Water Companies: Executive Bonuses

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Commons Chamber

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

It is a real pleasure for me to take part in this debate. I was born and raised in the heart of Cornwall, have lived there my whole life, and have always enjoyed the sea. Members who follow me on any my private social media platforms will know that I am found in, on or beside the sea at just about every possible opportunity. Therefore, I have taken a very keen interest in the whole issue of water quality, particularly bathing water and sewage discharge, throughout my life, long before I was first elected to this House.

We have to start by saying that this is not a new issue. Let us remember that Surfers Against Sewage was started in 1990 specifically to raise awareness about it and deal with it. At that time, less than 25% of UK bathing waters were at a minimum acceptable standard for bathing, whereas there is now only one beach in my constituency that does not meet that standard. I am sorry, but pretending that things are worse than they have ever been is absolute nonsense. We have seen incredible progress on this issue over many years.

I remember very clearly that the Labour Government did absolutely nothing in 13 years to address the issue—zero. When we came into office in 2015, we were the first ever Government to take this matter seriously and start to address it.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

What my hon. Friend has just said is not actually accurate. Labour did not just do nothing; in 2006, it cut a deal with the water companies to agree self-assessment on their environmental performance. Does he agree that that is worse than nothing?

[Steve Double]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Labour actually made the situation worse—so much so that in 2009, the Labour Government was taken to court by the EU for failing to deal with the issue—so I am sorry, but we will take no lectures whatsoever from the Opposition Front Benchers about dealing with it. We are the first Government who have ever taken this matter seriously and taken action to start addressing it. We do not even have to think back in history, because we have a living example right before us today: in the one part of the UK where the Labour party is in government, the situation is far worse than in England. Wales is responsible for 25% of sewage discharges for the whole of England and Wales, yet it has only 5% of the population, so again, we will take no lectures from the Opposition.

It was this Government who first introduced substantial monitoring of storm overflows. When Labour left office, 7% of storm overflows were monitored; that figure is now 91%, and it will reach 100% in the next few weeks. I place on record my thanks—and, I believe, our thanks—to one of my Cornish colleagues, my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), who started the process of dealing with this issue when he came into DEFRA. I do not believe we would be in the position we are in today with monitoring, or with any of the other measures, if he had not initiated that work when he first became a DEFRA Minister.

[Jerome Mayhew]

The Liberal Democrats often claim that they are very interested in sewage, yet they fail to mention that the water Minister between 2013 and 2015 was the former Member for North Cornwall, a Liberal Democrat. What did he do to improve the situation? Nothing.

[Steve Double]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It was not until 2015 that the Government started to take this issue seriously and take action; it did not even happen under the coalition Government. Therefore, all the crowing from the Liberal Democrats that they regard this as a really important issue is nonsense, because when they were in government, they initiated nothing to address it.

It is clear that there is now far greater public awareness and concern about this issue, and it is much higher up the political agenda than ever before, and rightly so. Some of us, particularly in Cornwall, have been pushing for that to be the case for a very long time, so I welcome the fact that sewage discharges are now a much bigger priority and there is much greater public awareness of them. However, again, let us be frank: people are only aware of what is going on because of the increased monitoring that we have introduced. For 13 years under Labour, all of this sewage was being discharged into the sea, but no one knew about it because there was no monitoring. It is only because of the increase in monitoring over the past few years that we know what is going on.

The first step towards dealing with an issue is to know what is happening. The first step that the Government took was to introduce monitoring, and we now have the data that enables us to hold the water companies to account. Before we had that monitoring and that data, we could not hold them to account because we did not know what was going on; now, we are holding them to account. Since 2015, there have been 58 prosecutions of water companies for failing to fulfil their obligations, and £141 million has been secured in fines. That money is being invested in environmental improvements and in reducing pollution. We must always remember that under this Government, it is the water companies that get taken to court; under Labour, it is the Government who get taken to court.

We now have a plan to reduce storm overflows, which I had the great privilege of launching during my brief time as water Minister. I acknowledge that my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) put in most of the legwork to produce that plan; I just had the glory moment of crossing the t’s, dotting the i’s and launching it. We now have a plan to invest £56 billion in upgrading the infrastructure to reduce sewage discharges, but we have to be honest with the British public. We hear comments from Opposition Members like, “Let’s stop sewage immediately; we could do it straightaway,” but that is nonsense. We are talking about Victorian infrastructure that has been in place for over 100 years: it is going to take an awful lot of money and an awful lot of time to upgrade and improve that infrastructure to address this issue. However, we now have a plan to make sure that it will happen, and we can hold the water companies to account to ensure that they make that investment and deliver on that plan.

There is also a myth—I am sure Labour Members will mention it today—that somehow Conservative Members voted to allow water companies to continue to discharge sewage. It is a lie: it is not the truth. Actually, we were the ones who brought forward the Environment Act 2021, which contains all the measures that enable us to hold the water companies to account. The Opposition did not support the Act so, if anything, they were the ones who tried to stop us taking action against the water companies, and we were the ones who voted for the Act and all the measures it contains. We need to be absolutely clear that we are the ones taking action and we are the ones taking this matter seriously.

The motion mentions directors’ bonuses. It is absolutely right that directors of water companies who fail to keep their obligations when it comes to sewage discharge and other forms of pollution should not be rewarded because of that, but we are already doing it. Ofwat has confirmed that it has the power to review both dividend payments and bonuses where water companies fail to keep to their environmental obligations. I know it is difficult for Labour Members, because they probably sit there looking at all the things we are doing and thinking, “Why on earth didn’t we do this when we were in government for 13 years?” I know it must be difficult for them, because they did absolutely nothing. They made things worse, not better, and it is this Government who are delivering on this issue.

I take this issue seriously. I have taken this issue seriously for many years—long before I came to this House—and it is right that the public are now much more aware of how important it is, but let us get real: we are dealing with it. We are taking the necessary steps to reduce the amount of sewage that will be discharged, and I welcome that. I believe that this Government will continue to deliver on our plan, and we will see things continue to improve in the years ahead.

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[Jerome Mayhew]

The hon. Gentleman is right: in my view there was a failure of regulation in the noughties, because during that period the financial engineering took place to load those businesses with debt. Does he accept that that manipulation of debt was completed by 2009? If he does, what does he have to the say about the Labour Government in power at the time? Were they asleep at the wheel?

[Andy Slaughter]

I accept that the debt has been loaded and that the gearing is completely out of proportion. Under Macquarie, Thames Water’s debt went from £4 billion to £10 billion, but it is now at £14 billion under the current owners. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was listening to the radio or has read the media this morning, but Thames appears to be asking for a 40% rise in bills. It has £14 billion-worth of debt, and according to press reports, it might run out of money by next April. That would be the second scare within a year. This is a company that almost has a licence to print money. It has 17 million customers, all paying their bills every year. Its job is obviously not straightforward, but it is not the most difficult job in the world. It cannot perform any part of that function well, and it cannot run its own company well, and that is the parlous state into which it has descended. I therefore understand that the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has called Thames Water before it tomorrow to answer some questions.

If the Select Committee can do that, what are the Government doing? I heard an extraordinarily wittering, complacent speech from the Minister the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) just now. There was no grasp of the risks. A major company could go under, with a failure to supply a basic service. What more basic service is there than the supply of water and sewerage services to a large part of the population in this country? There was no understanding of the risks or what the remedies need to be.

This is another area where this Government have failed completely. It is their job, which I do not believe they will do in the small amount of time they have left, to take this issue seriously. They will have to, because otherwise my constituents and those in London and the south-east will not be able to have any realistic purveyor of water and sewerage services going forward. I hope that when the Minister the hon. Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) winds up, he shows some awareness of those needs.

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[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

My constituents are not only bill payers and users of Thames Water, but they live with its decades-long failure to plan and invest. The River Thames flows alongside Chiswick, Brentford and Isleworth, where we walk, kayak, row and paddleboard. Too often, the Thames is polluted with dilute sewage just about every time it rains. Mogden sewage treatment works, covering 55 acres, sits in my constituency. For decades, Mogden has been a regular source of pungent sewage smells and a virulent subspecies of mosquito.

In February 2020, the streets and parks of Isleworth and the pristine Duke of Northumberland’s river was flooded with raw—not even dilute—sewage, because the main sewage intake into Mogden backed up and punched a hole through into the river. That was a direct result of maintenance failure and that issue not appearing on the risk assessment register. This debate matters to my constituents.

In October 2020, 2 billion litres of dilute sewage was discharged into the River Thames at Isleworth Ait over just two days. That was two thirds of the total discharges in 2020. In 2022, that same sewer storm outflow spilled 20 times for a total of 164 hours, discharging again into the River Thames. Just across the river at Petersham, another outfall regularly discharges. All of that is 10 years after Mogden sewage treatment works had its treatment capacity almost doubled.

I am struggling to find any evidence of any fines that Thames Water has received for the discharges I have just described. That is because they are planned. They are permitted discharges. The discharges of which we are notified are the only ones we know about, because, as the BBC “Panorama” investigation found, water companies appear to be covering up illegal sewage discharges, making sewage pollution disappear from official figures.

The water companies not only process our sewage and storm run-off, but supply fresh water. As other Members have already said, however, too much of that fresh water is wasted through pipe leaks. After too many water main bursts flooded shops and homes, we had, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) described, a programme to replace the Victorian fresh water pipes across the Thames Water area, but it seems to have stopped and we are just supposed to wait until the next burst happens. There is so much more that Thames Water could be doing to stop the leakages.

The overall picture of our water situation in the Thames Water area is a failure of oversight—a failure to upgrade the water and sewage infrastructure continually as London’s population grows, and as drought and heavy rain become regular aspects of our weather. For over 20 years—first as a councillor, and as an MP since 2015—I have been pressuring Thames Water to take action, as have the Mogden Residents’ Action Group, Hounslow London Borough Council and other residents. As a result of a legal challenge by residents, Thames Water was forced to increase the capacity of the sewage treatment works, to improve its reporting and to do continuous mosquito eradication.

Thames Water has also done some other work. We have had to put up with recent roadworks locally, because it has now installed a pipe to pump excess methane into the main gas grid, which is to be welcomed. We have had the multibillion-pound tideway project to take sewage out of the Thames, but it does not benefit those of us who live upstream of Hammersmith, so we are now faced with another expensive tunnelling project: the Teddington direct river abstraction scheme, which will address not high rainfall periods but periods of drought.

The Teddington DRA is designed to take millions of litres of water from the Thames, pump it across London to the Lee valley, and then replace that water with treated effluent from Mogden. That means a new pipeline and access shafts, so we are going to have a building site the size of half a football pitch on the Ivybridge estate, a low-income council estate in my constituency. The project will involve tunnelling beneath homes. It will also potentially impact on biodiversity in the River Thames and on riverside walks, and impact on river users as well. Are there really no alternatives to this three-year construction project across my constituency and those neighbouring it? The Environment Agency certainly raised doubts about the scheme when it wrote to Thames Water in March this year. The Teddington DRA will save only a 10th of the 630 million litres lost per day through leaks.

What are the rewards for this managed incompetence? Thames Water’s chief executive, Sarah Bentley, received a £496,000 pay-out last year. At least she had the good grace this year to say that it

“just did not feel like the right thing to take performance-related pay this year.”

I support the Opposition’s motion calling on the Government to enable Ofwat to block company bosses’ bonuses where high levels of sewage are being pumped into rivers; to end self-monitoring and force all companies to monitor every single water outlet; to ensure that water bosses face personal criminal liability for extreme and persistent lawbreaking: and to introduce severe and automatic fines for illegal discharges that bosses cannot ignore. We should not be dependent on whistleblowers to find out about failures. With a boost in the powers of the water regulator, water bosses who fail to meet high environmental standards on sewage pollution must be met with significant sanctions to ensure that they cannot profit from damaging the environment.

[Jerome Mayhew]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way and apologise more generally for jumping up and down like a jack-in-the-box. Is she aware of Ofwat’s press release of 29 June entitled “Ofwat delivers decision on executive pay”? In that, it says that it has recently announced

“new powers that will enable it to stop the payment of dividends”

directly and in full if a company does not meet its performance targets, including environmental targets. It goes on to say:

“In line with the new guidance”,

which it published that day,

“Ofwat expects water company remuneration committees to take full account of performance for customers and the environment”,

and that, if they do not, Ofwat will intervene on every single basis. Does she not accept that the powers are already in place and being used?

[Ruth Cadbury]

I would like to see them—I find that Ofwat is just too powerless. On dividends, Thames Water has not paid them for five years—so it keeps telling me—but that did not stop it until this year paying its senior executives very high dividends.

Why should my hard-pressed constituents face an average increase of £39 in their water bills? They have lost trust in Thames Water after years and years of scandal, putting up with smells, mosquitoes, building works, flooding and sewage through their streets and parks. Having met and talked to Thames Water for almost 20 years as a councillor and an MP, it is clear to me that it still has a lot to do to clean up its act. Bills are rising, service standards remain poor, and we continue to see raw sewage being pumped into the Thames.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

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

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

2. What recent discussions he has had with the Church on strengthening its parish ministry.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

6. What recent discussions he has had with the Church on strengthening its parish ministry.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)]

Parish ministry is at the heart of the mission of the Church. The Church Commissioners will distribute £1.2 billion between 2023 and 2025 to support our mission and ministry—a 30% increase on the current three-year period—and the lion’s share of this funding will be used to revitalise parish ministry.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Does my hon. Friend agree with me that the relationship between a parish priest and his or her congregation is the single most important element of outreach and service for the Church, and as such, its support should be the primary objective of Church funds?

[Andrew Selous]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, which is why the Church Commissioners continue to fund increasing numbers of ordinands. In 2020, 570 new priests were ordained and there were 580 in training, with only 320 retirements. Innovative ways of attracting clergy from many backgrounds include the fantastic work of both the Peter and the Caleb streams, which I would commend to his parishes.

Sewage Pollution

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

If the hon. Lady writes to us about her proposal, we will look at it. DEFRA has a target under the Environment Act 2021 to increase the number of bathing waters that are in good and favourable condition, and the Environment Agency and others work to ensure that the designations can be processed.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

We need to establish the real scale of the problem. It has been estimated that providing a full solution to storm overflow discharges will require the replacement of 100,000 miles of combined sewers, so the Government have it absolutely right with increasingly onerous targets for Ofwat backed by unlimited fines, and £56 billion of infrastructure investment year after year. Does my right hon. Friend agree that to pretend that we can call for an immediate ban does a huge disservice to the general public and takes them for fools?

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is important to take the right long-term decisions now on investment, monitoring and bringing prosecutions in order to ensure that the issue improves over the next 25 years and, indeed, that it improves significantly between now and 2025; that is exactly what our plan sets out.

Cost of Living and Food Insecurity

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House is concerned that households are bracing themselves for the biggest drop in living standards in thirty years; notes that the cost of living crisis includes steep price increases in everyday and essential food items, making the situation worse for the 4.7 million adults and 2.5 million children already living in food insecurity and risking more people experiencing food insecurity; regrets that the Government is making the cost of living crisis worse through tax hikes, low growth, falling real wages, and a failure to tackle the energy crisis; condemns a decade of Conservative-led governments for leaving Britain uniquely exposed to a global gas crisis and failing to create high paid, secure jobs; and calls upon the Government to set out a national strategy for food including how it intends to ensure access to high quality, sustainable, affordable food for all and meet the United Nations goal to end hunger by 2030.

Members on all sides are hearing more and more from desperately worried constituents who are concerned about rocketing household bills and the cost of food, but where is the Secretary of State? Where is the Cabinet Member responsible for this Department? The person who sits around the table with the Prime Minister and the Chancellor has not even bothered to turn up to this debate. That is absolutely scandalous. Is it that they do not understand the real-life consequences of food poverty and rocketing bills? The darkness of poverty is not just not being able to turn the lights on; it is being driven into debt and despair because you cannot afford to live. And the darkness is not just at night time: it is during the day when the curtains are closed because you are fearful of the debt collector knocking on the door. That is the darkness of poverty. That is what is clearly not understood by this Government, who are too busy saving the job of one person, the Prime Minister, instead of getting on with the job of running the country—Operation Shaggy Dog in full force—and I think that is absolutely outrageous. While the Government are putting all their energies into desperately trying to save the Prime Minister, they are hitting hard-working families with a triple whammy.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

I do not think the operation was called Operation Shag a Dog, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman would care to correct the House.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I heard shaggy dog. I am sure everybody heard shaggy dog.

Animals (Penalty Notices) Bill

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 4th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

I join all other hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) on introducing the Bill and getting this far. There is a worrying sense of unanimity in the House, which always gives me cause for concern. I will not breach it, save to highlight one or two slight concerns I have about the drafting of the Bill.

There is much to welcome in the Bill, and chief among them is the immediate impact that the levelling of a fixed-penalty notice has on both the individual who receives it and the wider community. There is a direct relation between cause and effect. We all know that speed in justice is enormously important. One of the great problems we have in society today is the delay that has bound up the criminal justice system, particularly in the Crown court but also in the magistrates court.

I also like the direct link between the severity of the offence and the penalty notice amount, with the factors, aggravating and mitigating, set out in clause 4. I recognise that there is also provision for the Secretary of State to give guidance on how those should be properly applied. That is a very important factor that needs to be taken seriously by the Secretary of State for the Bill to be properly applied.

However, the reasons behind the Bill’s benefit also give me some grounds for caution as we seek to apply fixed-penalty notices as a mechanism for bypassing the normal course of the criminal justice system. One of the reasons my hon. Friend the Member for Romford gave for why it is so important to have fixed-penalty notices was the delay in the magistrates courts. Surely, the best way to deal with delay in criminal justice is not to bypass it with fixed-penalty notices but to adequately fund magistrates courts and the criminal justice system that serves all of our country.

There is a requirement in clause 1(1) for the enforcement authority to be “satisfied beyond reasonable doubt”, but there is no requirement in the Bill for them to obtain or secure sufficient evidence to be satisfied. I query whether there is a risk that a prosecuting authority may see this as a shortcut past obtaining sufficient evidence to create a proper prosecution, and that fixed-penalty notices may be given more readily than a decision to prosecute otherwise would be. If that were the case, it would be a cause for concern for us all.

That leads me to who those enforcement authorities are. We see from clause 1(4) that the Bill does not tell us who they are; we are told that that will be provided by regulation. There is nothing wrong per se in secondary legislation providing further detail, but in this instance I start to get a little concerned. In clause 1(5), we are told who the Secretary of State might consider to be an enforcement authority. It says that that may be the Secretary of State himself or herself—fair enough—a local authority or, in paragraph (c),

“any other person that the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”

It would be impossible to draft that definition more widely. I respectfully highlight that issue to the Minister and invite her at least to consider it in responding to the debate, because this is the very definition of a blank cheque for the Secretary of State.

I wonder whether enforcement authorities might include, for example, private prosecutors such as the RSPCA. If that were the case, it would run counter to the current considerations of the Law Commission, which is interested in considering the future for all kinds of private prosecutors. We have a recent history of significant miscarriages of justice where private prosecutors have acted. I have only to pray in aid the biggest criminal justice scandal in our nation’s history—the Horizon scandal, where the Post Office acted in the role of private prosecutor—to demonstrate why the Law Commission may not be keen to continue to allow private prosecutors right across our criminal justice system.

The reason I know that is that I approached the Law Commission myself in relation to the Care Quality Commission and its powers as a private prosecutor in the health sector because of a scandal at Cawston Park Hospital in my constituency, where three patients with mental ill health and autism, as well as Down syndrome, died over a 27-month period because of neglect and, certainly in one case, physical abuse. I therefore raise a serious concern about whether private prosecutors could amount to enforcement authorities under clause 1(4).

Finally, I turn to clause 5(2). Enforcement authorities can apply a fine of up to £5,000. Most of that money will return to the central funds, but clause 5(2) gives enforcement authorities the ability to deduct their own costs of prosecution from any fines. That is a clear financial incentive to issue fixed-penalty notices, because it pays for their own operations. I hope we will all be naturally concerned to ensure that we do not apply a parking fine company approach to this area of law. That would be wholly not what my hon. Friend the Member for Romford, or any of us, intends. It is important that the Secretary of State, when coming to the secondary legislation and regulation on this matter, thinks hard about that potentially poisonous mix of financial incentive and private prosecution.

In conclusion, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Romford again for getting behind this legislation and bringing it to the House and, I hope, to a happy conclusion, but I ask the Minister to think carefully about potential unintended consequences. We have heard about Staffordshire bull terriers and about Spike and Buster, but let us not forget that we need to look after John Bull as well, as he is persecuted by the heavy hand of the state. We want to give him protection too, and we must ensure that our legislation is well drafted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jane Stevenson (Wolverhampton North East) (Con)]

I rise to speak briefly in support of the Bill. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), who shares my enthusiasm for animal welfare. His commitment to the cause is valuable and appreciated by many hon. Members on both sides of the House. It has also been a great pleasure to listen to many hon. Members share experiences of their pets of various shapes and sizes.

It is valuable for children and adults to have and care for a pet to learn an appreciation and love of animals. For many hon. Members on both sides of the House, it informs our choices in this place and advances the cause of animal welfare. I should mention my two Cavalier spaniels, Cromwell and Bertie, who appreciate everything I do in this place on animal welfare. I am sure they look forward to seeing me later and congratulating me.

[Jerome Mayhew]

I rise not to talk about Cavalier King Charles spaniels, but to ask whether my hon. Friend agrees that the direct impact of the fixed penalty notice being applied as soon as the relevant authority considers that there is evidence beyond reasonable doubt adds a powerful deterrent to people causing cruelty or neglect to animals.

[Jane Stevenson]

I absolutely agree. Education and those low-level interventions will be important. At the moment there is not a good enough safety net on animal welfare, because only the most serious cases are likely to be investigated and only the most serious abusers are ever likely to be fined or prosecuted.

The Bill will do a valuable job of introducing low-grade fines and of providing the opportunity to give advice to pet owners, which is key. Some people are unintentionally not creating the best environment for their pets, but we can have a culture where they might get a warning and advice on animal welfare from an appropriate officer. That is what I most like about the Bill: it is pragmatic, it is not heavy-handed, but it will certainly raise standards broadly in animal welfare across the United Kingdom. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Romford again for bringing forward such a useful and important Bill as part of the Government’s commitment to improve animal welfare.

Glue Traps (Offences) Bill

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Report stage
Friday 4th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

I believe it was my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) who, in an earlier debate on the Bill, described it as a rat protection Bill. Were it to be one, I would certainly not be supporting it. I grew up in an old farmhouse; some of my most profound memories of childhood involve rodents, and not in a particularly positive way. I remember lying in bed as a small child in that seemingly interminable period between being put down and actually falling asleep and hearing the scurrying of the mice—I hope they were mice, but we were never sure whether the mice or the rats had the upper hand at any one time. They would go up the wall and I would hear them pitter patter across the ceiling. I was used to it from an early age, so it became rather soothing after a while, which seems odd in retrospect.

We had a mouse in our kitchen for a period that became very bold. They are normally nocturnal, but one lived behind the gap where there should have been a dishwasher. It took to coming out into the kitchen while we were having our breakfast and would wander across the floor. It was rather sweet so we did not take effective action for a week or two, but I am sorry to say that my mother eventually decided that hygiene was the better part of that relationship. I am sure that she did not use a glue trap but an effective means was found to say goodbye.

I mentioned the contest between the ascendancy of the mice and the ascendency of the rats. It may be an urban myth but I have always assumed that there is only ever one kind in the house—mice or rats. I stand to be corrected on that. I remember that, when my brother was on a rat hunt in the larder with a baseball bat, he effected a clean hit on a moving target, which gave him enormous status, certainly in my eyes—I have looked up to him ever since.

[Lia Nici]

My hon. Friend is telling us a beautiful story of growing up in the countryside, about which I would like to read more in his future memoirs. I may have a sleepless night tonight though because “The Ascendency of the Rats” sounds like a new horror film. I am concerned that perhaps we should look at banning baseball bats with regard to rodents as well.

[Jerome Mayhew]

I thank, I think, my hon. Friend for her intervention. One thing to be said for baseball bats as a method of controlling rodents is that, although they may not be very effective, and people rarely make contact, when they do, they are decisive.

I reminisce because we need to control rats and rodents, but we share this world. Growing up with the kind of childhood that I had, I instinctively understood how much we share this world with wildlife and I benefited enormously from that. When we need to control animals, therefore, particularly sophisticated animals such as mice and rats, we need to do that quickly and humanely, so I support the Bill almost in its entirety.

I run the risk of sounding a bit like a lawyer this morning, because I made a rather tedious intervention on the previous Bill and I am afraid I will do so again. I made the point on Second Reading, and was punished by being put on the Committee as well, where I took the opportunity to make the same point, for which I received cross-party support and agreement, that there is an issue in clause 1(5) that needs to be addressed.

The Bill has the effect of outlawing the laying of glue traps, but not entirely. It is still perfectly legal for licensed operators to lay glue traps in certain circumstances. Clause 1(4) says:

“A person who knowingly causes or permits an offence to be committed under subsection (1) or (2) commits an offence.”

That has in mind people who perhaps pay someone else to lay a glue trap on their behalf. Clause 1(5) says,

“A person commits an offence if the person—

(a) finds a glue trap in England that has been set in a manner which gives rise to a risk that a rodent will become caught in the glue trap, and

(b) without reasonable excuse, fails to ensure that the glue trap no longer gives rise to such a risk.”

This subsection relates to the passer-by. It is in that context that I have significant concerns about the current drafting, because a bystander will need to know the legal requirements for the setting of a glue trap.

A perfectly innocent bystander or passer-by who sees a glue trap in any situation will have to identify, first, that it is illegal, and then whether it is a licensed glue trap. Either it will put the passer-by at risk of committing an offence or it will be a terrible nuisance to licensed operators who legally lay glue traps for which there is a specific need, as passers-by will throw themselves upon the glue traps to disable them. I am concerned that the drafting still does not take account of this genuine concern.

[Jane Stevenson]

I thank my hon. Friend for enduring the ordeal of serving on the Public Bill Committee, to which he made a valuable contribution. I understand his concern about these measures, but it is crucial that we close the loopholes. I do not think a member of the public could be expected to know, and it would be a reasonable excuse, because a glue trap is essentially a piece of cardboard that is not recognisable as being very harmful, but a pub landlord might ask a pest controller to put them down, and he would be liable. He could not claim, “It wasn’t me, so I cannot be prosecuted.”

[Jerome Mayhew]

Actually, my hon. Friend’s example would be caught be clause 1(4).

I am also concerned about clause 1(5)(b), because it has the seeming effect of reversing the burden of proof. The defendant, the innocent passer-by, has to prove that they had a reasonable excuse. I would be grateful if the Minister addressed that point to reassure me and other hon. Members that we will not inadvertently create unintended consequences while continuing to support what is, without doubt, a very useful and much-needed amendment to our legislation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Commons Chamber

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

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

1. What assessment the Church of England has made of the steps needed to put the maintenance of churches and cathedrals on a sustainable basis.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)]

The Church estimates that over the next five years at least £1.14 billion of maintenance and repairs are needed for churches and cathedrals. The Church is very grateful that 550 churches and cathedrals have already benefited from the culture recovery fund, but there remains an urgent need for predictable and sustainable sources of funding, which enable us to keep skilled builders and craft people in work.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Last week, the listed places of worship grant scheme was extended until 2025, which I welcome. It is absolutely crucial for churches such as All Saints in Beighton, in my constituency, and the repair work on its thatched roof. Almost half the grade I listed buildings in this country are church buildings. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that that scheme should be now made permanent?

[Andrew Selous]

I am delighted that the thatched roof of All Saints, Beighton, has been fixed and that the listed places of worship grant scheme, which covers the VAT cost, was helpful in achieving that. The Government have extended that scheme for the next three years, but in order for churches and cathedrals to continue contributing some £50 billion a year to national wellbeing, my hon. Friend is right that we will need to put these repairs on a sustainable footing. That is why I will be copying this exchange to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Glue Traps (Offences) Bill

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Friday 19th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

When I was preparing for this debate, my mind was drawn to the question of how long we, as a community, have been considering our responsibilities for and relationship with the animal kingdom. I thought of Genesis 1:26:

“Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

Genesis is traditionally attributed to Moses, who lived at roughly 1,200 BC, but modern scholarship suggests that it is slightly more modern, from about the 6th century BC. Either way, we have been considering our relationship with the animal kingdom for at least 2,500 years. During that time, public attitudes towards our relationship with animals have developed enormously, although perhaps not so much in the first 2,000 years; right hon. and hon. Members will recall that man traps with teeth were outlawed only in 1827. I wonder what the devout members of our community would have thought of the Bill if we had introduced it in 1826. As a matter of passing interest, man traps were not outlawed in their entirety until 1861, which was not actually that long ago.

I am very pleased to say that public attitudes towards animal suffering—and human suffering, for that matter—have developed over the past 150 years or so. Section 8 of the Pests Act 1954 introduced restrictions on trapping animals, including restrictions on non-approved spring traps, albeit with an exception for

“rats, mice or other small ground vermin.”

The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 included further prohibitions on cruelty to animals. It focused particularly on traps and snares, whose use was controlled but not outlawed entirely; from memory, there were exceptions for agriculture and public health. A wider, more all-encompassing approach to our relationship with animals was taken in the Animal Welfare Act 2006. As hon. Members will recall, it created a wider offence of allowing or causing unnecessary suffering to any animal—including trapped animals, of course.

The underlying factor in all that legislation was an increasing concern, reflected in the views of the public, about suffering—particularly the suffering, over time, of animals that might need to be controlled for public health or other reasons. Public attitudes have changed, so I think it is right to consider the prohibition of glue traps for vermin. They do not cause a quick death; the animal is just stuck. It is not like fly paper; these are intelligent animals, as hon. Members have said, and they are physiologically capable of suffering.

The British Veterinary Association has expressed concerns about how animals caught in glue traps die. It notes that they

“can suffer from…torn skin, broken limbs and hair removal and die a slow and painful death from suffocation, starvation, exhaustion and even self-mutilation.”

Should we really allow that kind of animal control in the society that we have the honour to represent? The RSPCA has received about 200 reports of non-target species being caught, often fatally, in just the past five years. That includes birds and hedgehogs, as well as people’s pet cats.

Glue traps are an important issue that we need to address. I welcome the action that the Bill proposes to control their use, but we have to recognise that rodents equate to a significant public health risk. In large numbers, they can breed incredibly quickly.

Members may have been amazed by television footage from Australia from about a month ago that showed an absolute explosion in numbers of, I think, mice. I am pleased to say that we do not suffer from such plagues in this country, but it highlights the need for ongoing control of rodent numbers. We need to retain an effective range of measures to control our rodent populations.

I welcome the licensing regime element of the Bill—I vary in that view from Opposition Members—because there are certain circumstances, perhaps in an operating theatre, where the public health imperative is so overwhelming that we need to accept such measures. They should be licensed, however, and operated by pest control professionals.

Although I am concerned that we retain effective and quick measures when other systems are not available, it is crucial to maintain regular monitoring and follow up by humane dispatch or killing of the rodents that are caught in glue traps, as is already addressed in the Animal Welfare Act 2006. Originally, when I read this Bill, I was concerned that there was an omission, but on reflection I think that the 2006 Act encompasses that.

I have one concern with clause 1(5), which I wonder if the Minister will consider in her response. It proposes creating an offence if a passer-by sees a glue trap and does not take effective action to remove it and make it harmless. I am deeply concerned that we are at risk of criminalising passers-by who may, or in fact are very likely, not to have any idea of the legislative status of a glue trap, particularly as it could be legal in some circumstances under the terms of the Bill.

What steps does a passer-by have to take to satisfy him or herself that the glue trap that they have seen is one that potentially exposes them to criminal liability if they do not take steps to make it harmless? That is a recipe for chaos if a pest control professional has spent time, effort and money properly laying a glue trap in legal circumstances, only for the good samaritan to throw themselves on the glue trap to prevent their own criminal responsibility. We need to perfect that area at a later stage of consideration.

With that exception, I support the Bill. It shows that we are listening to the changing attitudes of our society and are being responsive as legislators.

Environment Bill

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

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

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Ah— Jerome Mayhew. I had just been informed that he did not want to take part in the debate, but I see that he is there.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con) [V]]

Madam Deputy Speaker, please would you accept my apologies for the confusion that I have managed to cause?

I wish to speak on new clause 6 and amendments 3 and 30 and—if I am permitted by you—to make significant reference to amendment 39, although we have already voted on it.

New clause 6 deals with air quality. I absolutely recognise the challenge of poor air quality, and a number of hon. Members have spoken very movingly about it during the debates this afternoon and this evening, but I am not sure how the creation of an annual policy statement to the House is the best way to address that. We already have a range of existing reporting requirements available to Ministers, as well as two new ones contained in the Bill. They include a new requirement for the Secretary of State to make an annual statement to Parliament on local pollution objectives, in addition to publishing a national air quality strategy every five years.

Amendments 3 and 30 both deal with water quality—with flow rates—and again there is a suggestion that an annual report on water abstraction would be an effective way of improving standards. I question whether that is the right way to approach the subject. When requirements are introduced for such onerous statements, they are effective in increasing costs and increasing delay and the bureaucracy of Government, but I am not sure that they are effective on the ground.

In my constituency of Broadland I am lucky enough to have a number of chalk streams, including the Stiffkey and the Wensum, and I have experience of the Environment Agency and its approach to water extraction licences. To my mind, a much more effective way of policing the area of water abstraction and flow is to use the powers already given to the Environment Agency to deal with abstraction licences—I hope, in co-operation and collaboration with abstractors, which include farmers. I declare my interest as a director of a farming business.

Finally I should like to turn to amendment 39, because its target was very squarely the sugar beet growers and the sugar beet processors of the east of England. EU law has rightly allowed for short-term exemptions to the rules on plant protection products in the event of a virulent outbreak of disease. This year, that is exactly what we have had with virus yellows, so I think the Government are entirely right to allow the exemption with a huge number of protections for bees and other pollinators. To require an obstructive vote in the House would be a backward step.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I did not want to interrupt the hon. Gentleman but, no, it is not in order for him to have spoken to amendments contained in the previous group. It is not in order. I make the point because I could not reasonably interrupt him under the circumstances under which we are working, but we do expect Members to stick to the rules and not to bend them just because we are working virtually. It is important to keep standards.

I call Barry Sheerman.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)]

What steps the Church of England is taking to promote regenerative agriculture on its landholdings.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

What steps the Church of England is taking to assess the efficacy on its land of zero-till conservation agriculture in promoting increased soil health, reduced use of carbon, biodiversity gain and carbon sequestration.

[Andrew Selous]

The Church Commissioners are undertaking a natural capital assessment to provide a baseline for our carbon outputs and to understand our ecosystem services. This will provide a plan to lower carbon outputs and inform our natural capital strategy. Where possible, our tenancies have clauses relating to good husbandry and the non-removal of topsoil, and with longer-term tenancies, soil analyses are carried out at the beginning and the end of leases to ensure that soil health is maintained to a good standard.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jerome Mayhew [V]]

The Church Commissioners’ ownership of a large amount of land—over 100,000 acres—gives us an opportunity to lead development of conservation agricultural farming techniques, improving soil health, reducing carbon inputs, and developing the evidence base on carbon sequestration. Does my hon. Friend agree that practitioners should approach management of their farming assets in the same way as they do with their other ethical investments?

[Andrew Selous]

As a leading global ethical investor, we regularly engage with all the businesses in which we are invested to improve best practice. While farming practices and management decisions are mainly taken by our agricultural tenants, we have some who do practice zero tillage, and we strongly encourage sustainable farming practices when new tenancies are granted.