Kew Gardens

Debate between Dan Rogerson and Angela Smith

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Dan Rogerson]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, his commitment to the institution and his desire to look at every opportunity to secure its work and underpin it for the future. The triennial review offers an opportunity to look at the position of the institution and where it sits in the Government structure. He has referred to that chance, and that is the proper time, rather than asking the question separately today.

Hon. Members have raised issues to do with science and the crucial work that is done. The hon. Member for Richmond Park talked about the need for succession planning, to which I referred a little, and Kew is looking at the courses and other work it does as academic provision to ensure that it is bringing through the next generation of expertise for the future. That is an important part of its work.

Hon. Members from all parties have been campaigning to keep Kew at the forefront of debate in the House and outside it among people at large. I have been on the receiving end of that, too, not only from the hon. Member for Richmond Park, but from Opposition Members. I have heard from Liberal Democrats in Richmond and elsewhere. Today, we had the announcement of my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. So there has been pressure from throughout the country to ensure that we are doing the absolute best to protect Kew and all that it does.

As for the prospect of a further meeting, I will take that to my noble Friend Lord de Mauley, who is the responsible Minister. Given the Science and Technology Committee inquiry that is to begin tomorrow and the opportunities of the triennial review and the next comprehensive spending review, we will have to decide when the right point for such a meeting will be, but I will certainly take the proposal back to my noble Friend for his consideration. He is always happy to hear from Members of this House, as well as Members of another place, on the subject.

I also want to refute some of the little barbs sent in my direction by the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), who spoke for the Opposition. The Government have invested in science. As Forestry Minister, I know that the appointment of a chief plant health officer, the work on forestry research and so on are crucial, which is why we will continue to fund such things and take science forward.

The hon. Lady also made some points about funding generally. We heard from her party leader a few days ago about the fact that all parties will need to tackle issues such as how much Government will be able to invest in public services, how much expenditure will have to come from taxation and how much will have to be borrowed in the future. Those are difficult questions for all of us to answer.

[Angela Smith]

The Minister is being generous with his time, but I wish to remind him that I asked questions about today’s announcement. We would like the answers to the questions, rather than responses to the points made.

[Dan Rogerson]

I was merely responding to the hon. Lady’s assertion that, somehow, all would have been well and rosy for every area of public spending had a Labour Government been in office. I suspect that that would not have been the case.

The hon. Lady wanted to know whether the money announced today was new money. It is—it is not money coming from elsewhere in DEFRA’s budget. The funding is unrestricted and has no conditions attached to it, so Kew will be able to use it across the range of its responsibilities. All that money will be available in 2015-16. I hope that that reassures her and answers her questions.

I am grateful for the opportunity to place on the record the Government’s commitment to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. I thank hon. Members of all parties for their commitment and support. I hope that the announcement today by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister demonstrates that the money is available to help the transition that the institution is having to make over the coming years towards the long-term future that we all wish to see.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dan Rogerson and Angela Smith

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson]

We have a strong regulatory system that looks at not just the value for money and investment that companies offer customers, but the transparency of their business models and how they operate. Yorkshire Water, for example, has a good debt management programme to help people who have in the past struggled to pay their bills. We are making progress on a whole range of issues, and I welcome the fact that companies are upping their game.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) pointed out, rising water bills are adding to the cost of living crisis. With one in five customers struggling to pay, but only six water companies currently offering support to little more than 25,000 customers, will the Minister acknowledge that he needs to get to grips with this problem by adopting Labour’s national affordability scheme to end the current postcode lottery to which my hon. Friend referred, and to ensure that hard-pressed consumers get the support they need wherever they live?

[Dan Rogerson]

Since last year, water companies have been able to introduce schemes and they are doing so, but it is important that they take their customers with them and look at what works in their area. The schemes are not funded on a national basis. As I understand it, the Labour party’s proposal would not be funded on a national basis either, but in water company areas. It is important to look at the situation in each area.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dan Rogerson and Angela Smith

Thursday 17th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson]

As my hon. Friend knows, both the previous Secretary of State and I took a close interest in what happened in Somerset and made several visits there. I know that the new Secretary of State will also want to do that. I am sure that she will meet him soon, as will I.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

The Government’s response to the winter floods was slow and chaotic. Four months on, parliamentary answers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs show that, of the £10 million pledged by the Prime Minister to Somerset farmers, only £403,000 has been paid out, and only £2,320 has been paid out to one fisherman in the south-west. The Prime Minister has gone from “money is no object” to “out of sight, out of mind.” What will the Department do to ensure that people get the help they were promised?

[Dan Rogerson]

I first want to correct the hon. Lady’s misapprehension. The money is not only for farmers in Somerset; it is for farmers across the country. We have received applications from the north and the east, and from other counties in the south-west. Those applications are being approved. Applicants will be paid once the work is carried out, so unless she wants to interfere in those farming businesses and tell them that they must carry the work out in the next week, we will have to wait until the work is actually carried out before we can pay them.

Water Bill

Debate between Dan Rogerson and Angela Smith

Wednesday 7th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson]

The first thing that will be taken forward is information that a policy has been ceded to Flood Re. It is important that people should know that, as the scheme has a life span and the whole direction of policy is to protect more homes and to move to a post Flood Re period in due course. What exactly that information will take forward is a matter for discussion with the industry. When it comes to particular technologies or particular things that may help in certain circumstances, there are experts out there who offer that advice to policyholders. The Government’s current repair and renew scheme is in operation. There is also a body of work out there involving local authorities, which is giving people confidence in what might be done to support them. It is not our intention to be too specific as we consider this measure in the Bill.

I am sure that, like my hon. Friend, other Members will welcome this amendment, because it reflects our belief that it is important that policyholders whose buildings, contents or combined insurance policy are ceded to Flood Re know about their flood risk so that they can take simple steps to manage it. I am talking about signing up to free flood warnings as well as investigating other longer-term options.

To plan for the future, households also need to understand the likely impact of the transitional nature of the Flood Re scheme which is subsidising their premiums. Members should note that it is expected that standardised information will be sent to the customer by the relevant insurer that is ceding the policy to Flood Re, as that maintains the relationship between insurers and their customers.

Lords amendments 84 and 85 provide the power to define in regulations the meaning of “flood” and “flood risk” and are as a consequence of the amendment that I have just described.

Lords amendment 96 addresses the risk that secondary legislation made at the end of the life of Flood Re could be classed as hybrid. I can assure Members that, in any event, we have every intention of carrying out a full consultation before making that secondary legislation to ensure that any private interests are properly considered.

There are also a small number of technical changes made by the Lords amendments to the Bill. They cover the definition of the “eligibility threshold” and are intended to ensure the flood insurance measure is legally enforceable, as the risks relating to flooding are not calculated consistently across the various insurers.

On another matter, the Lords amendments to clauses 56 and 71 on the period of operation of Flood Re ensure that employment contracts within the scheme are transferrable.

Turning finally to the subject of sustainable drainage systems, we have also corrected an error to schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 to ensure that unused bond funds, called in by a SUDS approving body, can be returned to the right person.

[Angela Smith]

As the Minister has explained, this group of amendments relate, to the provisions in the Bill on flood reinsurance. Again, we will support the amendments, which we believe have materialised primarily because of pressure from a wide range of Members in the other place and from the official Opposition. However, we believe that more could have been done.

In many ways, this is yet another example of a missed opportunity to produce effective and robust legislation. We support the Flood Re scheme and believe that it is important that affordable cover is made available for those who are struggling and are at greatest risk from future floods. It is also important that the policy should be underpinned by the principle of minimal impact on wider bill payers, so it is important that the levy agreed between the Government and the industry remains equivalent to about £10.50 for each UK household with both buildings and contents insurance in place.

We also welcome the fact that Flood Re is designed to be progressive, with the benefits targeted on lower income households, but we are disappointed that the Government could not support Labour’s amendment in the other place, which would have at least enabled parliamentarians to shine a light on the potential problems created by the arrangements for leasehold and tenanted properties. As Lord Whitty pointed out, there are complicated qualifying or excluding conditions surrounding the ownership and occupation rules under the scheme.

The rules could also have an impact on the private rented market, as there is a fear that single property landlords, for instance, might find that their exclusion from the scheme means that the cost of insurance eats away at their capacity to invest in their properties. As Lord Whitty pointed out, the consequence could be increasing levels of dilapidated housing stock with potential impacts at a neighbourhood level. The only option that might be open to the landlord to raise funds for improvements could be to raise rents or the service charge, so tenants might suffer indirectly as a consequence of being excluded from the Flood Re scheme. The risk is clear: the number of new landlords prepared to invest and buy property will diminish in the areas that are affected. Given the housing crisis facing the country, that is not a welcome prospect.

Although we recognise that the actuarial calculations for Flood Re are delicate and depend on various assumptions, we feel it is important that Parliament understand, the position. Labour’s amendment would address that by ensuring that a report was made available so that Parliament could see for itself the consequences of including or excluding different combinations of property before taking the Flood Re scheme forward via statutory instrument.

We also feel that the Government have failed to grasp the importance of using reliable scientific evidence on the potential impact of climate change when making estimates of the current and projected number of properties eligible for inclusion in the Flood Re scheme. That is perhaps not surprising, given that the Secretary of State has been known before now to deny the reality of climate change, but the threat, as most of us agree, is real and we need to be sure that the scheme will operate effectively within its 25-year span and will be adaptable to weather conditions resulting from climate change. If they are to adapt effectively, it is crucial that households can access information that identifies current and projected estimates of the number of people eligible for the scheme.

It is entirely sensible that we should seek the advice of the Committee on Climate Change to inform as accurately as possible our calculations on the challenges that the Flood Re scheme will face over time. Only then can households truly take the necessary action to minimise risk. The Government have tabled amendments providing information on transitioning from Flood Re to risk-reflective pricing, which Labour has been arguing for throughout the passage of the Bill.

Flood Re cannot operate on a static basis. It needs to respond to changing weather patterns, and we continue to believe that the Secretary of State should take advice from a credible expert source. Lord Krebs, chair of the adaptation sub-committee, has indicated that he would be willing to take on that role. However, our amendments, along with others on access to the national database and the right to appeal, were not accepted by the Government. We think that is short-sighted, but we support the amendments in this group and will continue to engage positively on this important issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dan Rogerson and Angela Smith

Thursday 9th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson]

My hon. Friend is right to refer to the benefits of broadband connections to the rural economy. Through the work that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is doing with Broadband Delivery UK, and also through the rural community broadband fund, we are providing resources that will deliver projects in locations such as the one to which she referred. Some 10,000 properties a week are already being connected to superfast broadband, and we expect the figure to rise to about 40,000 a week by the summer.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

T8. Will the Secretary of State clarify how the remarks he made on allowing ancient woodland to be lost to development meet the spirit of his Department’s forestry policy statement which states categorically:“Protection of our trees, woods and forests, especially our ancient woodland, is our top priority”?

Local Government Financing

Debate between Dan Rogerson and Angela Smith

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

This is the first opportunity I have had to congratulate you on your appointment, Mr Deputy Speaker. I congratulate also the hon. Members for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal) and for Dudley South (Chris Kelly) on their confident and assured maiden speeches. I wanted to find something in common with them and my constituency, and I noted that they both support Wolverhampton Wanderers, who are managed by Mick McCarthy. He is a Barnsley lad, and I now represent a part of Barnsley—I say that in case people are not aware of where Penistone is. Mick McCarthy is known to frequent a wonderful Indian restaurant in my constituency, the Dil Raj, in Dodworth, so there is the connection, and one of which I am proud.

I, like many hon. Friends, have a background in local government. I was a councillor in Sheffield for almost 10 years, and if I learned anything in that time it was that local government is absolutely vital to the smooth, coherent running of our society. Without it, our way of life would soon deteriorate, with all our constituents suffering the consequences. However, I must tell hon. Members what the coalition Government seem intent on doing, because we now know what the big society means. It means looking after oneself and doing things for oneself; it means, “I’m all right, Jack”. Potentially and most worryingly, it means an erosion of the principle of democratic, elected accountability for the delivery of local services. That approach is based on an ideological belief in the small state; it is not the “needs must” approach that Government Members have touted in recent weeks.

My constituency straddles two metropolitan boroughs in south Yorkshire, Barnsley and Sheffield. Both have every reason to remember the last time the Tories were in government, as they suffered deeply from the unfair cuts that were imposed on south Yorkshire local authorities. Judging by the cuts that the Department for Communities and Local Government has already announced, it looks as if they have much to fear this time around. It is not as if they are poor, inefficient authorities; they are not. Barnsley metropolitan borough council is renowned for the quality of its leadership and its efficient use of resources, and for having one of the best leaders in local government, Steve Houghton. Recently, through careful financial planning, it managed to freeze council tax for old-age pensioners and to give the under-16s not only free swimming but free bus passes. I applaud Barnsley on that achievement, which is now under threat.

Sheffield city council’s efficiency has been praised for many years, or at least it was when it was Labour controlled. The Audit Commission awarded it four stars on many occasions, and, although it is right that local authorities should be as efficient as possible, the recently announced £1.65 billion of cuts to local authorities will have significant detrimental impacts on services, especially in places such as Barnsley and Sheffield. More worryingly, it very much looks as if metropolitan authorities are being asked to take a larger share of the cuts, with a reduction of £12.22 per head in those areas, compared with an average of £8.75 for English authorities as a whole. If any Government Member can tell me what is fair about that, I will be incredibly impressed. I do not think that they can.

Further analysis shows that cuts have been made disproportionately in some of the most deprived areas in the country. For instance, Blackburn is ranked at No. 5 on the scale of multiple deprivation and it sees a cut of 1.7%. Meanwhile, Calderdale, ranked at No. 107 on the scale, suffers a 0.6% cut—less than half that suffered by Blackburn. Interestingly, while shire councils see only a small cut of 0.3% in their budgets, the mets are cut, on average, by 0.9%. The right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne) says that we are all in this together, but yet again it seems that some are in it more than others. In typical Tory style, it seems that those with the least are being asked to pay the price for Tory ideology.

How will people’s lives be affected by the cuts already announced and those that will come later? In a report to be published shortly, the New Local Government Network concludes that many chief executives are saying that libraries, sports centres and street cleaning will be particularly vulnerable. Those of us with a background in local government know that all too well—we remember the last time around.

We hear from the Government Benches about the glories of decentralisation, but let me remind Government Members that in 1995 Sheffield set the budget that it wanted to set, to avoid cuts to libraries and street cleaning. It was told by the Tory Government of the time to go back and reset the budget in June that year; the budget was declared illegal. That is not what I call decentralisation.

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

I hear the issues that the hon. Lady has raised, particularly on behalf of the metropolitan borough that she represents. However, does she recall her Government voting for capping motions in the last Parliament, to cap police authorities and other authorities, which were subject to her Government’s decisions to restrict the rates that they wanted to set in their areas?

[Angela Smith]

I do indeed remember the capping. I am with my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) on this: I do not believe that capping is right. However, the situation in 1995 was incredibly desperate. By that time, we had suffered 15 or 16 years of year-on-year cuts. In the mid-1990s, there was less cash for the housing budget, in real terms, than we had had in 1979. By the time Labour came to power in ’97, there was a backlog of £1 billion in the housing budget.

I accept criticism of Labour’s record on affordable housing and new housing; I think that the previous Minister for Housing accepted it. But we had a massive backlog of disinvestment to deal with.