Transport Emissions: Urban Areas

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

We have been keen to make sure, certainly when it applies to buses and public transport, that we make money available to local authorities for appropriate retrofitting. Hauliers recognise that there will need to be a shift. One of the things we need to do—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport is doing this—is to make sure that we can move to a more efficient method of haulage in the future.

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

I was pleased that the Secretary of State raised electric vehicles in his opening remarks, as I have been pursuing this issue since I came to this place. I have created a nine-point plan, which I raised with the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth and more recently with the roads Minister in a debate on electric vehicles in Westminster Hall. The ideas include matching Joint Air Quality Unit funding with Office for Low Emission Vehicles funding and getting three-phase electric points. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss all nine points of my plan?

[Michael Gove]

It will be a pleasure.

Sale of Puppies

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted to serve under your chairing, Sir Roger, even though you would rather be on this side of the room talking in the debate. I know you feel passionately about it, as does Mr Austin, who was in the Chair before you. I congratulate the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day), who carefully introduced the debate. We have also heard contributions from the hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Andrea Jenkyns), my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), and the hon. Members for Clacton (Giles Watling), for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson), for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant), and the SNP spokesperson—I will try and get her constituency name right—the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron). I am pleased to see the Minister in his place.

This is a debate in which we largely agree, so I will not take up time agreeing with hon. Members who made passionate contributions on what is—let us be honest—heinous animal cruelty, and one of the worst, because it is about making money. It is in no way about trying to provide a supply of animals for which there is a demand.

I was shocked by the figure of how many registered providers there are—only 12%, and about 70% of what is provided—so the vast majority of people get their pets through fairly dodgy provision, and the simple fact is that, unless the Minister can tell us, we do not know how many people are out there operating. That is an awful thing to say, and it is because many of them do not operate in this country at all. As has been said, they operate through the south of Ireland and eastern Europe, so the animals get here after the most perilous of journeys. One presumes that many do not get here at all because they suffer in transit.

I agree with what has been said. I will not go through some of the more gory stories, but we have to recognise that they are there and take them up. I hope the Minister will take away from the debate the need for action. Most of us agree on the need for a ban. Regulation is always called for, but a complete ban seems to be the way forward in this case. Labour would support that as part of an animal welfare Act, which could likewise deal with other evils out there. As always, I am aware that it could become a Christmas tree Bill, which we stick on things to ban—we all have our favourites—but that would be appropriate in this case because people feel passionately about it.

I thank those who introduced the petition and who support Lucy’s law. The message is that the Government need to act quickly and comprehensively, because this is a trade that should not be allowed to continue in the way that it has. Puppy smuggling is one of those animal welfare issues about which one thinks, “Why does anyone do it?” As I say, they do it purely because they want to make money. There is no other reason why the trade continues.

The Animal and Plant Health Agency has done some sterling work, alongside the Dog’s Trust. I thank the Dog’s Trust, Battersea Dogs Home, Cats Protection, various other organisations and other private contributors, who have given me lots of information, which I do not intend to impart. We all know that this is a well-trailed area. It is known exactly what is going on and what should be going on.

Sadly, where the Government have acted—for instance, with the pet travel scheme—there is evidence that it has not helped, because people have perhaps used that as a device to bring in animals where other means would not have been allowed. Of course, we would strongly argue that we need additional border guards. Whatever one’s view on Brexit—no doubt the Minister and I will debate Brexit again—we need to patrol and maintain our borders, because this unacceptable trade goes on daily. Whatever we feel about a ban, we could do more to crack down on what is coming through, because it is clearly unacceptable. I hope the Minister will say something about that. Surely we must have a means to deal with that, notwithstanding the need for a ban on the third-party provision of puppies, as well as cats and other animals, as has been said. It is not just puppies; we could get into rabbits, guinea pigs and so on. Sadly, these animals are being abused, because they are being bred purely for the worst of reasons.

International studies have shown that puppies obtained from pet shops have, as has been said, a lower life expectancy than other puppies and suffer much more from disease. That is made worse if they come here from other parts of the world, as they have already faced the problems of transit. Labour would support banning third-party sales, and we hope we can get on with it. It is no good just promising it; people now expect us to take action through Parliament, so we cannot allow a delay, and obviously this is also about welfare standards, traceability, transparency and accountability.

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

What does my hon. Friend think would be the right sanction for those who broke a ban? Does he feel that they should face a custodial sentence or a fine? I want to ask the Minister the same question when he speaks, but I would like to hear from the shadow Minister first.

[Dr Drew]

I could have done with advance warning. That is a bit unfair; we are supposed to be on the same side. I think we should have strong sanctions in this area. It is not just a question of banning people from taking part in this trade; we should have the toughest sanctions. This is about animal cruelty. This is as bad as dogfighting or some of the cruelties inflicted on horses left in the worst possible conditions through the winter. It is awful and, as a nation of animal lovers, we should feel strongly about it, so I hope there will be the possibility of criminal sanctions, because these people are acting criminally. This is not some minor trade; people make serious money out of it, so they should be dealt with by the full force of the law, because of how these animals are bred and how they are kept, in the worst of conditions.

The sad thing is that these are often the animals that are bought as pets but end up in the shelters or rescue centres because of their health problems and other problems. Many of the wonderful voluntary organisations in this sector are full to bursting, because of these animals that have been discarded. Again, it would seem sensible to investigate further where those animals come from before they arrive in our shelters, because that is a serious worry. Whenever staff from the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home come here and talk to us, they say that they cannot take any more animals. They are forever having to make difficult decisions about how many animals they can keep, because they are inundated with people who think it is fun to have a pet for three or four months, but then realise that they cannot look after it and so dispose of it. Hon. Members have said this, but we need to think about the education process—“A dog isn’t just for Christmas, it’s for life”. People need to understand that it is a lifetime commitment.

This is also about resources, and I totally agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), who asked where the resources are. It is no good having a ban if we do not enforce it or follow it up with prosecutions and so on.

I will make a final couple of points. As for this idea that people should take an animal only if it is with its mother and has clearly been bred through that particular animal, it is difficult to tell that, but registered and properly run breeders would pride themselves on providing that information, and they would be able to prove it. In a sense, they would have to be able to license themselves, by showing that a puppy was the offspring of the mother. That is where the care and the proper breeding process could be seen in its entirety.

As I have said, we are not talking about Brexit today, but it would be interesting to know whether we could go ahead and introduce a ban without having to go through all the EU regulations, because clearly elements of this are subject to EU oversight.

To conclude, I hope the Minister will say that this is something we all agree on. There is a consultation, but one hopes that everyone is saying that a ban is appropriate and can be progressed, and so we just need to get on with this, rather than waiting. We would prefer a ban as part of an overall animal welfare Bill, but it might be something we could introduce because of the level of agreement that exists, because of the harm being done and because of the duplicity involved. People end up with these pets, thinking they are doing something good for themselves and their children, when all they are really doing is fuelling this terrible trade. If we could get some clarity on where the Government are going on this, we will give our support in terms of any time that is necessary, but a ban is right, a ban is appropriate and a ban is needed.

Plastic Bottles and Coffee Cups

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2018 Commons Chamber

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

The plastic bottles and coffee cups inquiry was my first large-scale inquiry as a member of the Environmental Audit Committee, and I thank the Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), for supporting me and the other new members of the Committee. It was a pleasure to listen to the evidence to what has proved such an influential inquiry. We have influenced the House and soon, I hope, we will influence Government policy.

Sometimes, sitting in a Committee listening to evidence, something quietly dawns on you, and this happened to me when we heard from the #OneLess campaign. I asked its project manager, Fiona Llewellyn:

“Do you think that there is scope to look at the licences of take-aways and fast food places so they have to provide access to tap water because that’s the area where you see a lot of littering and food on the go”?

She replied:

“One of the reasons we have plastic packaged water is that it is convenient to have on the go, so if we can overcome some of the barriers to convenience for refilling that would be a wonderful step in the right direction to this wider problem of plastic pollution and what you suggest would be very welcome”.

That is a type of planning law that we could implement immediately to reduce the use of single-use plastic bottles.

The inquiry heard a whole load of evidence. The major measure identified was the deposit return scheme, to which many Members have alluded. Hon. Members might think that all manufacturers are opposed to the deposit return scheme because it is a cost to their business, but many major companies are supportive. That includes Coca-Cola, which I believe is the world’s largest drinks company. The company set out its support for the scheme in its evidence to the Committee. It actually had a number of recommendations for us, including that we should just have a single scheme, that the scheme should be managed by a not-for-profit organisation and, most amazingly, that the costs should be covered by producers and retailers. That has not come from the Committee, a lobby group or even the Government; that is from one of the world’s largest companies and largest producers of plastic bottles. We should listen to Coca-Cola, which we might have expected to be on the other side of the debate.

During the inquiry, China announced that it would no longer accept plastic waste imports, so we had a separate session on Chinese plastic waste. The Chinese waste ban raises questions such as, where will all these plastic bottles go? We do not have the reprocessing capacity. We also looked at packaging recovery notes, concentrating on packaging export recovery notes. These are the licences needed to export plastic waste abroad. Clearly we are not having any for China because of the waste ban, but with PERNs to export waste, for example, to Vietnam, it is difficult to get a clear audit trail showing what happens to the plastic. We had evidence from Zero Waste Vietnam, which asked, “Why can’t European countries recycle their own plastic materials? Why are we having to have to have shiploads of plastic materials that we are not able to recycle?”

[Mary Creagh]

There is some anxiety over the word “shiploads”.

[Alex Sobel]

For the record, I did say shiploads—boatloads of materials. Zero Waste Vietnam is a very proper organisation; it would not resort to any foul language. In that case, a local organisation presented us with evidence that the plastic that we are exporting may not actually be recycled. That is the point of these export recovery notes.

[Martin Whitfield]

One of the great challenges of recycling is that the bottles and containers are often dirty when they go into system, and thus pollute whole loads. One of the great behavioural changes that we need to adopt is the ability to clean these containers ourselves before we submit them to be recycled.

[Alex Sobel]

We certainly do not want to see boatloads of dirty waste, so I completely agree with my hon. Friend. We also need a complete audit of our PERN system and should look at reform. If we are to export plastic, which I do not actually agree with, we need to know that it will be recycled when it arrives at its destination.

Although the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) is not in his place, I want to thank him. I have a copy of his letter, which I read carefully this morning. The recommendations of the Administration Committee are not only recommendations for this House; they are recommendations that the Government should consider and which present a holistic approach to tackling the use of plastic. The letter mentions ending sales of plastic water bottles. It also includes the latte levy, which we will not have outside this place, but we will have here. The Committee proposes that we incentivise the use of reusable cups through loyalty rewards and that we get rid of condiment sachets. I was amazed to read how much sauce we eat in this place. We consume 334,800 sachets of sauce a year; we are a saucy lot in this House. I thank the Administration Committee and hope that the Government take on some of its saucy suggestions.

[Stephen Pound]

It is HP Sauce.

[Alex Sobel]

Absolutely.

I feel a lot of personal responsibility in this area. I recently visited I Am Döner, my local kebab shop in Headingley, where I ordered my normal falafel wrap. Its staff told me that they have gone completely plastic-free. They provide water in cans and all their packaging is non-plastic. That shop is an exemplar to us all. I thank Paul at I Am Döner for introducing those measures. He has inspired me to have a week in which I do not buy any single-use plastic, so I will be bombarding hon. Members from my social media accounts regarding my difficulties in avoiding any single-use plastics. I hope that the Administration Committee can hurry up with implementing its proposals so that I can eat here without having to use any single-use plastic. We all need to make a personal commitment, as well as pressing for change from the Government.

Reduction of Plastic Waste in the Marine Environment

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing the debate. Like him, I represent a beautiful area of stunning coastline; it is one of only three constituencies that have two separate coastlines. I grew up in Cornwall and have noticed over my lifetime—growing up and spending as much time as I possibly could on beaches—the increasing amount of plastic being deposited from the sea on to our beaches and how that developed into something that we could no longer ignore. It is almost as though, collectively, the British public have had a lightbulb moment. For generations we have been abusing the seas that surround our country, seeing them as just a dumping site where we could throw anything, but we have suddenly come to the realisation that we cannot go on vandalising the seas that surround us.

A team effort has got us to this point. Hon. Members have mentioned the role that “Blue Planet II” played in bringing this issue to the public’s awareness. There has also been the Sky Ocean Rescue campaign. Newspapers have been involved; the Daily Mail has run a campaign on the issue. That has all contributed to getting us to this point.

I also pay tribute to the Cornwall-based charity Surfers Against Sewage, which I work closely with as chair of the Protect our Waves all-party parliamentary group. That charity has been campaigning since 1990 for us to stop abusing our seas and take action to clean them up and improve the quality of the water. It started by focusing on sewage and recently has been working to address the way plastic is affecting our oceans. Just two weekends ago it mobilised 35,000 people—I understand that it was one of the biggest volunteer mobilisations in the country—to carry out beach cleans right across our country, and they collected more than 65 tonnes of plastic from our beaches in just one weekend. That demonstrates just how much plastic is washed up on our beaches every day of the year.

Just as it has taken a team effort to bring this issue to the public’s awareness, so we now have, I believe, an unstoppable national grassroots movement, which is determined to address this issue, reduce the amount of plastic that we use and stop plastic polluting our marine environment. It will take a team effort to address it, and I believe that much of the pressure will come from consumers as they begin to demand that retailers and industry use less plastic in their packaging. I encourage every member of the British public to use their power as a consumer to force industry to make the necessary changes and cut back on the amount of plastic we use.

Clearly there is also a role for Government. We should congratulate the current Government on the action they have taken to start to address this issue—far more than any previous Government—and we should be proud of them for that. I am talking about the 5p plastic bag charge, which has resulted in 9 billion fewer plastic bags being used in our country, the microbead ban, the action to address straws and cotton buds, and the commitment to find a way to bring in a deposit return scheme to increase recycling.

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

I thank the hon. Gentleman for outlining those measures, many of which came from the Environmental Audit Committee, on which I and other hon. Members in the Chamber serve. That Committee also suggested charges on disposable coffee cups, which has not come forward as a measure. What does he think about charges on disposable coffee cups—the so-called latte levy?

[Steve Double]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I agree that there has been a team effort within Parliament. The Environmental Audit Committee has played a role, as has the APPG that I chair. Many hon. Members, on both sides of the House, have played a role in sending a clear message that the Government need to take action, and the Government have responded and acted in a very responsible way to start to address that. The coffee cup challenge is a difficult one. It is very easy to say what we will do, but we have to work with industry to find a sustainable solution that will reduce the amount of plastic that we throw away and not do untold damage to our economy in the process. It is therefore right that the Government think carefully and consult on these issues; they must work with the industry.

Only yesterday, I met a company—it happens to be an Israeli company—that thinks it has found the solution to the coffee cup challenge. I hope that it will be able to bring that forward, but we also need to recognise that, in the supply chain, businesses have invested tens of millions of pounds in the current packaging system and it is therefore unrealistic to expect them to throw away that investment overnight and change the way they do things. We need to work with industry to come forward with sustainable solutions to the problem. I would love to see action taken, but we must ensure that it is the right sort of action. It is therefore right that the Government consider the issue carefully, rather than just jumping to a conclusion.

In the time left to me, I will make a point that has already been made. This is a global problem. It is very important that the UK takes a lead—that we get our own house in order so that we can take a lead internationally on the issue—but we have to work with other countries. It was good to see the progress that was made recently with the Commonwealth countries. Many of us would like to have seen more progress, but a step was taken forward, which is very welcome. We also need to use our influence around the world, through our aid budget and the Foreign Office, to ensure that we call other countries to account and that global action is taken to clean up our seas.

Fly-tipping

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Anne Marie Morris]

That is a very interesting point. That goes into the litter category, which the Minister has already begun to legislate on, and I would expand the category to cover that. In a sense, it is largely about intent. I think that littering is generally about being careless, which such a van owner would be, whereas fly-tipping is driven by economic gain. The formal sites are in a different category all of their own, as licensed operators. I urge the Minister to look at this more sensibly. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) has indicated, an important part of this is making the public aware.

A point about the responsibility and liability for those who create the waste was raised earlier. They are already liable and responsible under section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. They are responsible for using those who dispose of waste in an appropriate and legal way. If they use an unlicensed organisation, they are responsible and can be fined. The problem is not that the legislation is not there; it is that it is incredibly hard to enforce.

With regard to raising awareness, there are some very simple things that could be done. First, every bin could have a label on it that says, “Be warned: unlicensed fly-tipping is illegal”—something catchy that makes people wake up to the fact that they are responsible and can be fined. There should be something making exactly the same point on every council tax bill that goes out. There are ways and means of doing this. If people realise that they can and will be fined, that will make a big difference.

For many of the cases in my constituency, the challenge has been evidence. Unless there is a photograph showing the dumping being done by a particular vehicle, the licence plate and the individual doing the dumping, it is hard to get a conviction. We should look at the evidence test, because perfection can be the enemy of the good. There are clear guidelines for holding people responsible that we cannot move beyond, but we must review the evidence that is required and look at what is reasonable in these circumstances to enable a conviction.

The agencies involved include the DVLA, which has been mentioned. The challenge is that the DVLA uses data protection to withhold information about the vehicle owner, as has happened to a number of my constituents. When I challenged the DVLA, it said, “Oh no, we normally give evidence in those circumstances,” but that is not the case. The Government should look at the stakeholders involved and at what we can do to enable such evidence as is available to be used.

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

The hon. Lady is making some excellent suggestions. A constituent came to see me at my surgery this Saturday to report commercial fly-tipping in Eccup—a small village on the outskirts of my constituency. He said that large commercial vehicles are dumping waste and suggested a national CCTV programme in hot spots to catch the evidence. I think CCTV is part of the solution to fly-tipping.

[Anne Marie Morris]

It is a very expensive solution. If we could do what the hon. Gentleman describes at a reasonable cost, that would be wonderful. He makes a good point, but in the countryside the cost of putting CCTV cameras around every single location would be extremely high, and making them impossible to dismantle would be a real challenge. It is a great idea for cities, where they can be put in inaccessible places, but the challenges in rural areas mean that it is not a viable solution.

The Minister should also review the licensing scheme. At the moment there is a grey area: it is unclear who has to be licensed and who does not. The Minister ought to look at increasing the number of bodies that are required to have licences. It should not just be those disposing of a certain quantity or type of waste; we should require any vehicle capable of disposing of waste to have some sort of licence.

There is also an issue relating to tracing the vehicle and the material being dumped. Currently we use tachometers and a number of other things to track commercial vehicles. It seems to me that if we issue a licence to a vehicle, we should include something to record where they have gone in a central system, so that when there is tipping we can check the recording. Nowadays, screwing metal barcodes to white goods is pretty common, so there must be a way of tracing the origin of white goods that are dumped. We should look at that for the future. Perhaps we should do what we do with cans and bottles: people should get their money back if they take their white goods to the tip.

One of the problems for most farmers is that insurance is prohibitively expensive. At the moment, something like 17% of farmers are insured, and the rest are not. The consequence is that the clear-up of fly-tipping is extremely costly. It seems to me that the insurance companies have a part to play in resolving that problem and making insurance much more achievable.

I have given the Minister a couple more ideas since the last time I spoke on this matter, for the residents of Devon and Teignbridge, in particular. I would very much like her to look at creating a new strategy specifically for fly-tipping, rather than for litter louts, which I think she has a done a grand job of dealing with, and formal waste disposal sites.