Climate Change and Flooding

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

Floods are clearly devastating at any time, but never more so than at this time of year. We have heard a number of eloquent speeches about the devastation that the floods have wrought, but we also need to remember that we are in a fortunate position, as a rich advanced nation, in that we can afford to rebuild, to rehouse and to protect those who are affected by flooding. Those who are affected by climate change in other parts of the world will not be so fortunate.

For me, the stand-out aspect of the Paris agreement was the $100 billion for the mitigation of climate change. That will allow the poorest nations access to the finance they need to develop in a way that will allow the planet to be protected. It will also give us the opportunity to lock in low carbon emissions without locking in poverty. That is fundamental to the way in which we deal with what has rightly been described as the greatest threat that humanity is facing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Calum Kerr) mentioned the Scottish Government’s climate justice fund, and we as a party are rightly proud of that. This is not a devolved matter, but we have sought to put our money where our mouth is. That money has to be seen as an additional contribution, however; it cannot be taken out of the pot because of what we have done. That needs to be respected nationally and repeated internationally.

We have had many debates in this place on the changes that have been made to the renewables obligation and to the green economy more widely. It disappoints me to state that our target in Scotland of a 100% renewable electricity generation is under threat because of changes to the renewables obligation and the prevarication over contracts for difference. There has also been much slower progress over heat, which represents a bigger challenge in relation to carbon reduction. It is pleasing that there will still be some form of support through the renewable heat incentive, but in the context of what we are dealing with following Paris, the £700 million that has been taken out seems like yet another short-sighted move.

Speaking of short-sighted approaches, the decision on carbon capture and storage is one of the worst that we have heard, and I will continue to bang the drum about that. There has been prevarication over CCS for a number of years. This process just needs to be done. We are talking about spending billions of pounds to prevent the symptoms, but we are not trying to tackle the cure. If we were to put £1 billion into carbon capture and storage, the reduction in the impact of flooding would be a potential game changer. Using carbon capture and storage is the most straightforward way of dealing with the matter. It also has the least impact on our economic model. It allows us to extract the fossil fuels that we discussed—shale, North sea oil or whatever—without having to invest. We will still have to invest in other technologies, but this gives us an opportunity.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Did the hon. Gentleman share a sense of comedy yesterday when the Secretary of State spoke on this matter? She said:

“I believe that CCS is going to play an important part in decarbonising in the future”.—[Official Report, 14 December 2015; Vol. 603, c. 1297.]

She then went on to say that, just for now, the Government are cutting the £1 billion subsidy towards it.

[Callum McCaig]

It was comedy of the blackest sort. It is short-sighted and it does not take into account how we can target the reduction at industry, as has been ably suggested.

The action here falls very short of the rhetoric, and very, very short of what is required to deliver and protect those people, both at home and abroad, from the impact of climate change. We need to up our game. It is time that we reset the reset button. I am happy if we in the Scottish National party join the high ambition coalition of the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) here in the UK. The SNP is more than ready and willing to play our part in achieving that ambition.

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[Barry Gardiner]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Amber Rudd]

I am going to make some progress now, because we are very short of time.

There is a link between climate change and an increase in extreme weather events. I do not share the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), who always speaks with enthusiasm. Let me say to him that, while we cannot attribute every storm, drought or flood directly to climate change, all the evidence from our scientific understanding of weather systems suggests that our changing climate will lead to more intense and more frequent events. Last month, the Met Office released papers from its study of the exceptional rainfall of 2013-14. It found that, given the same weather pattern—a persistent westerly flow—extreme rainfall over 10 consecutive winter days might be about seven times more likely now than it would be in a world without man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

Of course natural influences will still be an important factor, but it is clear that the impact of climate change is already being felt, especially in vulnerable countries, which is why the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) was right to comment on the need to assist developing countries with additional funds. Unless we limit the rise in the global average temperature, we shall have to live with more extremes. That is why the global agreement that was reached in Paris this week is so important. As we heard from the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), the French played a very important role in ensuring that it all came together.

No single country, acting alone, can hope to limit climate change. Only by acting together can we hope to succeed. With nearly 200 countries coming to an agreement, the Paris conference was a clear turning point towards a sustainable and low-carbon future. If we limit the global average temperature rise, we will limit the intensity and frequency of extreme weather such as the flooding we have seen recently.

[Barry Gardiner]

On limiting that extreme weather, the Secretary of State will recall that the Chancellor mentioned 300,000 properties whose flood risk was being reduced. Is she aware of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management report, which has said that

“this largely moves properties from a low risk to an even lower one”?

In other words, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has asked officials to achieve the maximum number instead of the most—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order.

draft Flood Reinsurance (Scheme and Scheme Administrator designation) regulations 2015 DRAFT FLOOD REINSURANCE (SCHEME funding and administration) REGULATIONS 2015

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 General Committees

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to rise to talk about these regulations under your guidance, Mr Nuttall. I do not intend to oppose either of the regulations before the Committee, but I must highlight two serious concerns that I have with the transition to risk-reflective pricing that the scheme is designed to achieve.

First, it is likely that the transition will compromise the availability and affordability of flood insurance, and that needs to be recognised. It is also likely that Flood Re will prove to be a waste of public money. Before I go to the specific points about the wording of the regulations, I want to put those remarks in context.

Flood risk is increasing because of climate change and new developments in flood-risk areas. Awareness of flood-risk households, where the risk is above one in 100, has declined. Government spending on flood defences fell over the past Parliament, although by setting a six-year framework the Government claimed to have spent more than the previous Government, though that was, of course, over a five-year period. It is set to fall further in this Parliament.

The risk of flooding is increasing and more properties are being built in high-risk areas. There is declining spending on flood-risk reduction and declining awareness of flood risk. That is the context for the Flood Re scheme. The possibility of loss, damage and injury from flooding is, therefore, increasing—in every sense, flood risk is increasing.

The scheme does not address the rising cost of flood risk for affected households or the public purse. The Government voted against six amendments that we tabled in Committee on the Water Act 2014 that would have required Flood Re to reduce the cost of flood risk. Those amendments would have required the scheme administrator to take account of actual and projected future flood risk as set out by the Committee on Climate Change and the Environment Agency. The Government refused to do that.

We would have given the scheme administrator powers to require flooded households to repair to a higher flood-defence standard. The Government say that that might be considered at the first review. In my view, those powers should be with the scheme administrator from the beginning and I believe that the industry would probably share that view.

The amendments would have required that the scheme administrator had to increase awareness of flood risk among policyholders, and actually take a proactive stance on liaising with policyholders on those matters. The scheme administrator would have been required to ensure that insurance is available to households that are unable to afford insurance on the free market.

The Government declined to support those amendments. I was delighted to hear that the Minister had spoken to Lord Krebs earlier today; when we tabled those amendments, it was Lord Krebs, as chair of the adaptation sub-committee of the Committee on Climate Change, who provided the supporting evidence. I am keen to hear what Lord Krebs had to say to the Minister about those aspects of the scheme. Of course, that view was also supported by evidence from the London School of Economics at that time.

As I said, our amendments were disregarded; the Government are using this publicly funded flood insurance scheme to insure against the cost of their own potential failure. As investment in flood defence is cut in line with the Government’s plans, thousands of families may find themselves stuck in homes that become more and more expensive to insure. Climate change has already increased the frequency and severity of flooding, and the costs are rising. This publicly funded scheme allows the Government to transfer these costs on to households across the country, pushing the cost of climate change on to the most vulnerable. That is what risk-reflective pricing means in practice.

I return to my two specific concerns with the regulations as they stand. The public consultation on Flood Re, which ran from 22 July to 16 September 2014, stated that the aim of the proposed flood insurance scheme would be

“to ensure that domestic property insurance continues to be widely available and affordable in areas of flood risk, without placing unsustainable costs on wider policyholders or the taxpayer”.

However, there is no mention of the availability or affordability of flood insurance in this enabling legislation. They are mentioned in the explanatory notes and were referred to many times during the debate on the enabling legislation, but they are not in the regulations, so it is not a duty of the scheme to ensure the availability and affordability of flood insurance.

Many responses to the public consultation counselled that to ensure availability and affordability, the scheme must be required to work in the public interest, with that being defined in the regulations. It is not defined in these regulations. Many responses, including that from the London School of Economics, also warned that the absence of a transition plan would threaten the availability and affordability of Flood Re.

It was my view, and still is, that a Flood Re transition plan should be produced by the Government, in consultation with the scheme administrator, the industry and the Committee on Climate Change. The primary delivery body for the transition plan should be the Flood Re managing agent, the scheme administrator, and DEFRA should take responsibility for reviewing their performance against the time-bound goals of the transition plan. Transition needs to be planned within the context of the overall flood risk management strategy, including details of future investment levels.

The decision to delegate transition planning to Flood Re, as currently proposed, is really a mutually convenient abdication of responsibility. The Government do not need to assess the likely efficacy of Flood Re against their flood risk investment plans, and the insurance industry can be confident that it can deliver its only objective: to manage the transition to risk-reflective pricing. I do not mean to labour the point, but the industry has simply got to produce risk-reflective pricing, which, if the risk goes up, may be as high or much higher than what is today deemed to be an unaffordable cost.

Everything depends on the amount of money that the Government are prepared to put in. This scheme is a way of avoiding the problem and any need to make the uncomfortable acknowledgment that the price that reflects increased risk will be greater where the risk of flood becomes greater as a result of lower Government investment in flood defences, increased building on the flood plain or adverse climate change. That is the fear. Quietly and stealthily, the Government have delivered a new flood tax.

The adaptation sub-committee of the Committee on Climate Change suggested an amendment to the levy arrangement, which I believe the Government should have considered. The amendment would reduce the cost and the opportunity cost of the Flood Re funding arrangements.

The sub-committee also suggested that a more efficient model would be for Flood Re to collect a primary levy and to build reserves, but not to hold reinsurance at all. Instead, claims in excess of reserves would be mutualised—spread between the relevant insurers—on an annual basis via the ad hoc levy. If that resulted in a large claim on insurers, they would be able to call on the existing reinsurance treaties that they are required to hold in any event. That approach would have significantly reduced the costs of Flood Re and, in my view, it would improve the value that the public purse was getting from the scheme.

In summary, Flood Re could help to reduce flood risk, the cost of flooding and the pain and suffering of the households that the Minister eloquently discussed at the beginning of this debate. It does not do those things currently, and I fear that it may well waste public money that could be better spent on reducing those flood risks by increasing our flood defences.

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[Rory Stewart]

I am grateful for that statement. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will be able to communicate to their constituents and those concerned with flooding not only that we have managed to get to this stage, but that we are looking forward to next spring when the scheme is formally launched.

I want to touch briefly on the various points and criticisms made by the hon. Member for Brent North. I find some of them a little bewildering, and I would like to tease them out a bit more. His arguments seem to focus on four areas: awareness, affordability, the transition plan and the model of insurance.

To reassure him on awareness, an obligation is imposed through the regulations on Flood Re to communicate with the insurance industry and on the industry to communicate with the policyholders that they have entered the Flood Re scheme and that by definition they are therefore in the approximately 2% most vulnerable homes. Through the Environment Agency and our investment in new technology, we are absolutely committed to increasing our contact with people in the most vulnerable homes.

We have also been meeting in detail with different parts of the industry that are interested in providing flood resilience measures to individual households. There should be a potential market, and we need to develop it. Just as house and contents insurance has delivered developments in burglar alarms and other protective measures, it should be possible for flood insurance schemes eventually to drive a movement towards people taking resilience measures to drop their premiums. That is where we need to get to. We need a thriving, vigorous industry with a reasonable basic standard that can be offered to a household, saying, “If you do, x, y and z, the insurance industry will recognise that and drop your premium.”

[Barry Gardiner]

I am grateful to the Minister for his clarification of the points. Given that he believes there is not yet a certifiable standard for resilience measures to be put in, why does he seek not to give the power to the scheme administrator and Flood Re at this stage? They believe that such a facility is in place and that they can insist on resilience measures being put in as a condition of reinsurance. Why not give that power so that the industry can decide how it uses it, when it uses it and whether the market is ready to provide the appropriate benefits or not, rather than waiting for the Government to do a review and then decide whether they want to give the scheme administrator those powers?

I understand the problem. It may be that the market is not yet ready, but surely it is better to give the power to the scheme administrator straight away, so that the insurance companies can take the necessary action the moment they are ready, rather than waiting for a Government review.

[Rory Stewart]

There are essentially three separate problems with that proposal. The first is that the Flood Re administrator has no direct relationship with households. As the hon. Gentleman is aware, the Flood Re administrator’s relationship is with the insurance industry, and the relationship of the individual insurance companies—for example, Direct Line or Axa—is with the individual household. Whatever measures one is trying to put in place, there needs to be an interaction between the insurance company and the individual household.

The second issue is around the nature of the financial regulations that set up Flood Re. Flood Re, like all reinsurers, is only permitted by financial regulation to carry out the business of reinsurance and related operations.

The third issue—perhaps the most important—is that within three months, Flood Re will produce a transition plan and within two years those resilience measures will be in place. However, in the end it is primarily the responsibility of Government to work with Flood Re, the insurers and the households to get those measures in place; the constraint on that, as the hon. Gentleman has indicated, is that the industry is not yet sufficiently developed to offer a standardised package. A burglar alarm is a much more straightforward thing.

Every one of these properties—not quite every one, but many of them—are in quite difficult, unique situations. The insurance industry is not yet in a position to be comfortable saying, “This exact measure on your door will reduce your insurance premium by £50”, in the way that it can with burglar alarms. It will take some time for what is basically a structure of small and medium-sized enterprises to be able to develop those products for the insurance industry.

The way in which the hon. Gentleman and I can engage in this process most directly is through the measures taken by the Environment Agency and, for the hon. Gentleman, more specifically through Parliament, to which Flood Re is accountable. It will be through Parliament’s review of that three-month transition plan and the two-year actions that we will be able to put in place the measures that we need over the next 25 years.

Of course, the hon. Gentleman is right to say that the fact that the period is 25 years should not mean that we all go to sleep for that time, do nothing and end up dropping off the edge of a cliff. Twenty-five years should be able to give us the right path to get those proper structures in place. It is Parliament’s responsibility to stay on top of that issue.

The second thing that the hon. Gentleman touched on was the question of affordability. He is correct that these statutory instruments do not deal with the duty of affordability. However, he will be aware that the duty of affordability is contained in the Water Act 2014, the debates on which he himself contributed to. Therefore, I do not believe that the duty needs to be in these statutory instruments.

Again, a statutory obligation is imposed through these statutory instruments to push forward with a transition plan. The most sophisticated arguments that the hon. Gentleman has made are around the question of mutualisation and insurance.

[Barry Gardiner]

There is something I would like to get on the record, Mr Nuttall. Importantly, the Minister has said that he believes that as the duty of affordability is latent within the 2014 Act, it need not be in these regulations. I do not want to tie him down, because I want clarity, but I would like him to write to me, perhaps after this debate, to set out absolutely clearly that that is the position. That would be extremely helpful.

[Rory Stewart]

I will be delighted to. To clarify, we have to be very careful about what we mean by affordability. Clearly, under both domestic and European legislation, we are not allowed to fix prices. This is a market mechanism. We are relying on competition in the market to operate, the theory being that there would be no reason for an individual insurance company to place a £250 contract with Flood Re if it was not necessary to do so, because a competitor insurance company would be able to offer the same insurance for £50 to the householder and there would be no recourse to Flood Re.

All our affordability calculations are predicated on the assumption that normal market competition will operate. The affordability works through setting the individual premiums and guaranteeing that the £180 million pot will stand behind those individual payments, capping both the premium payment and the excess payment. That is its basis.

[Barry Gardiner]

I am really grateful to the Minister for engaging in this way. I understand what he says about affordability. On his definition, as long as the market is operating to have competition in place, the result is affordability. However, it is important to recognise that the risk of climate change is increasing and the severity of floods may also increase.

Although, in the purely technical sense that the Minister outlined, if the market is operating people are likely to get the lowest market rate, the ordinary householder may not experience affordable insurance premiums because the risk is increasing and the Government are building on the floodplain. In fact, all the industry has to do is ensure that the price reflects that risk.

[Rory Stewart]

From the insurance company’s point of view, in the case of the households that are most at risk, Flood Re provides the ability to lay off the flood component of its household and buildings insurance, which for a basic rate council tax payer is in the region of the £220 to £250 mark. There would be no reason for an individual insurance company to make the flood component of its insurance exceed that amount—that is the purpose of the £180 million pot.

I agree, however, with the hon. Gentleman on the basic questions with which he began, and we certainly need to look at this during the next 25 years: building on floodplains, climate change and increasing flood risk. That will have an impact right across the industry.

Common Fisheries Policy (Reform)

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

It must be your benign supervision, Mr Walker, but every debate that I attend when you are in the Chair involves a remarkable degree of consensus. This debate has been good natured and exceptionally well informed. I put that all down to you, sir.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this debate about an industry that has been in decline for far too long. I pay tribute to the courage and sheer hard work of our fishermen, who brave the dangers of the coastal seas and the open oceans to bring fish to our tables.

No one present can remember the time when our fish stocks were at their most productive. Old postcards show harbours crammed with fishing boats, about which the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous)—for Lowestoft—and my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) were trading stories. Sepia photos show giant fish dwarfing the men who caught them, and those who represent fishing communities today have heard the stories of quaysides buried in haddock and cod—but they are stories from their grandparents. The truth is that the UK fishing industry was at its most productive not a few decades ago, in the 1980s or before, but more than 120 years ago, in the 1880s. The peak year was 1889.

Today, even with satellite navigation systems and sophisticated mechanical gear, not to mention sonar and metal-hull vessels, our fishermen have to work 17 times harder to catch fewer and smaller fish than people did in the age of sail and steam in wooden-hull vessels. Decades of poor fisheries management have led to a collapse in the productivity of our fisheries and a continual loss of jobs and livelihoods. For every hour spent fishing today, fishers land only 6% of what they did 120 years ago.

In June this year, the Commission set out its proposals for fishing opportunities for 2016. This debate will be able to inform the Minister’s contribution to that consultation and, I trust, will shape the recommendations and suggestions that the UK has to make to the Commission by 1 October. The fishing opportunities for 2016 will operate under the objectives of the new CFP, which was so ably set out by former Commissioner Damanaki. In particular, it will aim to bring fishing mortality—what the Commission refers to as

“the impact of fishing fleets on the stocks”—

into line with the levels required to allow stocks to rebuild to biomass levels that can produce maximum sustainable yield, or MSY, and to do so in the shortest possible timeframe.

The Commission wants to achieve good environmental status in European seas by 2020 and to reduce the impact of fishing on the marine ecosystem, as set out in the marine strategy framework directive. The Commission proposals for fishing opportunities are based on the available scientific advice that it receives from ICES, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, and other scientific and technical bodies. Where no such advice is available, the Commission has stated that it will apply the precautionary approach in line with the CFP objectives.

The Minister knows that I have had occasion in the past to challenge his Department’s failure properly to apply the precautionary principle on a number of fronts. I trust that he will be able to provide assurance to the House today that the UK will argue on the side of the Commission against increasing total allowable catch for those species for which the science is less than secure, and that he will not risk giving a green light to overfishing.

With that in mind, it is worth noting that 2016 is the year in which the landing obligation for demersal fisheries in the North sea and the Atlantic EU waters comes into force, bringing an important part of the EU fleet in the north-east Atlantic under the obligation to bring, retain on board and land all catches. The discard ban, as it is more popularly known, will ensure that quotas for stocks falling under the landing obligation take into account catches rather than landings. That has been controversial with fishing communities, as my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby outlined, but it will enable everyone to get a far better picture of precisely what is happening with the stock as it has to be landed and recorded. If we are to proceed on the basis of sound science, as all parties say they want us to, the landing obligation will improve our capacity to properly assess the biomass and health not only of the target species that people like to eat but of the whole marine ecosystem. That is fundamental.

Many hon. Members are aware of the issues that the landing obligation creates in the short term for fishing boats beset by the problems of choke species. Fishers can find themselves unable to pursue a stock for which they have remaining quota because of fears of catching a stock for which they have no quota or no quota left. Various suggestions have been made as to how to resolve that problem, including quota leasing and even transferring 10% of quotas from year to year. Will the Minister outline the Government’s preferred way of addressing those real, live issues for fishermen up and down our coastal waters?

After the reform of the CFP, a taskforce was set up to solve the inter-institutional deadlock on multi-annual plans. It finalised its work in April 2014 and concluded with a framework to facilitate the development and introduction of multi-annual plans under the CFP. The new generation of multi-annual plans should include targets for MSY, with deadlines, for the stocks that define the fisheries. The plans may, in addition, introduce ranges of exploitation rates considered to be in accordance with MSY.

On the basis of the taskforce conclusions, the Commission just last week tabled a proposal for a multi-annual plan covering Baltic sea fisheries that includes proposed target values and deadlines for achieving MSY. The proposal for 2016 sets the total allowable catch from the Baltic sea’s 10 main commercial fish stocks for EU fishermen. This year, for the first time, the TAC for plaice has been set in line with the MSY approach, bringing the total number of Baltic stocks covered by MSY to seven out of 10. For seven out of 10 stocks, the available data from the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee on Fisheries and the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea has allowed the Commission to propose catch limits at sustainable levels for more stocks than ever before. The EU aims to achieve MSY for all fish stocks by 2020 at the latest.

Under the proposals, the TAC for all stocks except salmon would decrease by about 15% compared with 2015 and would be set at approximately 565,692 tonnes. The catch limit for salmon, which is measured in pieces rather than tonnes, would increase by 6%, to 115,874. The Commission proposes to increase the catch limits for herring in the western and central Baltic, as well as for main basin salmon and plaice. Decreases for the remaining stocks either reflect the natural fluctuations within the MSY range or are linked to the improved perception of stocks’ status as a result of recent data revision. The European Council will discuss the Commission’s proposal at its October meeting. Will the Minister indicate whether the UK will be supporting this new and more scientifically rigorous approach to quota setting at that meeting?

Other proposals are under discussion with stakeholders for both a North sea and a western waters demersal mixed fisheries plan, and a multi-annual plan for the Atlantic pelagic fisheries is under consideration. In preparation of its proposals for these plans, the Commission has requested that ICES provide MSY ranges for the stocks concerned where quotas are fixed by the Council for use in the management of mixed fisheries under plans. I understand that ICES has provided such ranges for an important number of those stocks. Will the Minister advise us as to whether he has had the opportunity to examine that scientific evidence and advice? If so, will he be minded to accept it and argue that it should be respected when the Council meets in October?

The Council has achieved significant progress in setting TACs in line with MSY over the last few years, from five in 2009 to 36 for 2015. That has resulted in an increase in the number of stocks that are fished at levels corresponding to MSY to 26 stocks in 2015. The Commission has made it clear that it believes it is necessary to continue along that path for 2016 and 2017, and to create the conditions for achieving MSY as soon as possible, and by 2020 at the latest. It therefore intends to propose total allowable catches in line with achieving MSY in 2016.

The Minister will be only too well aware, however, that there are those who would like to ignore the science and look for short-term gain by arguing for an uplift in TAC. Will he confirm that he shares the Commission’s view that it would be unacceptable to delay the objective of setting TAC in line with MSY beyond 2016 unless doing so would imply very large annual reductions in quotas that would seriously jeopardise the social and economic sustainability of the fleets involved?

A few weeks ago, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) has already said, I had the pleasure of visiting Lancaster and Fleetwood and discussing the challenges facing the fishing community. It is a perfect example of the sort of local community I spoke of at the beginning of my remarks. The glory days of the past, when Fleetwood was a major fishing port, are no longer, but for those still carrying on the great fishing tradition of their grandparents the dangers of their trade seem not to have diminished at the same pace as the rewards have.

I was privileged to go out with one of the under-10 fleet there and discuss with skippers the problems they face. I thank them for the robust honesty with which they shared their fears and concerns about the challenges facing their industry, and pay tribute to the way in which many of them have embraced wider net gauges and other progressive ways of restoring biomass.

On behalf of those skippers, I want to ask the Minister one final question. It echoes the remarks of the hon. Member for Waveney—I will call him my honourable friend—whose admirable speech was absolutely spot on, on so many fronts. The Government won a significant court battle that established that the UK fishing quota was the UK’s to dispose of, and that we could effect a redistribution of quota that took little away from the offshore fleet of larger vessels but could be of significant benefit to the smaller under-10 fleet that is the mainstay of fishing ports such as Fleetwood. When will the Minister begin to exercise that right and redistribute quota to the under-10 fleet so as to redress the balance and make it easier for these brave individuals to carry on the livelihood of their grandparents?

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. We have given £1 billion of aid to the region, and 18 million food parcels.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

In the infrastructure debate, the Government promised they would safeguard our groundwater and sites of special scientific interest from the dangers of fracking. These promises have now been abandoned. The Government now permit fracking in SSSIs, and four out of five of the old water protection zones are no longer frack-free under the new water protection areas. Was the Secretary of State consulted by her Cabinet colleagues about this U-turn on fracking in protected areas, and if so, why did she agree to downgrade these important protections?

Coastal Flood Risk

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[James Heappey]

I absolutely agree: we cannot tackle flooding simply by dredging a river, building an attenuation pond or building better flood defences—taking a dynamic, holistic approach to managing the whole area is key. Within that, it is important to recognise what land is used for, and farmers are becoming increasingly sensitive to the impact of what they plant on their land and its ability to hold water.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I am pleased the hon. Gentleman responded in the way he did to the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon); he is absolutely right.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the Environment Agency did offer the local authority money for dredging—I am not sure of the figure, but I think it was about £7 million—but the local authority rejected it?

[James Heappey]

I have a suspicion that the hon. Gentleman may be better informed about that than me, and it is not within my expertise to comment on it. However, it would be churlish not to recognise that in the wake of the flooding in 2014, there was fantastic investment, which has put right the lack of investment that we saw—for whatever reason—over the previous decades. That investment has been most welcome.

The key point I would make is that the response to the flooding in Somerset, where there was a confluence of high tides and heavy rain inland, allied with out-of-date flood protection infrastructure and land use that was perhaps unwise, saw the emergence of the Somerset Rivers Authority. At the authority’s heart is the belief that the solution was a locally sensitive, dynamic organisation that would tackle the causes of flooding across the entire catchment area. That is welcome, although I should report to the Minister that there are, I am afraid, still some conflicts between the community and conservationists. However, I am sure he will agree that, when push comes to shove, the community and local business must win out on this issue.

Finally, I have a request for the Minister. His Department has been looking at enduring options for funding the Somerset Rivers Authority. Will he update us on what point those options have reached and whether the Department is close to being able to offer Somerset County Council its recommendations on how the authority should be funded in the future?

It is vital that we talk about flooding year round, not just when it rains or when the seas are high.

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[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Sir Edward, it is always a great pleasure to speak in any debate chaired by you, given your wise counsel, but today I specifically thank my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), not only for raising a very important subject but for doing so with great aplomb and the sort of attention to detail that I imagine will endear her to her constituents for many years to come.

I am keen to get off to the right start with the new Minister, so I begin by saying that it is really good that there is a Government Department that takes coastal defence risk seriously. I might think that it is a shame that that Department is the Ministry of Defence and not the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and as a former distinguished Chair of the Defence Committee the Minister might feel that that is a point of welcome contact between us and that we can work from there.

The Defence Estates special focus investigation on flood implications for MOD locations set out plans to abandon the Hythe and Lydd ranges, valued at £200 million, which are next to the flood-prone Romney marshes on the south coast. A report released under freedom of information regulations states:

“The MOD estate will be exposed to greater risk as a consequence of climate change…Many sites, both inland and coastal, are vulnerable to flooding...Climate change and sea level rise means that defending coastlines is becoming more costly and technically difficult. The increasing cost of maintenance means that existing defences may be abandoned in areas with low population or fewer tangible assets.”

The Hythe and Lydd ranges, known as DTE SE—defence training estate south-east—form

“the principal area for operational training. The range complexes comprise the most extensive collection of urban training facilities in Europe and extremely varied terrain. This makes the region unique in its training provision.”

Paragraph 6.9 of the report shows that the Ministry has examined the possibility of locating the training facility elsewhere, but that

“capital costs and compulsory purchase issues aside, this size of space cannot be replicated in another part of the UK, simply because an area the size required to translocate these facilities…is not available.”

Sea level rises and the increasingly severe and frequent extreme weather in the UK show that climate change is an issue not just of national wellbeing but of national and global security. The threat that climate change poses to our ability to live well is growing in many parts of the UK, particularly on our coasts. The risk has risen because of human activity, but until recently people acted in ignorance, and therefore innocence, of the effects of their action on future generations. However, our failure to act today, with the full knowledge of the cost of our inaction, is, in the words of the Pope, “a sin against ourselves”, a sin against the world.

That other fine Catholic in another place, Lord Deben, chair of the Committee on Climate Change, has pointed out that it is unnatural for us to act like ostriches, but it is also irresponsible and immoral. The committee’s first statutory report to Parliament on the Government’s progress in preparing the UK for the impacts of climate change was published last week. It shows that the Government have taken the ostrich approach.

I will get to the committee’s findings in a moment, but first I want to raise two points that appear to me to show the Government’s disregard for their responsibility to protect our economy and wellbeing from the impacts of climate change. First, the Government were asked to put up a Minister to speak at the launch of the committee’s two progress reports. They chose not to. Secondly, no Minister currently has responsibility for climate change adaptation. The role has been handed to a part-time Lord and DEFRA “spokesperson”, whatever that means. It certainly does not mean a Minister of the Crown.

The Conservative-led coalition removed climate change adaptation from DEFRA’s priorities, and this Government have removed ministerial oversight. That is serious. Tens of thousands of homes, critical energy and transport infrastructure and many towns and cities in England are located on the coastal floodplain. The Government’s failure to take adaptation seriously is an insult to all of them.

We know that our efforts to reduce flood risk in the past have saved the lives of those who live on the coastal floodplain, as well as billions of pounds potential damage. No one died as a direct result of the 2013 tidal surge event, whereas the tidal surge of a similar magnitude in 1953 killed 307 people. Improved flood defence structures and reliable early warning systems protected hundreds of thousands of homes and ensured that 18,000 people were evacuated. However, many coastal communities were balancing on a knife edge during the 2013-14 winter floods. The fact is that defences protecting thousands of homes and critical infrastructure, not to mention much of the city of Hull, almost failed.

The Committee on Climate Change addressed a couple of simple questions on climate change adaptation. First, is there a plan? The answer that the committee gave was yes, but that it is inadequate. Secondly, are actions taking place? The answer was yes, but they are not time-bound and most are not being measured. Thirdly, are those actions reducing the risk of failure of our critical infrastructure and loss of life? Answer: no. That is the view of the Government’s independent Committee on Climate Change, set up to advise the Government on these matters.

Over the past four years there has been under-investment in flood and coastal risk management. I am sorry that the former Minister, the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), is no longer in his place, because I want to rebut his words specifically. He said that there had been an increase in investment under the last Government. There was not. Over the past four years there has been under-investment totalling more than £200 million. The graphs are there for all to see in the report by the Committee on Climate Change. I counsel the Minister to have a look at those graphs; the graphs and the bar charts showing what was spent are all there.

The committee states:

“Due to this underinvestment, expected annual flood damage will be higher now than it was in 2010.”

That is a direct quote from the Committee on Climate Change. Against that evidence, can the Minister please justify his insistence and that of ministerial colleagues that flood risk has been reduced over the past five years? He will know that the only way in which that claim can in any way be substantiated is through the fact that those at low risk and very low risk of flood damage have been taken out of the equation, but those at significant, high or very high risk of flooding have seen that risk increase.

Only 77 local planning authorities out of 340—23%—have local flood risk plans. Of the 20 local authorities in England that have the highest number of households at risk from river or coastal flooding, 17 do not have adopted plans in place under the national planning policy framework. What is the Minister doing to ensure that all local planning authorities have those plans in place?

The Committee on Climate Change has identified that the Government have no plan to reduce flood risk to properties already protected by coastal defences. That means that as sea levels rise because of climate change, the chance that those defences will be overtopped or fail is increasing. However, the Government are focusing only on improved emergency evacuation planning. Why have the Government not informed coastal communities that they should be prepared for increasingly frequent evacuations as flood risk increases because of climate change?

Since 2001, 27% of floodplain development—that equates to 68,000 new homes—has been in areas with a one in 100 or greater annual chance of flooding, and about 23,000 new homes have been built in areas with a high likelihood of flooding; that is a one in 30 or greater annual chance of flooding even where flood defences are in place. Can the Minister explain why all the Government’s planning assumes that that development is not taking place? That is their own stated assumption behind their figures.

Ports handle 95% of the country’s imports and exports by volume. Half of the UK’s port capacity is located on the east coast, where the risk of damage from a tidal surge is greatest. However, it is not clear what improvements in flood protection have been made, or are planned to be made, to Britain’s ports. Some ports, having participated in the first round of reporting under the compulsory adaptation reporting power, have decided not to provide an update as part of round 2. Will the Minister confirm which ports have not reported in round 2, but did report in the first round?

Why was the risk of coastal erosion not mentioned in the Planning Inspectorate’s assessment of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station? Coastal defences can fail, as we saw during the 2013-14 winter storms at Dawlish, which has been mentioned in the debate. Projections suggest that the length of the rail network exposed to coastal erosion will increase from 11 km to 38 km by 2050 and to 62 km by 2100. What are the Minister’s colleagues in the Department for Transport doing to address that?

When will the Government release the findings of the national resilience review that was launched in response to the 2013-14 floods? Only two of the six wetland priority habitat types currently meet the 90% target for being in a favourable or recovering condition. The Minister will know that, as well as being extremely important for wildlife, those habitats play an important role in buffering sea defences from waves and storm surges. Only 37% of floodplain and coastal marsh is in favourable or recovering condition, and there is currently no process for reporting progress against the Government’s target. That should be a priority for DEFRA from the point of view not only of flood risk, but of habitats and the wider environment. Does the Minister expect to meet his 2020 targets in those areas?

It is the duty of Government to provide strong leadership and the investment that is required to ensure that all parts of the country and all sectors of the economy adapt effectively to climate change. Coastal flooding is not a stand-alone risk; combined with fluvial and surface water flood risk, the effect can be devastating. The Government have not risen to the challenge of matching the risk that we face.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner]

I will try to be brief, but I want to enlighten the Minister on the question of funding. Simply, the projections are based on the peak year of 2010, after which there was an initial cut of some £200 million in the following two years. The Government then amended that figure for restoration, which was emergency funding. The bar charts and graphs produced by the Committee on Climate Change show that that funding bumped the figures above the original projected gain line. The Environment Agency has put in two new lines below that level, but those lines are deemed to be “best possible” and “rather optimistic” scenarios by the Committee on Climate Change. I recommend that the Minister looks at the reports and graphs by the Committee on Climate Change because they explain the situation in some detail and show exactly what the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) said.

[Rory Stewart]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. I looked at the reports by the Committee on Climate Change because he, or somebody else, tried to submit an urgent question. I reassure him that I am the responsible person in the Department because I was being prepared for that urgent question on the climate adaptation report.

The central issue for this debate is not simply whether we define the emergency funding as part of the Government spend over the past five years; it is, at least from my point of view, that the six-year commitment in Government spending has allowed us to do much smarter long-term planning. The Environment Agency has done that well, and we were able to make considerable savings. It is a real model. Whoever is in government next—including the shadow Minister, if he were to take over—the most important thing is ensuring that the Treasury makes such long-term settlements, which have completely transformed the way we do our capital planning.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

Among the different sources of nitrogen dioxide emissions, river traffic is indeed a substantial emitter. Glasgow City Council and officials from the Department will take that into account.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I, too, welcome the Minister to his place. Last year, the Government wrote a letter to all local authorities, trying to blame them for the 29,000 deaths that air pollution is causing every year in the UK and saying that any fines imposed by the EU for failure to comply with the air quality directive would have to be paid by them. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that it is the Government who are solely responsible for compliance and any fines arising, will the Secretary of State write again to all local authorities to accept her responsibility and overturn her previous threatening letter?

[Rory Stewart]

I am very happy to discuss that matter in detail, but as the shadow Minister said—[Interruption.] “Say yes”, it is suggested from the Opposition Front Bench. As the shadow Minister has acknowledged, we need to tackle this issue in partnership with local authorities. The prime responsibility needs to reside there because the sources of the emissions are quite different from one local authority to another, and therefore the solutions will be different from one local authority to another.

Air Pollution (London)

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) on initiating this timely debate. She has laid down a serious challenge to both the Mayor of London and the Government.

Of course, the Mayor now has a dual role, as he is also the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson). I hope that his new responsibilities lead him to question seriously the adequacy of some of the measures that he has proposed as Mayor to tackle air pollution in this great city. In his constituency, the children at Pinkwell and Cherry Lane primary schools face carcinogenic air pollution that is twice the annual legal limit. We know that children attending primary schools within 150 metres of a main road grow up with lung capacity impaired by up to a third, and that they have an increased risk of asthma and heart disease. Indeed, along with others this afternoon, I will host an event with the healthy air campaign precisely to highlight those risks and to encourage hon. Members to press for real and urgent change.

The impact of air pollution on London’s children is shocking. We know from Public Health England that London’s toxic air has already caused more than 1,300 premature deaths this year. That the poorest children are worst affected, with those least able to defend themselves the most exposed to that danger, should make us feel particularly ashamed. In Britain, health inequality has become inseparable from environmental inequality, and it is quite simply the poor who live in the most polluted environments. No one would choose to live or go to school on a dangerously polluted road; those who do usually have no choice in the matter. They are forced to live with the risks, but the Government do have a choice and a responsibility.

The Government spent three years in court trying to wriggle out of the responsibility placed on them by annex 15B to article 23(1) of the air quality directive. They argued that the directive put no requirement on them to prepare a plan to improve the situation, but the judgment was absolutely precise about the seriousness of the breach. The ruling was:

“The new government should be left in no doubt as to the need for immediate action, which is achieved by an order that new plans must be delivered to the Commission not later than 31 December 2015.”

The Government revealed in court that they did not believe they would solve the air pollution issue under their plans until 2030. Particulate matter alone is currently responsible for more than 3,000 deaths a year in London. When the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants is finally allowed to report its findings on nitrogen dioxide next month, it is predicted that that figure could double. A conservative estimate, therefore, suggests that by 2030 the Government’s failure to tackle air pollution could lead to the death of more than 50,000 Londoners. In the words of the judgment, the Secretary of State has an

“obligation to act urgently under Article 23(1), in order to remedy a real and continuing danger to public health as soon as possible.”

The Government and the Mayor have been playing a mutually convenient blame game. Last year, the Government wrote to every local authority in which air pollution exceeded legal limits to explain that ultimate legal responsibility for air pollution lay with local authorities and that any fines levied on the Government would be passed on to them. The Supreme Court judgment shows that that letter was wrong, so, in the light of that judgment, will the Government send a correction letter to all those local authorities?

The Minister is not the only Member who needs to send out a correction letter. Over the weekend I received a briefing from the Mayor on air quality in London for today’s debate. I am sorry that he could not be here—my office contacted his office earlier and found that he was attending an LBC pre-record, which clearly took priority. In bold type, the briefing says,

“London does not have the worst air pollution on the planet”.

We must all be relieved about that, though actually a presentation at the environmental research group at King’s College London by Dr David Carslaw last year suggested otherwise. On Oxford Street, the annual mean nitrogen dioxide, measured continuously, was 135 micrograms per metre cubed, while World Health Organisation guidelines state that the average should not exceed 40. The WHO also states that levels should not exceed 200 micrograms per metre cubed for more than 18 hours in a single year, but Oxford Street recorded levels above that—not for 18 hours, but for 1502 hours in a single year.

While the Mayor’s briefing is careful to talk only about average annual levels of nitrogen dioxide, Dr Carslaw is quite explicit when he refers to both the Oxford Street figures. He said:

“To my knowledge this”

level

“is the highest in the world in terms of both hourly and annual mean.”

Of course, as the Mayor has done so often, he has used distraction technique. This is not some perverse international contest of “my pollution is bigger than yours”. The real issue is that the average annual nitrogen dioxide level in London’s busiest street was more than four times higher than the World Health Organisation says it should be. It exceeded the maximum permissible hourly spikes by more than 8,344%. That is the issue, and no amount of international comparison can render that acceptable.

The Mayor’s briefing claims that since 2008, when he took office, there has been a 12% reduction in nitrogen dioxide. By my reckoning that still leaves us with a very long way to go. It also says that

“London is implementing the most ambitious package of measures of any world city”,

and it cites the ultra-low emission zone as proof of that. I am sorry that the Mayor does not consider either Berlin or Copenhagen to be a world city.

Low-emission zones have already dramatically reduced air pollution here, but the truth is that London’s proposed ultra-low emission zone will not come into effect until 2020, and even then it will apply only in the central congestion charging zone and cover only 7% of the main roads in London that suffer from the worst nitrogen dioxide pollution. It will also exempt buses from meeting the highest Euro 6 standard and require only that all new taxis are zero-emission-capable by 2030. The other 93% of the most polluted roads in London will be outside the zone and may in fact experience greater pollution as more vehicles circumvent the zone and come into more residential and poorer parts of the city. If ever there was a perfect example for the phrase “Too little, too late”, that is surely it.

[Andy Slaughter]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his speech; he is absolutely demolishing the Mayor’s atrocious record on this issue. Perhaps he might like to think about standing for that position. We had heard two pitches for the post, but we have had three now.

[Barry Gardiner]

Enough, already. With cities across Europe adopting low and ultra-low emissions zones, there is a huge prize for manufacturers of low and zero-emission vehicles and there are significant risks for manufacturers that choose to bet against that trend. A responsible Government would reduce risk by adopting the highest standards here today. Will the Minister tell us what progress has been made to establish long-term goals and timescales for a step-by-step rebalancing of fuel duty and vehicle excise duty, consistent with reducing not just CO₂ emissions, but NO₂ and particulate matter impacts? Emissions-based pricing must be the way forward. To achieve that, I ask the Minister to initiate a strategic assessment of the relative benefits of the different options to encourage the manufacture and purchase of low and ultra-low emissions vehicles.

On one point the Mayor’s document is certainly correct: the Government and the EU need to take complementary action and work with local authorities such as TfL to create a national framework of low emission zones, accelerate the uptake of zero-emissions vehicles and ensure that the Euro 6 standard does not reproduce the mistakes of Euro 4 and Euro 5, where the actual performance under road conditions is vastly inferior to that under test conditions.

The trouble for the Minister is that his Government’s own reports show that, far from trying to improve the standards, they have been working to undermine those very EU air pollution regulations since 2012. On 1 April 2015—I assure you, Mr Crausby, that I have not got the date wrong—the Government announced that, as part of their red tape challenge, they were working in Europe to undermine the enforcement of the air pollution regulation. The announcement said:

“Working in partnership with other Member States,”

the Government would

“negotiate to: reduce the risk of financial penalties from noncompliance, especially in relation to nitrogen dioxide provisions”.

Somewhat ironically the paragraph ends:

“whilst maintaining or improving health and ecosystem protection”.

The Minister is no fool. I respect him greatly. He must recognise that there is a causal relationship here. We cannot introduce amendments to the air quality directive that raise the permitted limits of nitrogen dioxide and improve public health at the same time. The Government need to wake up and take responsibility for this public health crisis. Extensive lobbying efforts by environmental and health organisations persuaded the Government and the European Commission to abandon efforts to dilute the clean air directive. The new Minister therefore has an opportunity to start with a clean slate. I ask him in his summing up to make a commitment today to dropping all objections to current European standards, except those made on the basis that the standards are too weak, and to work to increase air quality in Europe, the UK and London. If he will not make that commitment, will he answer one final question: what is the point of a Government who cannot and will not deliver clean air for their citizens?

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Select Committee on Environmental Audit has used a traffic light system to assess the Government’s performance over the past five years. On air pollution, it has given the Government a red light; on biodiversity and wildlife, it has given the Government a red light; and on climate change adaptation, flooding and coastal protection, it has also given the Government a red light. This Government were supposed to be the greenest Government ever, so why are they ending their time in office without being awarded a single green light?

[Dan Rogerson]

During my time in office, I have been happy to give evidence repeatedly to the Environmental Audit Committee, though I might disagree with some of its conclusions. I am happy to say that this Government are making improvements on air quality. There are issues with nitrogen dioxide, but they are being addressed at European level. We are improving our status in the important area of biodiversity in this country. We are improving our water quality. Across a whole range of areas, this Government are taking action to improve the quality of our environment and to establish, through the processes of the Natural Capital Committee, the importance of our natural capital now and in the future.

Bat Habitats Regulation Bill

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Friday 16th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Bill may remind some hon. Members of episode 39 of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Unfortunately, the Bill does not, in the immortal words of Michael Palin:

“shine out like a shaft of gold when all around is dark.”

It seems more like the stuff that that phrase was describing. I will briefly address the three issues raised by the subject of the Bill: bat habitat in the non-built environment; bat habitat in the built environment; and the legal protection of bats.

First, on bat habitat in the non-built environment, during the 20th century bat numbers plummeted in parallel with dramatic changes in the countryside. Several species of bats were seriously threatened. In the past two decades, one species, the greater mouse-eared bat, became extinct as a UK breeding species. Although all the species monitored appear to be either stable or increasing according to 2014 records, those positive results should be considered in the context of historic severe declines in bat populations. That decline was particularly great in the second half of the 20th century. More sustained population increases will be needed to indicate recovery from that extended period of decline.

The increase in bat populations between 1999 and 2012 should be celebrated as a success of the current regulations. It was also a success for the Bat Conservation Trust and the public, private and voluntary organisations involved in bat conservation. However, it should not be an excuse to set aside the regulations that have precisely achieved that success. We should remember that one year of poor summer weather in 2012 caused a very sharp dip in the population.

The Bill seeks to prevent the occupation of a new building in an area where there is existing bat habitat unless a bat box or artificial roost for each species of bat located in the vicinity is put in place. In so far as that goes, that is welcome. However, it might be more logical to say that the building could not be occupied if it was taking the space where that bat habitat had previously been unless the new bat boxes and the artificial roosts that the hon. Gentleman is seeking to provide were also occupied. That might indicate that some translocation had taken place and provide a degree of comfort, but that is not in the Bill.

It also seems somewhat odd that the same provision, as contained in clause 1(2), has not been inserted into clause 1(3), because in it we find that

“No wind turbine for which planning permission is required shall be constructed unless prior to its construction a local bat survey has been conducted and it has been established that no bat habitat is located in the vicinity”.

It might be more logical, and certainly more in keeping with the first two subsections, if the hon. Gentleman had said that it should not be provided where bat habitat is found, unless, as he has proposed in subsection (2), that

“a bat box or artificial roost for each species of bat located in the vicinity”

has been provided. There is an internal inconsistency in the Bill, which I am sure the hon. Gentleman will recognise and seek to rectify and remedy.

The information currently available on bat behaviour in the UK is not sufficient to assess the threat that wind turbines may pose to populations. Anecdotal records of individual collisions exist, but no quantified data at the colony or population level are available. Natural England and Bat Conservation Trust guidance should be followed. That is all we can say based on the evidence we have, so the hon. Gentleman’s efforts go beyond what the evidence base suggests.

Let me turn to bats in the built environment. Bats and people have been sharing dwellings for thousands of years. In the UK, this is most notable, of course, in our churches and cathedrals, as natural roosting sites have become scarce due to development and land use change. The number of artificial roost sites has increased in the form of houses, bridges, mines and barns, but particularly churches and cathedrals.

Natural England, English Heritage, the National Churches Trust and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings all have excellent advice available on how to manage a building where bats are also present. If work is required on a property that has the potential to disturb a bat roost or if issues arise as a result of bats and humans living in close proximity, that advice is available for any dwelling or church.

Due to the good will and expertise of a very large number of licensed volunteers in the UK, there are many instances where such advice can be offered free of charge. It is offered in the form often of a phone call or an e-mail or sometimes in the form of a physical visit to the building to inspect. The visit will result in a letter detailing how to carry out the work with the least disturbance to the bats. This might mean that the work has to be carried out at a particular time of year, which might in some instances cause some of the delays to which the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) alluded. Bats are usually only seasonal visitors to roosts. Sometimes the particular materials that can be used might be affected, but it is neither possible nor desirable—nor, I believe, necessary—to take the actions set out in the Bill.

The suggestion that we should remove certain buildings from the habitats directive altogether is, frankly, absurd. It serves only as a superb example of how an obsession with Europe and a disregard for our natural environment can be combined with a dislike for wind turbines. There is no reason and no excuse for watering down legal protection for bats. We should let the work of Natural England—it is already engaged with this work—improve the regulation. It should run its course and we should revisit the issue when we have adequate evidence and viable alternatives on which to base a debate. The Bill is ill conceived, inconsistent and I urge the House to reject it.

Control of Horses Bill

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Friday 16th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Arbuthnot]

As it happens, until a couple of years ago we had, in the meadow next to our house, a pony—that sadly died at the age of 35, which I think is going it some, frankly. It was as a result of the knowledge of our own pony, who was called Porky, that I moved this amendment. If this amendment is unnecessary and we do not need to describe what a horse is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) suggests, I will move on to my second and third amendments.

I think these two amendments are more important. I think they genuinely address what may be a problem with the Bill, but my hon. Friend the Minister will no doubt set me right on that when he comes to speak. I think the problem may be this: the detention of a horse under the provisions of this Bill could be continued beyond 24 hours if the person who detains the horse does not know to whom the horse belongs, provided he tells the police about it, but it could not be continued beyond 24 hours if the person who detains the horse does know to whom the horse belongs, but does not know how to get hold of him. These amendments are intended—despite my own, no doubt, cack-handed drafting—to deal with that. My hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome will no doubt tell us whether they achieve the clarity and helpfulness I intend to achieve, but that is the purpose behind them.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

One can only speculate as to why the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) has brought forward this group of amendments. However, Opposition Members would not wish them—or amendment 4, which is to be debated later—to delay the passage of the Bill, so I will be brief.

Amendment 1 attempts to clarify further the definition of what actually constitutes a horse, and I would encourage the Minister to put on the record later in the debate a full definition and whether, indeed, this covers a jennet or a pony. The term “jennet” is used to describe a Spanish jennet horse. It is, I understand, a fairly new breed registration dedicated to an attempt to recreate the coloured variety of gaited horses that resembles the historical jennet or “Spanish jennet.” It would seem obvious, therefore, that the term “horse” as already used in the Bill would cover a jennet, but I await the Minister’s response.

The term “pony” is used to describe a small equus which, depending on context, can be a horse that is under an approximate or exact height at the withers—usually 14.2 hands, if memory serves, with the hand being 4 inches in imperial measure—or alternatively is a small horse with a specific conformation and temperament. Again, the Minister may wish to elaborate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I beg to move amendment 4, page 4, line 20, leave out “and Wales”.

I have tabled this amendment because I am puzzled. In 2014, the Welsh Assembly passed the Control of Horses (Wales) Act 2014 to deal with this issue. As this is now a devolved matter, there is no reason why it should not have done so; indeed, there is every reason why it should. Clause 1(1) of this Bill states that

“a local authority in England may detain a horse”,

and the entire Bill seems to apply to England until we get to clause 5(2), which states:

“This Act extends to England and Wales.”

That leaves me wondering what on earth Wales is meant to do with the legislation, and how it can extend to England and Wales. I therefore suggest that we leave out “and Wales”.

[Barry Gardiner]

I rise again to speak briefly to this amendment. It is not unusual for Bills passing through this place to include Wales in their jurisdiction. My understanding is that Wales is included in the Bill for technical reasons. The Animals Act 1971, which the Bill amends, extends to both countries, and any Bill that amends that Act needs to apply its provisions to both countries. However, because the Welsh Assembly has legislated for fly-grazing separately in the Control of Horses (Wales) Act 2014, the provisions of this Bill will in effect apply only to England. The 1971 Act does not apply to either Scotland or Northern Ireland, so they do not need to be included in the Bill. I would be grateful if the Minister reassured the House that the provisions in the Bill will apply in effect only to England. If that is the case, we would not wish to support the amendment.

[George Eustice]

Amendment 4 seeks to limit the extent of the Bill to England only, and not to England and Wales as currently drafted. I realise that it might be confusing to have a Bill that extends to both England and Wales but has provisions that apply only to England, but I can reassure hon. Members that this is not a mistake. The Bill extends to England and Wales for legal reasons. As the shadow Minister pointed out, the Bill amends the Animals Act 1971, which extends to England and Wales. Because the 1971 Act extends to England and Wales, any Bill that amends it must also apply to England and Wales.

I shall give the shadow Minister the reassurance that he seeks. Although the Bill extends to England and Wales, none of the provisions will apply in Wales. Furthermore, none of the amendments that are made to the Animals Act will apply to Wales. I should also point out that we took soundings from the Welsh Government when considering these matters, to ascertain whether they wanted Wales to come under the scope of this Bill, but the feedback that we received was that because they had introduced their own legislation in this area, they did not want to confuse matters further by extending these provisions to cover Wales. That is why the Bill explicitly excludes Wales. I hope that, in the light of that explanation, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) will not press his amendments to a vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner]

I, too, heartily congratulate the hon. Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy). This is an important Bill for many people in this country concerning a matter that needed to be tackled and required attention. The serious issue of horses illegally grazing has vexed many individuals and organisations for a long time and has been getting worse year by year. I hope that the passage of this Bill will ensure that those problems are brought to an end for many people.

Recently, the RSPCA, the Blue Cross, World Horse Welfare, HorseWorld, the British Horse Society and Redwings produced a damning report that has informed much of the thinking on this Bill. That report, “Left on the verge: In the grip of a horse crisis in England and Wales” catalogued appalling neglect and animal welfare abuses all over the country, including in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. Although it is important to stress that there are many good horse and pony owners who behave responsibly, a minority do not care about animal welfare and frequently put the welfare of their horses and ponies at risk by dumping them on other people’s land, allowing damage and other dangers to occur as a result of their irresponsible actions.

There is no doubt that irresponsible breeding and a significant drop in the value of horses has provided an inauspicious context to the development of the fly-grazing problem. The issue is also not helped by the complexity of outdated legislation, which allowed unscrupulous owners to dance around the authorities and enforcement agencies, often at great expense to taxpayers.

The problem is also expensive; the RSPCA alone spends in the region of £2.95 million a year on horses that it has taken into care. That figure excludes the veterinary costs. Many of the animals illegally fly-grazed are still not cared for and often in very poor health. The Opposition are convinced that it is vital that the issue be dealt with—not just to help communities plagued by the problem, but because we need to tackle the welfare issues arising from the illegal activity, as the hon. Gentleman suggested.

As an Opposition, we have for some time been calling on the Government to act on this issue and we are pleased that the Bill is making progress through its legislative stages. We also welcome the Government’s U-turn on the inclusion of private land; one can only speculate about why private land was not included from the start, but I acknowledge that the problem has been resolved and the Opposition are thankful for that.

We have been consistent in our approach to this legislation and have co-operated fully with the Government because we recognise its importance. We want the Bill to complete its Commons stages and progress to the other place—if it fails to reach the statute book, that will not be because we have stood in its way. However, if the Bill does fail, I assure the House that, if we form the next Government, we will be determined to introduce measures that ease the burden imposed on communities and local authorities by illegal fly-grazers. On that note, I shall conclude as I do not want to jeopardise the progress of this important Bill.