Draft Animal Welfare (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2022

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 General Committees

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you for officiating in our deliberations this afternoon, Mr Hosie. Just as the Minister is substituting for a colleague, I am, too. Clearly, I am not my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones). She tested positive for covid last week and is leading by example, isolating at home. I know we all wish her a speedy recovery.

We will not oppose the draft regulations, but our being here is another case of too little, too late, and a Government who are just are not delivering. This is the Government who, back in 2019, supposedly “got Brexit done”, but here we are now, with Ministers using vital parliamentary time to correct their mistakes—mistakes made in Downing Street—rather than discussing bold policy, new ideas and a proper vision. Her Majesty’s Government are being forced to table legislation that gives effect to changes that are broadly technical in nature but, unsurprisingly, are necessary to correct their own failures and deficiencies in EU law now retained following Brexit.

As my noble Friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch said when this instrument was before the other place, these failures should and could have been spotted earlier. Will the Minister make it crystal clear to the Committee when these errors first came to light and why they were not identified earlier? I would be grateful if she also let us know whether there has been any detriment to animal welfare controls since the passage of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 as a result of this incorrect wording. Many campaigners and stakeholders in the community will be watching for answers, and if the Minister cannot provide them today, I hope she will write to me and my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West at the earliest opportunity.

I would also like the Minister to explain the rationale for changing mandatory cost recovery to discretionary cost recovery. On the face of it, this seems sensible, but will she say something more about the types of case where it would not be in the public interest to pursue cost recovery? Is there a danger that, if we now switch to what Lord Benyon described as a “case-by-case basis”, it could lead to broader failure in enforcement action, with many authorities making a financial calculation that the cost is just not worth the effort, particularly if it is a marginal benefit. Could there be an overall drop in enforcement as a result?

Such an effect would not surprise the Opposition, as time and again Ministers have been weak on language, weak on impact and weak on delivery. Take the Environment Act 2021, or the “may not must” Act: at every turn, rather than being bold and ambitious and demanding action and change through the use of the word “must”, Ministers were happy to satisfy their personal interest by settling for “may”. Missed opportunities and no ambition—that sums up this Government and this Prime Minister.

I would like to draw the Minister's attention to paragraph 7.5 of the explanatory memorandum, which I know she will have read in considerable detail. It says that the outdated references have been updated to refer to current legislation. For ease of reference, would she provide some examples, please? Does she think the current standards are equivalent to or better than the old ones?

The Minister is destined for Cabinet in the next reshuffle, I am sure, so she will know that this is rather a complex area of regulation. As part of the audition, can we have an assurance that it will not be on the Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency’s target list? We all know he has a list. We can picture him now, in the tower of the constituency residence, burning the midnight oil, writing on parchment—no doubt with a quill made in the west country—night cap in place upon his head, with some hot cocoa beside him, pursuing his bonfire of regulations.

As we approach 12 July, talking about bonfires can of course stoke the interest of some, although I suspect the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) and some of the Democratic Unionist party crew will be in a minority this on 12 July this year and in the years ahead, but this is important. Why? Because if legislation like this is on the target list, we need answers. What will the process be and when will we hear more about how Her Majesty's Government intends to conduct that review?

I hope that the Minister will follow up in writing on that specific point, and that by asking in this way I have drawn it to the attention of her officials, who I know are following proceedings. I ask more than anything because such a letter will make for excellent reading on my return home to Leeds on a Thursday in the weeks ahead.

Last, I want to acknowledge and thank the campaigners and stakeholders who I know work closely with my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West, the shadow Minister on all things to do with animal welfare. I think of Sonul at Four Paws, Andy at the league and of course David at the RSPCA, all of whom I know have been in close contact with my hon. Friend and her office. Their support for the animal welfare agenda and their campaigning work is vital as we hold Ministers to account. They play a leading role in helping to shape policy that furthers the fight for better animal protections and, most important for the Opposition, their work influences what we are doing. It is very good to see the Minister today, but I wish we were not having to clear up the mess that has been created

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call shadow Minister Alex Sobel.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Windermere is England’s biggest lake, and the beautiful weather this week has attracted huge numbers of swimmers to its shores, but people are being advised by conservationists not to swim or let their dogs in the water due to the amount of raw sewage being pumped into it by United Utilities. However, the official figures report that the Environment Agency claims that the amount of untreated sewage has reduced and there were no spills last year. Will the Minister admit that the reporting system is broken and take urgent steps to ensure that there is reliable monitoring so that people can enjoy beautiful Lake Windermere?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue, but that is why we have a very sound system in place through the Environment Act and through our directions to Ofwat, the regulator, to tackle this area. It is why event duration monitoring will be in all storm overflows by 2023. It is why we have such an important and comprehensive system of monitoring and reporting back on when these storm overflows are being used. It is why we are tackling the water quality above and below storm sewage overflows so that we can demonstrate what is happening and action can be taken—and action will be taken on the water companies; we make absolutely no bones about that at all.

Ofwat: Strategic Priorities

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I sincerely thank the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) for all the work that he has done on this issue. He has done so as Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, on which I, too, served, spending much of my early years here with him on the Committee—in fact, today marks the fifth anniversary since I was elected—through his private Member’s Bill and through his significant campaigning on issues of sewage. He opened the debate in his typically stylish way.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate—a Committee on which I also served as a Back Bencher. I know the vital role that it plays in allowing important subjects to be aired in the House. I also thank all the Members who have taken part in this last piece of parliamentary business this week.

We have had a broad range of excellent contributions. The hon. Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker) is a doughty defender of anglers and the need for clean water for angling. He will be pleased to hear that I have met the Angling Trust. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), whom I was with in Plymouth just last week, called for greater accountability on the SPS and the need for more powers at Ofwat, and his points were well made. He is right about the lack of a clear plan for decarbonisation and nature restoration, and I commend him on his ambitious campaign to get Devil’s Point designated an official bathing water spot. Maybe one day I will be able to bathe in it with him. [Interruption.] In wetsuits—I hope people will not read too much into that.

The hon. Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) made an important contribution on flooding, which, due to climate change, will be ever more frequent unless more action is taken, especially on upland catchments. My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) gave an account of Mogden sewage treatment works discharging into the Duke of Northumberland’s river—one of too many such horrific events.

The hon. Member for Southend West (Anna Firth) made a good point about the need to ban wet wipes. We already had a Bill that my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) attempted to get through the House, and hopefully we will see it come back to this place again. The hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) made a good point about nature-based solutions; I saw a similar project to the one he described on a reed bed in Norfolk by Anglian Water and Norfolk Rivers Trust, and we need to see many more of them. The hon. Member for Wantage (David Johnston) made a good point about new housing creating huge strain on the infrastructure dealing with sewage.

The fact is that our rivers are dirty. They have been dirty for too long, and they have got dirtier. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, we need them cleaned up. The Victorian sewage system was implemented because the Thames had become so toxic that the Prime Minister of the time, Benjamin Disraeli, could no longer stand to be in the Chamber during the “Great Stink” of 1858. He said the Thames had become,

“a Stygian pool, reeking with ineffable and intolerable horrors”.

Outside Parliament now, the heirs of Bazalgette are creating the super sewer, which will reduce sewage overflow into the Thames in central and east London—although not in west London past Hammersmith, a point my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth made. However, it is the only such project in the UK. When the House passed a motion declaring an environment and climate emergency three years ago, that should have challenged the water industry and the Government to undertake radical change. We can no longer accept being the dirty man of Europe.

It is fair to say that the Government have started to move on this, although they have been brought to it reluctantly, and in no small part due to campaigning of the right hon. Member for Ludlow and the screeching public outrage when Conservative MPs were whipped to vote against an amendment calling for the end of raw sewage discharges. We need more power in the hands of consumers so that they can understand what is happening in their communities.

Let us recap the water industry numbers so that we can see where there is space in the system for solutions. The water companies in England collectively invested £1 billion less in real terms last year than they did in 1991. In the past 11 years they have added £19 billion in dividends to shareholders. That is the financial leakage.

Then there is the water leakage, with 229,000 litres in 2021 and, as we know, hundreds of thousands of sewage dumping events. In 2020, there were just shy of 400,000. In the same year, the average household in England saw £62 of their bills go as dividend. The hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) made a good point about water company bosses receiving bonuses while those dumping events take place.

[Philip Dunne]

The hon. Gentleman is making an impressive speech and I am grateful for his kind comments about our serving on the Committee together. On the matter of dividend payments, is he aware that many of the water companies’ capital structures mean that payments made as interest on the significant loans they take out to invest in their businesses are structured by way of dividend payments to inter-company subsidiaries and accounts? Therefore, the gross amount of dividends does not actually reflect dividend payments to equity shareholders, but includes interest payments.

[Alex Sobel]

I think the figure I quoted was just dividends to shareholders, but I will check on that. I understand the point the right hon. Gentleman makes. We need to de-duplicate that data.

The Rivers Trust has a brilliant website with an interactive map that allows people to zoom in on where they live and see where raw sewage is being discharged. It is disturbing to see how close to many of our communities this discharge is taking place—even directly on to children’s playing fields. We need a plan for raw sewage discharges that considers not only storm overflows, but a creaking sewage system. There is routine discharge of raw sewage into rivers and seas, not in the event of extreme weather from combined sewer overflows but as a result of daily discharges. The fines levied against companies include the £90 million fine for Southern Water, but we are still seeing discharges by Southern Water—for instance, in Whitstable, affecting the fishing and tourism industries. This just shows that the system is not working. I agree with comments by Members on both sides of the House about delays in prosecution. Ministers need to make sure that the Environment Agency puts real emphasis on bringing further prosecutions. The level of fines is not yet producing a change in behaviour in water companies and stopping raw sewage being routinely discharged. The word “routinely” really matters, because it means that it happens every single day. While we have been debating, the water companies have been routinely discharging raw sewage, not because of extreme weather in the past hour but because of a sewerage system that cannot cope with the level of demand being placed on it and the lack of investment in it. I will resist the temptation to slip into a speech on sustainable urban drainage, which we can pick up on another time.

The Environment Act 2021 sets out changes to the way that raw sewage will be reported on and the need for plans. It did not set out a timetable for when the scandal of raw sewage discharge would be brought to an end, nor did it set out any interim targets. The Ofwat strategic priorities also fail to give that clear direction. We need to delve into the workings of the water industry. That will influence the changes for water companies in the next pricing period, but what changes are happening right now? They know that they do not have to invest in the same way until the next pricing period, because Ofwat sets the pricing controls and the investment strategies. Although many water companies fell foul of the business plans in this period, I doubt that we will see a huge surge in action to close raw sewage outfalls and investment in the treatment period until the next price period. The challenge is what we do about it now, and that really matters. What we discharge into our rivers is not always easily seen. We need a clear plan to understand how much will be stopped, how much will be properly treated, and how much will be carefully looked after in future. Water companies discharged raw sewage into England’s rivers 372,533 times last year—a slight reduction on the previous year. Taking the past three years together, raw sewage was discharged over 1 million times for a duration of over 8 million hours.

The Government’s storm overflows discharge plan has been rightly criticised for its lack of urgency. Mark Lloyd, the chief executive officer of the Rivers Trust, said:

“I’m disappointed that this plan lacks the urgency we so desperately need. This plan is going to need strong input from civil society and NGOs like The Rivers Trust if it is going to outpace the twinned climate and nature crises we’re currently facing. We want to have rivers where people and wildlife can thrive, but the target timelines in the plan are far too slow—I want to see this in my lifetime!”

I do not know how old the CEO is, but that is probably a considerable length of time.

Data released by the EA show that the 10 water companies covering England were releasing raw sewage into waterways for hundreds of thousands of hours in 2021. The 372,533 spills were recorded only on those overflows where event duration monitors were in place—just 89%, so the actual figure is considerably higher. More than 60 discharges a year from an overflow is considered too high and should trigger an investigation. On average, 14% of discharges from the 10 water companies passed that limit. In one event last year, 8.7 million gallons of raw sewage discharged into the River Calder above Wakefield, and the fine was just £7,000. Water companies in England are under investigation by the regulator—Ofwat—and the EA after they admitted that they may have illegally released untreated sewage into rivers and waterways. The investigation will involve more than 2,200 sewage treatment works, but any company found breaching its legal permit is liable to enforcement action, including fines or prosecutions. Fines can now be up to up to 10% annual turnover in civil cases or unlimited in criminal proceedings, and I welcome that.

The SPS states that Ofwat should

“enhance the quality of the water environment”.

However, last autumn, beaches around the Tees estuary and along the coast in North Yorkshire saw a huge rise in dead and dying crabs and lobsters. Dogs were also found to be falling ill after being walked on the beaches. In January, the Government launched what they called an “investigation”. In February, they put out a press release announcing that the mass death of sea creatures and the dog illnesses were caused by an algal bloom. The Minister and I have an association going right back to when I first got elected, and one thing I learned from her is that it is always good to be appropriately dressed for debates, which is why I have worn this tie today. I notice that she is dressed in a very algal-bloom green, so I am not sure whether she is going to refer to this issue in her closing remarks. The Government claimed that there had been a rapid increase in the population of algae that can release toxins into the water and affect other wildlife, but no data or evidence was published.

An algal bloom occurring in October or in February ranges from unlikely to impossible, as blooms require high temperatures and clear water, and the sea off Northumbria and the Tees is cold and turgid. Also, no bloom was noticed by the local fishing community, so they and anglers commissioned an independent investigation by a marine pollution consultant, Tim Deere-Jones. Using freedom of information requests, he found that the Government had based their judgment that it was algal bloom on only satellite data. More astonishing, he also found that levels of pyridine, a toxic pollutant, in crabs caught in the north-east and tested by the Government was 74 times higher than in crabs caught in Cornwall. Will the Minister now bring together agencies including Ofwat and the Environment Agency, as well her own Department, to get to the truth of the matter?

The strategic policy statement is not just about protecting the environment and the stability of the industry; it is also about protecting consumers. The Government claim that their No. 1 priority is the cost of living crisis, but social tariffs are a postcode lottery, with no consistency between companies in the financial support offered to consumers and no legal minimum. The Government have not even imposed a statutory duty on water companies to provide that support or on Ofwat to require it. The Government have set the weakest possible framework. Average water bills rose by 1.7 % to £419 in April 2022, but there is significant regional variation, with the average bill rising by 10.8% in one water company area. People are struggling, and for many households a water bill can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend is a great advocate for this, as Members can tell, and he has regularly bent my ear about the green spaces in his constituency. Through our Environment Act 2021, we have a strengthened duty on local authorities to assess what they can do to further conservation and biodiversity, and we have placed a duty on designated authorities to produce these local nature recovery strategies. We also have that world-leading target to halt the decline in nature. So I urge him to work with the council and get it to do more, but it could replace those concrete blocks with hedges. The air pollution Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), would be grateful for that, as there are some views that that would help to tackle air pollution as well.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

How bio- diversity and renaturing is undertaken in the UK will be guided by the convention on biological diversity. Biodiversity has experienced a catastrophic collapse globally. The United Nations biodiversity COP15 is shortly to resume. What are the Government’s strategic goals at COP15? What equivalent headline target is there to the net zero target at COP26, which is well understood in local urban communities and across the UK?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that and for his shared interest in biodiversity. He is right: we must not just do this at home—we have to deal with it abroad as well. Biodiversity loss is a global problem and the forthcoming COP15 on the convention on biological diversity will be really important in furthering our work to bend the curve on the loss of biodiversity. That was agreed at the G7, and the aim of the CBD is to get as many as countries as possible to sign up to that.

Draft Flood Reinsurance (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2022 General Committees

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Robertson. I thank the Minister for introducing the draft regulations.

In recent years, we have seen a sharp increase in extreme weather events all over the world. In the UK, storms and increased rainfall have destroyed homes and claimed lives. We are now at a point where communities are faced with flooding on a semi-regular basis. For those communities, flooding brings misery and huge inconvenience. It can also be financially devastating, which is why people living in flood-risk areas must have access to good, affordable insurance.

In my constituency, that happened on Boxing Day 2015, when the River Wharfe flooded parts of Otley. Since being elected in 2017, I have had to support flooding victims on the difficulties of getting reinsured due to the increased risks. Flood Re has been useful to my constituents, so I am particularly pleased to be responding to the draft legislation. Independent research shows that the availability of insurance for householders at risk of flooding is improving, so I am pleased that Flood Re has been successful in that respect. I am also glad that the scheme is financially secure—it has met its initial liquidity and capital requirements, and has a high solvency ratio.

For those reasons, I agree that reducing the levy on insurance companies from £180 million to £135 million a year makes sense. The figure needs to be kept under review, as climate risk will mean that insurance risk will vary. I will continue to monitor that and hold the Minister to account in future years if more support is needed for flooding victims.

Her Majesty’s Opposition have some questions, which I would be thankful if the Minister will help to address. Flood Re proposes to reimburse insurers up to £10,000 for the Build Back Better scheme in order to reduce the future risk of the property flooding and/or the cost of repair. That will mean that property owners can pay for repair after a flood, which makes the home more resilient to flood damage than before. I was pleased that the Minister mentioned air brick covers and other such innovations in her introduction.

I am very much in favour of the support, but I am concerned that, under the proposals, insurers are not obligated to participate in the Build Back Better scheme. Does the Minister not agree that it should be compulsory for all Flood Re policies to participate in the scheme, when we consider the increased threat of flooding and subsequent need to make buildings more flood resilient? Has she considered making the measure compulsory and, if so, what are the reasons for her rejection of that?

In addition, I will express concerns that I know have been raised in the past, but that I am not convinced have yet been adequately resolved. The existing proposals protect only homeowners. Will the Minister consider widening access to the scheme to protect those in tenanted and rented properties? Renters are likely to be more vulnerable to the financial impact of flooding and yet, under the proposals, they are the least protected. Renters are also less likely to realise the flood risk of their property and many renters are in precarious employment that might be dependent on equipment which could be destroyed in flooding, leaving them without income. Insurance becomes the difference between them working and not.

I have also been in contact with farmers, who are concerned that their homes are not protected under the scheme. Will the Minister clarify the status of farmhouses, which fall into a grey area between residential and business premises?

The scheme is targeted towards households at high risk of flooding across the UK. If recent years and the extreme weather events that have defined them are anything to go by, however, we know that high risk—risk in general—is broadening its scope, and areas previously deemed to be safe now experience flooding events never seen before. Therefore, how is “high risk” defined by the Environment Agency, and how are areas reassessed in a way that keeps up with the impact of extreme weather events? I want to know whether the Minister has had discussions with the Environment Agency about risk. I am interested to hear what assessments were made about the changes that might be needed.

Finally, I draw attention to the fact that more than 5,000 new homes in flood-risk areas of England were granted planning permission last year, despite the Environment Agency advising against such developments. Does the Minister agree that the Environment Agency should be given power to ensure that homes are not built against its advice? In my view, that is a crucial change to avoid unnecessary future flooding and the devastation that comes with it. I hope that the Minister will address my concerns.

I can see the Minister desperately looking for her papers, so I will talk for a few more seconds to give her time.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

She is all right.

[Alex Sobel]

The Minister is doing very well. I am sure she will give a full response to all my queries. People up and down the country, whether homeowners, renters or farmers, are all keen to get clarification on those points. She shares my concerns about the increased number of flooding events and the impact of climate change on our rivers. We need to be constantly mindful of the risks involved in potential flooding events. If she does not need more time, I will conclude.

[The Chair]

There are others who wish to speak.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the shadow Minister and welcome him to the Dispatch Box in his new position. I call Alex Sobel.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

On Boxing day 2015, many town and city centres were devastated by floods. Spending on national flood defences is, in fact, 10% down on what it was in 2015. With increased storm events, how will the Minister defend residential and business properties with adequate climate adaptation this winter?

[George Eustice]

First, may I apologise for my oversight in not welcoming the hon. Gentleman to his place at the beginning of this session?

We have made available £5.2 billion, and this is a significant increase in the capital programme over the next few years. Included in that is some dedicated work on property resilience, where we are working with communities and flood forums locally to identify how we can improve the resilience of individual properties and, when there is a flood incident, to make grants available to them so that they can replace some of their doors in order to be more flood-ready in future.

Environment Bill

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend. This is an important issue and we have thought about it. The Government will come back and report on the costs and benefits; we are doing a whole analysis of that. As an approximate estimate, to get rid of or eliminate storm sewage overflows would cost between—these are very wide figures—£150 billion and £660 billion. One must consider the cost of bills, because there will be an impact on those. That is why I made the point earlier that a lot of other areas in connection with our rivers and our water are really important. We must also deal with those, and it must be proportionate. My hon. Friend is right, and we will soon have the data from our storm overflows taskforce, and from our duty to report on what the cost benefits would be of completely eliminating storm overflows. Such things are used far too frequently, but they are also an emergency measure that should potentially always remain, just in case we have to deal with huge floods.

Another area of work that needs to be done—we are doing it—involves levelling up and what was MHCLG but is now DLUHC, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities,. It is about sustainable development and what we do with drain water, all the rest of the water, and separating out our systems. This is a cross-departmental issue, and we are tackling some really important matters in the Bill.

The Bill also requires us to set and achieve at least one target in the priority area of water. Our policy paper, which was published in August 2020, set out the objectives for the water targets we were considering. Those include reducing pollution from agriculture, waste water, abandoned metal mines, and reducing water demand. All those issues are significant to the whole area we are talking about.

Outside the Bill, we have committed to undertaking a review of the case for implementing schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 in England. That schedule would set mandatory build standards for sustainable drainage schemes on new developments, which so many people have been calling for. Those are not mandatory at the moment, but to really have an effect, they need to be. We are reviewing that and, based on what we find, we will be working with DLUHC on that very issue.

We have moved further; with Lords amendments 46, 47, and 74, we will require water companies to do near real-time reporting of storm overflows and water quality monitoring upstream and downstream of storm overflows and sewage disposal works so that we have fully transparent data. People called for transparency of data in the debate on the previous group of amendments, and we will have it in relation to the impact of those things on our waters.

The first part of Lords amendment 45, new section 141A of the Water Industry Act 1991, was introduced in the other place by the Duke of Wellington and seeks to place a duty on sewerage undertakers to progressively reduce the harm from storm overflows and to ensure compliance with that duty. We have listened carefully to Parliament and, as I am sure my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow will agree, we have moved on this matter more than anything else in the Bill. I hope that I have made clear everything that we are bringing forward.

That is not to say that we are not listening; we are. I am confident in all the things I have outlined, together with the draft policy statement for Ofwat, which states that we expect it to

“incentivise water companies to significantly reduce the frequency and volume of sewage discharges from storm overflows.”

That is the pointer for the water companies really needing to work on this issue. I know that a group of colleagues from the Portsmouth area are banking on that. They are working with the water companies in the area on pollution issues. They have brought all the bodies together in a partnership to tackle their sewage overflow issues, and they need what is in the Bill to point them in the right direction. We have their full support, and I commend them for all the work that they are doing. There is a whole group of colleagues doing that.

We have been clear that we want to see fewer discharges of untreated sewage into rivers, lakes and seas. I am personally determined to see that happen, and I am really proud of the actions we are taking. Lines 7 to 14 of Lords amendment 45 are therefore unnecessary, and I ask the House to support amendment (a) to leave them out.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

There are a number of sewage works on the River Wharfe upstream of my constituency, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore)—I see that he is in his place—and we both have bathing water quality issues because of that. It would be useful to know, using the example of Portsmouth that the Minister gave, how the Bill will help us unlock that with Yorkshire Water to ensure that people are not bathing, in effect, with effluent, which is what happens nearly every day on the River Wharfe.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I was proud to be part of getting bathing water designation in Otley. It is the first inland bathing water area that we have designated—we have loads around the coast—and it was a great project. However, he makes a good point, and when we are setting targets for water quality, the bathing water quality issue will very much be part of that.

I turn to Lords amendment 43, which would require that pesticide use in Great Britain can be authorised only if a competent authority is satisfied that there will be no negative effect on the health of honeybees or wild pollinator populations. I am as keen a supporter of bees and pollinators as anyone else here; I garden for wildlife and I do not use pesticides. I listened very carefully to the debate on this issue in the other place, but I am confident that there is effective regulation of pesticides to avoid harm, including to pollinators. We have consulted on a draft national action plan on the sustainable use of pesticides, which aims to minimise the risks of pesticides to human health and the environment. We will publish a final national action plan for pesticides by the end of this year. Central to the plan will be support for integrated pest management. We are supporting a shift towards greater use of IPM techniques. IPM involves designing pesticides out of farming systems as far as possible and includes increased use of nature-based, low toxicity solutions and precision technologies to manage pests, all of which will benefit pollinators.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Sobel]

As well as having deforestation goods enter the supply chain in the UK from the Amazon in Brazil, which is of vital importance, they are also coming from West Papua, Borneo, Indonesia and the Congo river basin, and a lot of it is legal, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said. We are seeking trade deals around the world. He do we ensure that businesses and Governments understand their obligations in the trade deals to ensure that we do not have further deforestation not just in Brazil, but in other countries?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Obviously, our businesses will have an obligation under what we set in our Bill, but equally, there is a whole session devoted to this at COP26, discussing exactly the issues that he raises in the wider sphere of agriculture and forestry across the globe. I urge him to follow what happens there.

On Lords amendment 66, I am very pleased to announce that we will be taking action on ancient woodland, thanks to the persuasive arguments put forward by Baroness Young of Old Scone, who has been a champion for ancient woodland, as have many Members of this House. I also put on record the Government’s thanks to the Woodland Trust for its partnership and support in updating the ancient woodland inventory. It continues to champion the need for a detailed and up-to-date inventory of this irreplaceable habitat, which is much needed; I thank the trust for stepping in to do that work. It is music to my ears particularly, because I set up the all-party parliamentary group on ancient woodland and veteran trees with the Woodland Trust when I first came to this place as a Back Bencher. I know that the Secretary of State is also passionate about ancient woodland.

I can also announce that we will undertake a review of the national planning policy framework to ensure that it is being correctly implemented in the case of ancient and veteran trees and ancient woodland. Should the review conclude that implementation can be improved, we will look to strengthen the guidance to local authorities to ensure their understanding of the protections provided to ancient woodland.

Secondly, I am pleased to announce that we will consult on strengthening the wording of the national planning policy framework to better ensure the strongest protection of ancient woodland, while recognising the complex delivery challenges for major infrastructure.

Finally, we will amend the Town and Country Planning (Consultation) (England) Direction 2021 alongside these reforms to require local planning authorities to consult the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities if they are minded to grant planning permission for developments affecting ancient woodland.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2021 Commons Chamber

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

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

What plans there are for rewilding, tree-planting and sustainable farming on Church estates.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

What steps the Church of England is taking to increase planting and rewilding on its land.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)]

Ahead of the new environmental land management schemes, we are undertaking a natural capital audit across our rural holdings. The report, which is expected later this year, will include a review of woodland management and new tree planting, including riparian planting.

[Alex Sobel [V]]

The Church is a significant UK landowner, owning 105,000 acres of land, with a property portfolio worth over £2 billion. May I ask what plans it has for rewilding, tree planting and sustainable farming on its estates, as well as for being more transparent about what land it owns and how that land is used?

[Andrew Selous]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that like him I want to see a lot more trees planted. The Church in 2020 planted 1.1 million trees, on top of the 2.6 million we planted in 2019. Page 24 of the 2020 annual report shows our top 20 property holdings and our top 20 equity holdings.

Environment Bill

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th January 2021 Commons Chamber

A number of Members noted that the new regulator might seem toothless and that the targets might need a bit more oomph. I am sort of sympathetic to that, but what we have got is a new environmental improvement plan placed on a statutory footing by what we are doing today. We are literally changing the law to make the environment better. This is a good day at the office.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The world has changed immeasurably in the year since the Bill’s First Reading. In the last 12 months covid-19 has devastated lives, torn through communities and paralysed economies across the globe. The pandemic has taken so much: lives, of course, but also hugs, handshakes, kisses, birthdays, Christmas and Eid. It has given, too: mental health issues, domestic violence and poverty. However, during the height of the pandemic the lockdown also gave us much lower emissions and much better air quality. Anecdotal evidence suggests, somewhat ironically, that those who suffer from certain respiratory illnesses fared much better during the first lockdown. That gives us a brief window into a post-pandemic future if we manage to take a hold of it. We need to create long-term structural change, underpinned by robust legislation.

In my city of Leeds, a person is 20 times more likely to die from air pollution than in a car accident—20 times. According to the Royal College of Physicians, across the UK, air pollution is responsible for 40,000 early deaths, at an economic cost of £20 billion a year. For that reason, I believe it is my moral duty to support amendment 25 to ensure that the particulate matter target for air quality is at least as strict as the WHO guidelines. That is a call I made when we introduced the charging clean air zone in Leeds, a commitment the Government have abandoned. We need to pass the amendment and reintroduce the clean air zone.

The State of Nature report says that UK species diversity is in freefall, with 15% of UK species at risk of becoming extinct. Some our most-loved animals, including Scottish wild cats, red squirrels and water voles, are at risk. I am the parliamentary species champion for the white-clawed crayfish. New clause 5 would give all those species a much better chance of survival. We also have bee-harming neonicotinoids. The UK Government recently granted emergency authorisation for sugar beet seeds to be treated by neonicotinoids. That is banned under EU law and we cannot allow it to come in through the back door, so we need to pass amendment 39.

Finally, on the OEP, its progress has been followed by the Environmental Audit Committee for three years. It is supposedly independent, but its budget, board and chair are set by the Government. Only recently, the Secretary of State said: “We will be able to guide the OEP.” It is worth noting that the Government have no comparable power in relation to any existing enforcement bodies. We therefore need to pass amendment 23 to bring a semblance of independence back to this important regulatory body, and ensure that we move forward and do not have another pause in this legislation.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con) [V]]

I am speaking from the Isle of Wight, where, in addition to being a UNESCO biosphere, we hope in the next couple of years to become the UK’s first island park, if the Government intend to bring forward the new protected landscapes Bill, as I clearly I hope they do.

I support this Bill very much—I think it is a great Bill—but I wish to speak in favour of new clauses 14 and 15 to argue the case for minimising the impact of housing on the environment. It is great that the Government want to design better, and frankly we need better design in this country, but a well-designed low-density greenfield housing estate is still a low-density greenfield housing estate, and these housing estates are, by nature, unsustainable. New clause 14 would allow for a handbrake to stop environmentally damaging housing, because it would, by law, prioritise carbon-efficient housing and carbon-efficient locations.

House building, along with everything else that we do, needs to align with the UK’s binding obligations in the Paris climate accords and carbon-efficient obligations, as well as the Government’s justified world-leading commitment to net zero by 2050. To do that, we need carbon-efficient housing solutions, and that implies a focus on cities as opposed to suburban and rural development. If we do not get that carbon-efficient housing in this Bill, as mandated by this new clause, then can we look at it for the housing Bill?

For me, this also means that we need to do more to incentivise brownfield development in not only suburban but rural areas. Very often brownfield sites are too small to be used efficiently under the current financial regime, and it is much cheaper to build inefficiently on greenfield sites. Greenfield sites, as well as being the most carbon-intensive because we are building detached houses, are also dependent on car use outside existing communities, which means dependence not only on carbon-emitting cars but on people having to travel to get to amenities rather than those amenities being built near them. Research provided by the House of Commons Library shows that homes built in urban areas are significantly less carbon-emitting than those built in suburban and rural areas.

I welcome this Bill, but can we please look at the legal requirement for the most carbon-efficient housing in the most carbon-efficient locations, not only for our climate change commitments but for quality of life in cities, in suburbs and in rural areas?

Waste Incineration and Recycling Rates

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Westminster Hall

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I thank the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for securing this debate. I do not think I have spoken in a debate with him before. It was interesting to hear about the local government politics of south-west London. I have to say, Lib Dem councillors in south-west London are no different from those in Leeds, so I have some sympathy for him. It is a shame no Lib Dem Members are here today to answer for themselves—I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree with that, although he may not agree with everything I say.

Sustainability is one of the biggest and most important challenges facing our country. On a finite planet, we cannot afford to run a throw-out society indefinitely. In the UK, we consistently miss household recycling targets. Figures showing that more than 70% of UK packaging waste was recycled or recovered in 2017 disguise the fact that recovery includes incineration. The real recycling rate is closer to 45%, compared with 54% in Wales, where Labour is in charge. In fact, Wales is a world leader when it comes to sustainability and recycling, with statutory recycling targets, national recycling campaigns and, most importantly, £1 billion to local authorities since 2000 to help them invest in recycling collection services. Wales essentially operates a circular economy, or very close to one, and has constitutionally enshrined rules that promote sustainable development, such as the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.

Unfortunately, the picture is quite different in my home city of Leeds. I frequently receive emails from constituents disappointed by Leeds’s lack of kerb-side glass and Tetra Pac recycling. I will tell you, Ms McVey, what I tell them and I am sure the Minister will want to respond. This is not the product of a lack of political or environmental will on the part of Leeds City Council, where I was in charge of this area when I was on the council. It is the result of a lack of funding from central Government and a broken system for recycling waste where the market lords it over the environment. Unfortunately, the amount of money needed to change collection vehicles and routes, to provide bins and boxes and for other associated costs is not available, and recycling facilities are not provided by the private sector as the market price for certain renewables is too low.

Recycling has been one of the quiet casualties of the austerity programme and an ideology that refuses to fix our broken markets. Local authority cuts and a free market ideology are a huge part of why the national recycling rate has been at a virtual standstill over the last few years. The latest set of cuts to Leeds City Council with £40 million of covid cost pressures and another £60 million of just run-of-the-mill Government austerity means that closure proposals are being ramped up. Ellar Ghyll recycling centre in Otley in my constituency is being proposed for closure only due to covid cost pressures. I hope the Minister can help me in my campaign to save that centre.

Recycling rates, however, have been soaring during the pandemic. The Local Government Association reports that eight in 10 councils have seen an increase in the amount of recycling collected since the start of lockdown. Some councils’ household recycling increased by 100%. That is positive news, but the Government must recognise that that has increased costs for councils and ensure that all the extra cost pressures on waste and recycling services as a result of the pandemic are met; currently, they are not.

I turn specifically to food waste, which we know to be a catastrophic problem not just in the UK but worldwide. A third of food produced globally is wasted. In the UK, households waste 4.5 million tonnes of food every year. Supermarkets and other food-adjacent businesses are the main offenders, wasting 100,000 tonnes of readily available and edible food each year, which is equivalent to 250 million meals going uneaten. Surplus food should be used to feed people first before it is sent for animal feed, incinerated for energy or sent to anaerobic digesters. Many fantastic initiatives ensure just that.

I pay particular tribute to The Real Junk Food Project, which started in Leeds and with which I have been working for nearly 10 years. It has been a pioneering force in the fight against food waste, with a core mission of feeding those in food poverty—another issue that has spiked during covid. We must ensure that large stores stop throwing away or destroying unsold food. Supermarkets should donate food waste to charities or food banks willing to take food. Again, we can look to Labour in Wales, where household food waste has reduced by 12% and is now 9% lower than in the rest of the UK.

The incineration of waste with energy recovery is slightly preferable to waste being incinerated without any energy recovery or sent to landfill, but without carbon capture and storage technology I cannot in good conscience support it. I admit that the Government are investing in CCS, but we have no full-scale working models. Without trying to pre-empt what will be said by my neighbour, the hon. Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore), I am sure he will touch on the campaign started by his predecessor against the proposal for an incinerator there. He has my sympathy and support on that, and I think he knows that—we have discussed it previously on the train.

Waste incineration is usually referred to as energy from waste, but the energy generated by energy-from-waste plants represents just 1.9% of overall UK electricity production. While electricity and reusable waste heat are clearly valuable by-products of incineration, they cannot legitimately be claimed to be the main purpose of incineration, nor can there be an economic or sustainability justification for using it as a disposal method. However, there is still no large-scale Government funding programme to support the development of anaerobic digestion, which is the solution for much organic waste that local authorities collect. Will the Minister comment on what funding she plans to bring forward for anaerobic digestion? I note that she is not wearing her leaf suit today, which is unfortunate for a debate of this nature, but I know how close these issues are to her heart and that she will want to support more anaerobic digestion.

We should also consider the fact that the smelly, loud waste incinerators that regularly breach pollution guidelines are three times more likely to be built in poorer areas than in the UK’s wealthiest areas. Nearly half of the new incinerators on track to be built will be in the UK’s 25 most deprived neighbourhoods, and more than two thirds are planned for the northern half of the country. More than 40% of existing incinerators are sited in areas more diverse than the local authority average.

At COP24, which I attended two years ago in Poland, Sir David Attenborough warned delegates that

“we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale. Our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change. If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.”

I am fairly sure that the action he had in mind did not consist of building new incinerators up and down the country. We need to come up with more innovative measures, alternative solutions to reducing consumption, boosting recycling and increasing the proportion of recycled material manufacturing. We need a green industrial revolution and a circular economy. That is the way forward, and I look forward to the Minister outlining how the Government will achieve that.