Sewage Pollution

Debate between George Eustice and Robert Goodwill

Tuesday 6th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Sir Robert Goodwill.

[Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

Before privatisation, every single gallon of Scarborough sewage was pumped into the sea untreated. Since privatisation, we have seen investment in the Burniston water treatment works, which has been upgraded with ultraviolet treatment to increase its capacity, and in a 4 million litre stormwater tank at the end of Marine Drive that captures the majority of heavy storms. Would the Secretary of State agree that the bathing water off the Yorkshire coast has never been cleaner, and that while there is more work to be done, particularly on some of our inland waterways, private sector investment is the way to deliver that?

[George Eustice]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have prioritised investments through the new strategic policy statement for Ofwat, which means that this issue is being prioritised for the first time ever. He is also right that private capital has helped to raise the money to lead to infrastructure improvements. Things were not perfect in the days of nationalisation. Indeed, we did not even understand the scale of the problem because there was not the monitoring in place, which we have now required, to recognise it.

Government Food Strategy

Debate between George Eustice and Robert Goodwill

Monday 13th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

I welcome the direction in which the strategy takes us, but will the Secretary of State comment on what I might suggest are a couple of omissions? First, he rightly says that, in terms of the food that we can produce, we produce about three quarters of what we consume. However, in recent years, we have seen a dramatic reduction in the amount of vegetable oil we produce, making us more reliant on sunflower oil and rapeseed oil from Ukraine and on unsustainable palm oil from the far east. What can we do to address that? Secondly, on the location of photovoltaic installations, more regard seems to be given to the proximity of an electricity substation than to the quality of the land on which they are installed. Could the Secretary of State perhaps look at that issue again?

[George Eustice]

First, may I take this opportunity —my first at the Dispatch Box—to welcome my right hon. Friend to his new post on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. He was a predecessor of mine as a Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and I know that he will bring considerable expertise to his new job.

On the two points that my right hon. Friend raised, planning guidance already sets out a clear presumption against building solar farms on the best and most versatile agricultural land, which is classed as grade 3b and above. I am aware that there have recently been instances where BMV land has been built on, and we are discussing that with Government colleagues.

On the second issue that my right hon. Friend raised, around our dependence on imported sunflower and rapeseed oil, the rapeseed crop has declined in recent years due to the withdrawal of the use of neonicotinoids. It has recovered in the last year, and prices are strong, but the ultimate solution probably lies in the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill, which will be introduced in the House later this week and bring forward our ability to tackle some of these agronomic challenges.

UK Shellfish Exports

Debate between George Eustice and Robert Goodwill

Monday 8th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

The reality of the trade and co-operation agreement is that its fisheries section delivered a 25% uplift in fishing opportunities, a rebalancing of the sharing arrangements and an abandonment of relative stability as the quid pro quo for granting the EU continued access to our waters for five and a half years. We are free to review it after that. We also have the freedom to set our own regulations in this area. But we recognise that there have been teething problems. That is why the Government announced a new £23 million fisheries disruption fund to support those businesses that struggled with the paperwork in the initial weeks.

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

Fishermen who land scallops into Scarborough and Whitby have been told by their wholesalers that there is no market for their fish, so they are currently tied up, despite approaching peak season, which ends at the end of April. Is the situation with regards to the European Commission—this flies in the face of the advice it gave in September 2019—an example of its vindictiveness, or its incompetence? Will the Secretary of State write to the chair of the European Parliament Fisheries Committee, whose job it is to hold the Commission to account?

[George Eustice]

My right hon. Friend makes an important and a good suggestion, so I will indeed write to the chair of the fisheries committee to ensure that they are apprised of the discussions that we are also having with the European Commission. I am happy to do that.

My right hon. Friend invites me to comment on why the EU might have done this. I am afraid I am not going to be drawn on that, since I do not know. We very much hope that on reflection the European Union will look at this again and realise that the judgment it has made on the legal position is wrong and that it can adjust it at this late stage.

Fisheries Bill [Lords]

Debate between George Eustice and Robert Goodwill

Ways and Means resolution & 2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend is a long-time expert in fisheries policy, with direct experience of all the difficulties and shortcomings of the CFP, and she makes an important point. We have a particular problem, due to the unfair sharing arrangements under relative stability, of what is called choke species affecting our fleet, where there simply is not enough quota for fishermen to even be able to land their by-catch. As she says, the lack of quota for choke species causes a risk that the fleet has to tie up because they simply do not have the quota available to them. We set out in our White Paper a fairer sharing arrangement, so that there will be fewer choke species, but also an approach to managing discards that will enable us to charge a disincentive charge on fishermen who land out-of-quota stock, rather than force them to discard it at sea in a very wasteful way—so we remove the incentive to target vulnerable species but give fishermen left in a difficult position an option that they can exercise.

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

Will the Bill allow us to give grant aid to fishermen to have more selective fishing tackle, to enable them to not catch the choke species that cause these problems?

[George Eustice]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point. I know that he was involved in crafting some of these measures during his time in DEFRA, and I can confirm that those measures remain in place. We have powers in the Bill to make grant payments to fishermen, in particular to support them in fishing in a more sustainable way and investing in the gear that enables them to do that. I was about to come on to that point.

As we plan for our future, we need to recognise the immense value of fishing to our local communities, and we want to ensure that our own industry is able to benefit from the new opportunities that will arise. The powers in clause 35 mean that we can set up new funding schemes and grants to support the development of port infrastructure, the development of our fishing industry and its capacity to manage an increased catch and to manage those sustainability issues.

Agriculture Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between George Eustice and Robert Goodwill

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th February 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Goodwill]

Q I am trying to get my head around the deal in payments with respect to an early retirement scheme. When answering an earlier question, you talked about the way it could affect the value of the land. Could there be a situation in which a tenant takes the money and runs, and then the landowner is looking for a new tenant but without the agricultural support? It is difficult to attract one. How will the environment be managed if the payments that would have been forthcoming for the environmental land management schemes were not there? What would happen in practice in a situation where a tenant takes early retirement and takes the money, and then expects the landlord to pick up the pieces?

Jake Fiennes: There could be a technical mechanism relating to tenant’s dilapidations from the landlord’s perspective. The landlord could seek to recoup that if he was going to devalue the land by taking those future payments away. There is a technical mechanism that allows that to happen. That strengthens the landlord’s ability to retain that land to rent to others or to new entrants. It is important that there is some kind of mechanism within the Bill for that. Potentially there would be land abandonment because it has no value, or we would see deep intensification of land areas that have no support mechanism. Then we are trying to deliver environmental land management on a landscape scale, and we have these blackspots in between with no support mechanism. That would be my concern.

[George Eustice]

Q On that point: do we want land rents to stay as high as they are? Would it not potentially be beneficial for landlords to have to fight one another to attract tenants on to their land?

Jake Fiennes: Land rents are artificially high based on the support mechanism. We will see that slowly diminish. Commodity prices will periodically affect land prices. The horticultural sector does not rely on support at all. The average age of the British farmer is 62: land rents are overly high and they will be reduced, thereby suddenly allowing new entrants to come in who will be more open to environmental land management and public goods proposals. We will see a wholesale change. We are expecting a recession in agriculture through this transition period, for all the reasons being discussed today. Where there is change there is opportunity, and the opportunities are there for another generation to move in and manage land environmentally, economically and sustainably.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

Q Chapter 2, clause 8 deals with the possible extension of the period. I may not understand it particularly well, but it does not make it clear whether, if there is an extension to the seven-year period, that would pause the transition from BPS to ELMS, or whether that would just continue, but at the end of the seven years there would be an extra year or two under the full ELMS system. If there was an extension, at the same time, could that be coupled with a freeze in the transition for a number of reasons, including that the ELMS was not being taken up as quickly?

George Dunn: Yes, and I think that is what the Bill intends. My reading of the Bill would suggest that that is what would happen under those circumstances. To go back to the previous question, if money was taken out of the system that was not able to be spent through the new arrangements, that would have to be paid back, in our view.

[George Eustice]

Q A previous witness said that if a tenant farmer exercised an option that we set out under clause 13 to take a number of years payment in lieu as a lump sum, under the way tenancy agreements tend to be drafted, the landlord would say that was a dilapidation and would take compensation off the tenant farmer. That seemed a rather extraordinary extension of the conventional interpretation of dilapidation. What would your respective views on that be?

George Dunn: My view is that the answer you were given was nonsense. There would have to be a very specific clause in a tenancy agreement that provided for the circumstances that you are describing—for a landlord to be able to dilapidate a tenant for taking away the payment, which is rightfully theirs anyway, because it is their entitlement to do with that what they will.

We are actually quite excited by the provisions on the lump sum and the extent to which that could generate some really good restructuring within the sector. I do not think there will be an impact on land values as was suggested, because land values are driven by much more than the agricultural return, which is about 2% of the average land value, when you look at how agriculture operates. There might be an impact on rent, which could be a good thing for the sector in terms of productivity and margin and efficiency, but we think that the lump sum elements are certainly something worth pursuing.

Judicaelle Hammond: I think we are a little bit more cautious without more detail. We look forward to the consultation that will happen on the secondary legislation. It is hard to say how it would work and whether there would be any unintended consequences without more detail. The same thing is true of the lump sum. We can see opportunities, both for retirement and investment in the farm, but at the moment, we also see that it could have all sorts of unforeseen consequences. We really do need to have a thought-through view of how the system would work.