to an element of mistrust on the part of those affected.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend on securing this important debate, which, as he has rightly said, has provoked a lot of interest from hon. Members. Does he agree that the issue is the threshold at which the Environment Agency can act, not only on landfill odour, but on biodigester odour, too? Residents near Kennel Farm in my constituency are experiencing problems with biodigester odour. As I understand it, the Environment Agency can act to revoke the permit only if the operation poses a risk to human health or the environment. Why on earth are residents’ needs not better taken into account?

[Aaron Bell]

I am sorry to hear that my right hon. Friend is having similar issues in her constituency. I agree that we should not be relying on World Health Organisation standards of danger to health as our minimum standard. We should take residents’ concerns much more seriously. I believe odour can cause significant mental health concerns for residents.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

My constituents in Royal Wootton Bassett suffer badly from the Crapper & Sons Landfill Ltd site—the name, incidentally, is indicative—next to that great town. When I visited them last week, they told me that the rain has made the odour much worse. The site operators admit to the odour and are taking steps to put it right. The real way to put it right is by capping it off, which they are starting to do, and by reducing the amount we put into landfill. They are now bringing in innovative ways of recycling, reducing landfill, so that soon the people of Wootton Bassett will no longer suffer from the appalling smell, as they have for the past year or so.

[Aaron Bell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I know of that case, as my father-in-law lives nearby in the village of Purton. Capping the sites off, as will eventually happen at Walley’s Quarry, offers residents some hope in the end. I recognise that operators are employing better technology all the time, but that is no consolation to people enduring the smell now.

I asked my constituents to contribute their thoughts and I will quote from some of their emails. Some constituents report “retching” and feeling sick from the odour, with others describing feeling as though they can taste the smell and it is catching the back of their throat. One described the smell as

“a blight on our community.”

Many residents report that they can identify the smell further away, sometimes in the centre of Newcastle, which is bad for its nightlife and day activities, or further north in Wolstanston and Bradwell. Other constituents highlight that they feel unable to use their garden, to open their windows or to hang washing outside. Most worrying are the cases of those for whom the smell is persistent inside their homes. The odour is also worrying for those with existing breathing difficulties and conditions such as asthma. They believe it is making their health worse.

I myself smelt the tell-tale “rotten egg” odour at times during my canvassing and campaigning for the general election, though it was notable that residents on the same estate had vastly differing responses to the smell on the same day.

[Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. In my constituency there is a landfill site—which I call a dump—that deals with about 60% of all waste in Northern Ireland. Even after such sites are closed off, if the gase is not flares off, methane leaks into the atmosphere and still causes a problem years after. We have no way of policing this. Minimum standards are employed by our Environment Agency, but we need to go way beyond that. We need to set higher standards and enforce them, so that operators abide by them. We do not currently see best practice.

[Aaron Bell]

I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman’s constituents. In the case I am discussing, the operators do flare off the methane that has been produced and that will be an ongoing requirement for them after they start capping it off, but where the Environment Agency is not strong enough, we need to do more, as I will say in my requests to the Minister.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), who as a Minister cannot speak in this debate, told me of similar problems in her constituency. She relates that her residents have happily lived by a landfill site for many years, but in the last few months they have experienced a pungent eggy smell, which has at times engulfed their homes. They have experienced inertia on the part of the Environment Agency in effectively managing their concerns.

My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Robert Largan) discussed with me the landfill site in Arden Quarry in Birch Vale, which is a major concern for many of his constituents, even though the operator is working hard to reduce odours. My right hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling)—a fellow Staffordshire MP, who as a member of the Cabinet also cannot speak in this debate, though she wanted to attend—has had similar problems in her constituency with landfills emitting odourous gases and she has worked hard to improve the situation for local residents. This is affecting constituents around the country and Members in all parts of the House.

Since being elected in December, I have held meetings with local campaigners, some of whom I mentioned earlier, the Environment Agency, and RED Industries Ltd, which runs the site. The Environment Agency is responsible for the regulation of the environmental permit for Walley’s Quarry landfill site, and it carried out an ambient air monitoring study between 15 January and 25 June 2019. The objective of the study was to identify the local sources of air pollution and to quantify the environmental impact of the emissions on the surrounding area and the local community. The most recent survey demonstrated that there was a continuous source of methane and hydrogen sulphide—the latter being the “rotten egg” smell that people find so distasteful—coming from the direction of the landfill, and it found that hydrogen sulphide concentrations occasionally exceeded odour limits, though not health limits, which are measured against WHO guidelines, as I mentioned earlier.

Further, I find it disappointing that the Environment Agency does not go so far as to say that the smell is coming from the landfill in its report. Rather, it says:

“Directional analysis showed that there was a continuous source of CH4 and H2S from the direction of Walleys Quarry landfill site and that a build-up of these compounds was seen under conditions of low wind speed and temperature and high pressure.”

It is disappointing that the agency that is supposed to be looking out for people cannot point the finger when it should.

What am I asking the Minister to do? First, it would be extremely helpful if the she or her departmental colleagues came to Newcastle-under-Lyme to see—or perhaps smell—the problem for themselves. I believe my residents and the operator would also welcome dialogue with the Department. The Environment Agency needs a stronger hand in dealing with operators. I think my constituents would agree with me when I say that at present the Environment Agency is a little bit toothless in dealing with issues as they arise. What is really needed is an empowered agency, able to properly hold operators accountable. Will the Minister consider giving the Environment Agency a broader range of powers to allow it to deal more quickly and effectively with minor and frequent breaches that do not necessarily lead to the revocation of a licence?

We also need to look at the role of local communities. Local communities have few options for remedy against a waste operator where the operator acts in compliance with its environmental permit and is not causing demonstrable adverse health effects. Odour is not something which can be measured objectively; quantifying and characterising odours is very challenging because each person’s sensitivity to odours varies. Further, reaching a judgment on whether odour constitutes a statutory nuisance can take time, especially if the occurrence is unpredictable and only apparent for short periods, or is dependent on particular weather patterns. Local communities know best how their lives are affected. Their needs should be considered throughout monitoring and investigation, so that their concerns are taken seriously.

More generally, the regulations governing odour are not fit for purpose. A site that smells may not be causing health issues, as judged by World Health Organisation criteria, but that is not to say that it should be allowed to smell. The example of Walley’s Quarry landfill site highlights that an operator may be compliant with its permit and planning permission, but that does not mean that it is not causing offence to its neighbours. As one of the richest and most developed countries in the world, we should aspire to higher standards than the bare minimum stipulations of WHO. I argue that the bar of statutory nuisance is too high. Will the Minister look again at whether that is the best measure to determine if a landfill site’s smell is at an acceptable level in view of its location? The level of odour in Silverdale is not fair to residents. It has a significant impact on their quality of life, even though it is at a legally permissible level. That needs to change.

I also argue that the practices of the Environment Agency fuel a lack of trust between communities and the agency. Communities want to feel that they have been listened to; they want to know that their concerns are being taken seriously, and that they can trust that effective monitoring is taking place when they express concerns. The persistence of the problem of odour in Newcastle-under-Lyme has understandably created a sense of powerlessness in the community, and residents do not feel that their concerns have been taken seriously enough by the Environment Agency. It took nearly six months for the findings of the monitoring exercise last year to be made public, which contributed to a regrettable sense of suspicion among some of my constituents. Will the Minister consider asking the agency to make the data from site monitoring more easily available to residents and the general public? If such data were made available publicly, live on a website or with a short delay for quality assurance, communities would be able to see directly for themselves that monitoring is taking place; they would be able to understand the levels of air pollution and odour being detected. That small change could go some way to help communities to feel less anxious, fitting in with the general agenda of the greater government transparency.

Finally, will the Minister work with her colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure that no future landfill sites are allowed to be built so close to where people live, as is the case in Newcastle-under-Lyme? Living next to a landfill site will never be pleasant, and the Environment Agency acknowledges that no landfill site will ever be odour-free. To avoid problems in the duture, we should tighten up planning rules to ensure that landfill sites cannot be permitted within a certain distance of existing housing. I am grateful to the Minister for listening so attentively, and I look forward to her response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her intervention, but I want to go on about landfill in particular, because we are desperately trying to reduce the amount going to landfill. The Environment Bill wants us to drive towards 65% municipal waste recycling by 2033, with no more than 10% going to landfill. I commend the people of the west midlands for assisting with that aim, because they only send 7.3% of their municipal waste to landfill. Aside from the issue being raised today, the west midlands is doing a good job.

Planning and deciding where landfill sites and waste facilities should go is very much a local decision. It is not a Government decision, but something to be talked about locally. If it is not considered a risk to the environment or to public health, it is very much for the local authorities to decide whether a site will be a statutory nuisance. It is for them to make these decisions when allocating sites.

I will move on to Walley’s Quarry landfill. Obviously, I sympathise with residents who have raised complaints about the odour. No landfill will ever be completely odour-free, but the level and type of odour arising from such operations should not cause offence. I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware that Walley’s Quarry landfill is operated under an environmental permit. Since 2005, it has been actively managed for municipal and industrial non-hazardous waste. Environmental permits of that type are regulated by the Environment Agency in England; to protect the environment and people, it sets the conditions for the permitted activities.

In response to odour complaints from my hon. Friend’s constituents, from July 2017 to February 2018 and again from January to June 2019, the Environment Agency undertook specialist continuous air quality monitoring, including for hydrogen sulphide: the typical rotten egg smell that we all remember from our chemistry lessons—I am sure you do, Sir Christopher. The monitoring undertaken in 2019 found emissions to be within all relevant health and air quality limits; hydrogen sulphide exceeded an odour limit above which complaints would be expected for just 1% of the monitoring period. Contrary to my hon. Friend’s information, the results of that monitoring are publicly available and were shared with Public Health England, which confirmed that the levels recorded were low and that it would not expect any long-term health consequences.

[Aaron Bell]

There was an initial monitoring period where odour limits were breached for 6% of the time. Residents feel that that measure is not an accurate reflection of what they are experiencing, and they feel that the public health measure is not the one we should be testing against. We should be testing the experience they are having and the effect that is having on their quality of life.

[Rebecca Pow]

I get my hon. Friend’s point, but the permit conditions require an Environment Agency officer to make a judgment about whether the odour is offensive. Enforcement action can be taken only when the odour is deemed to be offensive and the operator is not using all appropriate measures to control the odour.

The Environment Agency can make unannounced visits to the site to check what is going on. To date, it has not taken any enforcement action against the operator, as it considers the operator to be compliant with the permit conditions. For the odour to be deemed non-compliant, an Environment Agency officer would need to detect the odour and certify that the site operator had not taken steps to control it. As I said, it is up to the local environmental health practitioner to take action if it is deemed that the odour is a nuisance. If it is not a health issue or an environment issue under the Environment Agency criterion, it goes to the environment health practitioner—somebody based locally at the local council. That is how the issue is handled.

I understand that Newcastle-Under-Lyme Borough Council has undertaken its own investigations in response to its duty to investigate complaints that could constitute a statutory nuisance. It has stepped in, and the council’s environmental health investigations have concluded that while odours have been detected and are likely to cause annoyance, they do not meet the threshold for statutory nuisance abatement action to be taken. However, in response to local concerns—I am sure my hon. Friend has also raised these—the council has decided to establish a scrutiny inquiry to provide a structured and publicly accessible forum to hear residents’ concerns about how the site is managed and the Environment Agency’s monitoring. I welcome that approach and I would be interested to be kept informed as to what is found as a result of that scrutiny.

While the Environment Agency has found Walley’s Quarry landfill to be compliant with its permit conditions based on inspections and air quality monitoring, we must recognise that local residents are raising genuine concerns. The operator of Walley’s Quarry landfill has taken some action already, which I am sure my hon. Friend knows about. In 2019, it installed an additional 19 gas extraction wells to help extract the gas produced from the treatment, which has helped to reduce the odours. I am told that the wells have made a difference. Given my hon. Friend’s constituents’ concerns, the Environment Agency also attends a quarterly local liaison forum with representatives from Newcastle-Under-Lyme Borough Council and Staffordshire County Council, parish councils, the operator of the site and residents. I am sure my hon. Friend is welcome to go to those as well. They discuss all manner of things, including dust, seagulls, noise and traffic, so it sounds very proactive.

The Environment Agency also runs a citizens information page, which is constantly updated. The details of its air quality monitoring are on there and regularly updated for all to see. It also provides a monthly community newsletter. I think there is a great deal going on, although that is not to say that people do not have concerns. All waste management facilities are required to have a written management system designed to minimise the risk of pollution and reduce the impact on local communities and the environment. Those management systems cover all the topics that I have just mentioned—odour, flies, noise and dust management—so it should be pretty inclusive.

Other commitments in our resources and waste strategy, which I mentioned, include work to strengthen the requirement for those operating permitted waste sites to be technically competent, and far-reaching reforms to the ways in which waste is transported and tracked in the UK. That will improve our understanding of how waste is managed and provide better data on the composition and the destination of waste that could be repurposed or recycled, in order to be sure about what is going to landfill. Measures to enable those reforms and others are included in the aforementioned Environment Bill, which is progressing through the House. I urge my hon. Friend to take part in that tomorrow.

I fully sympathise with my hon. Friend’s constituents who have felt the need to raise their concerns about the odour. I am pleased that the Environment Agency and local partners are taking local action, and I hope that the introduction of additional gas wells demonstrates that the operator is trying to be proactive. I trust that Newcastle-Under-Lyme Borough Council’s upcoming scrutiny inquiry will prove useful. I would be pleased to be kept updated about that, if it throws up any interesting areas that have not been considered.

I reiterate that the Government are committed to reducing the impact of waste in the long term across the board, and for less to end up ultimately in landfill. That is our intention through the waste and resources strategy and the Environment Bill. I know that the Environment Agency is committed to working locally with partners and my hon. Friend. The door to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs team is open should further advice be needed. I thank my hon. Friend for bringing the matter to our attention.

Question put and agreed to.