Agriculture Bill (Third sitting)
Kerry McCarthy ExcerptsThursday 13th February 2020
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 13 February 2020 - (13 Feb 2020)
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Q
Gareth Morgan: One reason I joined the Soil Association —I was previously working at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds—was the sense that you can do quite a lot for particular things, such as bird numbers on farms, without affecting the underlying sustainability of farming operations. I do not think the Bill deliberately plays into that, but it could be an unintentional consequence. There is a whole series of public goods that a farmer could choose to provide, but—particularly if we are going to lose things such as cross-compliance now, which is the basic way to encourage a farmer to look across the whole farm—there is a considerable danger that we will just focus on the easy or obvious bits, such as doing a flower margin or some skylark plots on a farm, and not really think about why the ecological operation of a farm is not satisfactory.
At the moment, there are two distinct dangers. First, some farms might opt into the public goods system while other farms will decide to farm to the market, especially if they are competing with foreign imports produced to lower standards. Secondly, even on individual farms, a farmer might be tempted to look for a particular thing that can be done that will be good for the environment, but neglect what is happening on the rest of the farm, for example the state of the soil across the whole farm. The whole-farm approach should be at the centre of the Agriculture Bill, but it is not at the moment.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Gareth Morgan: It is fantastic that the NFU has taken the position of committing to an early net zero target for the agriculture and land use sector. That has shifted the debate enormously. Establishing the route map by which you do that is quite difficult. I am not entirely sure that a net zero clause in the Bill is the right way to go about it.
In several sectors—such as transport and energy generation—we have a clear idea about what that route map needs to be. Land use will be much more complicated. We do not know all the answers yet—for example, in the current argument about red meat, we are veering a different way each month. Setting a clear trajectory in farming to net zero in law could be counter-productive. The easiest way for us to go net zero in terms of land use in the UK is to stop farming and plant trees everywhere and import food off our balance sheet. That would be madness, but it could be an inadvertent consequence if we get the wrong sort of legal fix into law. I think the Bill could be more explicit about net zero and the need to achieve it, but we need to be careful about the way in which we phrase that.
Mr Goodwill
Q
Gareth Morgan: That is a well-made point. In food, demand and production need to be balanced. That is true not only of organic produce; it is a general point.
One key point is that it would be helpful if the Bill recognised the specific contribution that organic farming can make against a whole range of public goods. Rather than inventing a complicated system in parallel with organics—for example, saying, “If a farm satisfies the carbon criteria, the biodiversity criteria, the rotations and the rest of it, then we will make a payment”—let us just cut to the chase and say that it makes sense for there to be some kind of organic maintenance payment to recognise additional public goods that are there but cannot be recovered through the market. I think that would in some sense help with the conversion issue, because if farmers are clear that if they move to an organic model they will be rewarded, both by the market and for the public goods that they provide in the longer term, then that will give them that level of certainty.
Regarding conversion, you are right—I think there needs to be caution around doing that, because in the past we have had examples of where there has been over-conversion to organic ahead of the market being ready to be there. So I think the focus on some sort of organic maintenance payment in ELMS is absolutely vital.
There is a role for help with conversion, but it may not be in terms of straightforward payments during that period. It may be through things like the ancillary productivity payments or some of these other issues that are acting as a barrier to conversion. For example, bringing livestock back on to arable farms will be quite a difficult operation, and most people who convert to organic would need to do that if they are an arable farm. So help with the process of establishing those things might be the way that one could assist in that process.
Agriculture Bill (First sitting)
Kerry McCarthy ExcerptsTuesday 11th February 2020
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 February 2020 - (11 Feb 2020)
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
Q
Martin Lines: For many of the tenancies, the price per hectare per area went up, compared with the payment, so they see that as a benefit of owning the land. Many landlords get the payment directly and the farmer has to manage, which disconnects the reward from managing the landscape, so the current system does not benefit the farmer. It challenges cash flow, because as a tenant I am paying rent for six to 12 months before I get it back under the payments system, so there a problem with cash flow, particularly with late payments. There is a big issue with the new system about payment timings. There are huge challenges under the new system.
Under the current system, we know that some landlords are trying to get the stewardship payment, or parts of it, but under the new system, if you are delivering habitat, or pollen and nectar, bits and pieces, you are the farmer doing the work. You should be getting the reward. There will be an increase in capital, and the landlord will be rewarded for capital aspects and other things that are delivered on the landscape.
The Bill should be about encouraging the whole-farm approach of better farm land management and looking at all aspects, not just food production—pollination, flood mitigation, soil health improvement and public access. The farmer’s role is not just about food production; it is about providing goods and services. The definition of a farmer is someone who manages land to deliver goods and services. One of those is food, but many other things can be delivered, and if we move the system, we can be rewarded for those and create a better system.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Q
ffinlo Costain: I think you are quite right about the key concern that I and other colleagues I have spoken with have. There has to be a whole-farm approach. If public goods are being delivered, it has to be a combination of public goods and we need baseline assessments supporting that around carbon and biodiversity that are whole-farm. From our perspective, it would be horrible if we go through all this work and have all this ambition but end up with a sparing approach, where we have one bit of land put off for sequestration with Sitka spruce, creating the various challenges that that does, another bit for rewilding, and another bit for ever-more intensive food production. It is critically important that we face the challenges of the whole-farm approach. The best and most efficient way to make progress is for every hectare, as far as possible, to deliver good, nutritious food, climate mitigation and adaptation, and biodiversity restoration. A whole-farm approach is absolutely critical, and we would welcome an amendment that crystallises that and makes it clearer in the Bill.
Martin Lines: The only concern is with those who do not engage in the system and choose not to take public goods money. How are they going to be legislated for against the minimum standards?
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Martin Lines: Under the current system we have cross-compliance. With those who choose not to engage in the system, because they want to push for productivity, how is the system going to legislate for and regulate the basic standards? Who is going to be the policeman for the countryside, to raise standards and make sure they are enforced? We have seen many problems already with soil health degradation and other environmental issues that are not being addressed.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Martin Lines: We are not sure who is going to be holding them to account or what kind of standards there are. Nor do we know how those who choose not to engage in the system will be held to account, because you cannot withhold a payment if they are not receiving a public goods payment. We need to make sure that that standards system is in place.
Caroline Drummond: I think there are some nuances, in terms of the “mays” and the “musts”—there should be a bit more “must” in some areas. Whole-farm approaches are absolutely critical. I have been an advocate of the whole-farm approach for the last 30 years, and I think it is absolutely key to making sure that soil management, climate change mitigation and biodiversity, and indeed landscape and cluster-type approaches, are driven in. That is where the ELMS projects will be really vital. A lot of their design is based around land management plans, which I imagine will be whole-farm. A lot of the third tier is proposed to be around cluster groups and landscape scale-type approaches. It goes back to this question of farmers choosing not to be engaged at all, how do we account for that? How do we really drive and match the ELMS within the ambition of the Bill?
Jack Ward: While there is a lot of focus on public money for public goods, making sure that UK agriculture is inherently profitable is hugely important, because no amount of public funding is going to supplement an overall lack of profitability. If in five years’ time we have an inherently unprofitable farming industry for whatever reason, I just do not think there is going to be enough public funding available to make good that shortfall. Alongside public money for public goods, we really have to ensure that basic agriculture can wash its face.
The Chair
Mr Costain, and then we really must move on.
ffinlo Costain: The issue of eligibility for public funds is really critical. What Wales is planning is interesting. It is planning that there will be a requirement for baseline assessments on carbon and biodiversity before farmers are even eligible for the public goods payment. That will take place annually to continue that eligibility. That is a really positive approach, and it is important. Whole-farm, getting the eligibility, making sure of that baseline and continued monitoring of metrics are critical.
The Chair
We have 15 minutes left and at least five colleagues want to ask questions. I call Kerry McCarthy.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
ffinlo Costain: The first thing that needs to happen is that the metrics need to be right. At the moment, the Government are still wedded to GWP100—global warming potential over 100 years—which is focused on emissions, rather than warming from emissions. That is critical, because it really changes the role of cattle and sheep.
Oxford Martin brought out science by Professor Myles Allen, who was an author on the IPCC’s 1.5° C report. We now have an accurate metric for accounting for methane, and it changes things. By and large, the warming impact of cattle and sheep farms will be about 75% down in terms of methane. If we focus on emissions, it drives very different actions. If we focus on warming, we see that cattle and sheep on grazing land that is really well managed, ideally in a regenerative way, can contribute to the climate mitigation, climate adaptation and biodiversity that we are all talking about.
Before we start talking about hard targets, we need to make sure that those metrics are there, because at the moment, farmers are being undermined because they do not trust the metrics. That is critical. The Government clearly have ambitions and goals for net zero elsewhere. Farmers are working towards their own goals. We are working with farmers in Northumberland who control most of the national park there. They are committed to net zero by 2030. We can deliver it rapidly when we get the metrics right.
Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
Q
Martin Lines: Yes, there is a risk. It is not clear how that regulatory authority and the baseline will work, who will police it, and how that will be transferred across the four nations. If you are farming either side of a border, will you have two different standards? How will you compete with those together?
A lot of what is in the Bill is focused on England. We are waiting for Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland to develop their plans. It is about how we link it together, not race away with just England, because if you are farming both sides of the border, move from one side to the other, or move products from one side to the other, you will have real complications. We do not see that journey of who is going to manage that regulatory authority and baseline.
Jack Ward: If I may chip in on producer organisations, it would be helpful if we could have commonality within producer organisations, and not have one system in Scotland, another in Northern Ireland and another in England.
ffinlo Costain: This touches on non-regression from EU rules, which is really important. I would feel more comfortable if it were stated that there was going to be non-regression on standards.
Regulations are a safety net; they are there so that nobody goes below them. I want farmers to go above them, to tell customers about how they are going above them and delivering, and to brand around that. Theoretically, it should not be an issue, if farmers are going above, stepping beyond, managing to deliver what Kerry was talking about with net zero at an earlier stage, and telling customers about that. The fact that there is a safety net there, and that there may be a bit of divergence between different nations, is less important than the fact that people are going beyond it and they are making money because they are telling customers about it and customers are buying it.
Caroline Drummond: Ultimately, there is the opportunity to create a new governance, in terms of how the Government work with the industry and non-governmental organisations through to farmers and landowners. Some of the reporting that came out of Dame Glenys Stacey’s report demonstrated that there may be new ways for us to make it move forwards effectively.
Danny Kruger
Q
Thomas Lancaster: Advice is a really important part of the story. We would like to see more clarity from DEFRA as to what advice will be made available to farmers, particularly during that transition period. We also understand that the evidence base around environmental advice is a really good investment. All the evidence, particularly from work commissioned by DEFRA and Natural England, suggests that providing advice to farmers as to how they can meet environmental outcomes and navigate some of the paperwork necessary to access the public money is well worth the investment in terms of the outcomes. We know that outcomes supported by advice are better than outcomes not supported by advice.
We have done some social science research recently on farmers’ experience of those schemes with farmers that we have been working with in south Devon for 30 years on species recovery projects for the cirl bunting. That social science shows really strongly that advice is the key element, not just in getting that environmental outcome but in ensuring that farmers are bought in to the schemes, that they understand the outcomes that they are seeking to deliver, and that they are able to get past some of the bureaucracy, which is an inevitable element of this.
Although direct payments sound simple in concept, you have the eligibility rules, particularly the land eligibility rules; the land parcel identification system; and the fact that you have to measure things to four decimal places. The fact that it is a very poor use of public money and no one really knows what it is for any more, drives a lot of those eligibility rules, because you have to provide some controls around it.
Our experience of the best agri-environment schemes in England, particularly higher level stewardship, is that, supported by advice, they are much more intuitively understandable for farmers—as to why they are receiving that money—than direct payments. Analysis that we have done of Natural England data, which we have not published but will probably publish in the coming months, suggests that payment rates for small farms, on the first 30 hectares or so of agreements, are higher than for larger farms, which is obviously not the case with direct payments. We know that small farms, again when supported by advice, can profit from public goods schemes, given our understanding of higher level stewardship and similar schemes in the past.
Christopher Price: It is important to recognise just how much farming is going to change. It is not just a matter of changing the subsidy rules; it is a much bigger structural change. Farmers will be producing much more to the market, which means that we will have a different type of farmer. We are already starting to see those people—people who do not necessarily come from a farming background, who have made a bit of money doing something more commercial, who are coming to farming with business and marketing skills, and who are making a go of things in a very different way. You will know some of them—Lynbreck Croft, the Good Life Meat Company, Hilltop Farm.
People are already doing it and they have quite a big presence. They think in a different way. It is not just about who can take the biggest beast to the market every week or month. It is about sweating all your assets, so you will be selling the meat, but you will be selling meat with a good provenance, to high welfare standards and with a low environmental impact. If you are savvy, you will be finding markets for the skins, the wool, the horns. It may not be much money per item, but together it starts to create more produce with more of a brand.
If you start thinking in terms of your public goods as well—many farms are starting to—and working out what has a benefit, what you can do to improve your soil or your water quality, what plants you can grow that have biodiversity or climate benefits, and start ticking off those, you can get there. It does not need to be particularly complex. In many ways, although I hear what Tom says about the importance of advice, the way that most farmers learn is from other farmers. It is about encouraging farmers to go and see what their neighbour is doing, and not thinking of their neighbour as being their competitor, but as someone who can be a source of guidance.
So, I do not think we need be worried about complexity. Conceptually, what is being promised is more straight- forward. Of course there will be compliance requirements, but many of us think that a lot of the previous compliance requirements were more to do with EU standardisation across 28 member states rather than being particularly necessary to ensure the efficient use of public money. So, I think we can be optimistic about what is happening.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Thomas Lancaster: We, the Wildlife Trusts and WWF commissioned the report from IEEP, who are independent consultants, to look at a future regulatory framework. Because the Bill includes provisions to move away from cross-compliance, and in particular to delink payments from land, that potentially opens up gaps in aspects of current environmental regulatory protections that exist only in cross-compliance, particularly around soils and hedgerows—for example, cutting of hedgerows during birds’ breeding season and hedgerow buffer strips. We think there is a gap in the Bill in terms of powers necessary for Ministers to bring forward regulatory protections for soils, hedgerows and other environmental features, and we would like to see the Bill amended to plug that gap.
There is a big opportunity coming off Dame Glenys Stacey’s review. The farm inspection and regulation review the Government commissioned reported in 2018. It called for a more comprehensive regulatory framework that enables a more advice-led approach to enforcement, so that, rather than farmers being penalised but not really understanding the underlying issue and therefore not able to address it, the approach would seek to blend penalties with advice and incentives to ensure that you get better environmental outcomes.
There is an existing model of that in the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and its approach. When a breach is detected, there is a visit from an adviser or a member of staff, who says, “You have to address this breach. You can either go and seek advice or invest in infrastructure if necessary.” They come back a second time. If the breach has been addressed, everything is fine; if it is not, they give them a third visit and, if it is still there, then they penalise them. That approach, which Dame Glenys Stacey supported, and we supported at the time, gets better environmental outcomes in a way that farmers also appreciate and can understand, whereas at the moment our regulatory enforcement is very substandard, it is fair to say.
Again, Dame Glenys Stacey found that of 10,600 staff at the Environment Agency, only 40 do farm inspections. As a farmer, you have a one in 200 chance of being inspected by the Environment Agency, and we know that the agency is again cutting back on some of those regulatory compliance visits. There is a huge challenge in the future, not just in how we reward good practice but in how we ensure a level playing field so that the progressive best farmers out there are not undercut by, effectively, cowboys—unfortunately, there are some. The Bill is silent on that, and for us that is one of the biggest gaps and omissions.
John Cross: The only comment I would make—again as a farmer—is that any more regulation would need to be fit for purpose, logical, proportionate and enforceable. Regulation is fine, but unless it is logical so people can understand it, and it is relatively easy to comply with, it is just a source of frustration to everyone. Certainly, the industry is very keen to move towards an outcome-based form of regulation as opposed to constantly arguing about whether a particular margin is six inches too narrow or not. The industry would be interested in seeing a much more outcome-focused approach.
David Bowles: The EU has been moving towards an outcomes approach, but obviously leaving the EU gives us huge opportunities in the animal welfare sectors, such as sheep, beef and dairy, where there are no specific baseline species standards at the moment. There is a real opportunity to introduce those baseline standards, which will help not just the Bill, but in establishing what the baseline is—and then establishing how to move farmers up the scale, through capital inputs or through specific measures, and paying them where the market does not deliver. There are huge opportunities to improve the baseline regulatory standards in those areas where they do not exist now.
Alicia Kearns
Q
Christopher Price: I will take the second part first. Should we be supporting rare breeds? Yes, we should. You probably expected me to say that.
Agriculture Bill (Second sitting)
Kerry McCarthy ExcerptsTuesday 11th February 2020
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Agriculture Act 2020 View all Agriculture Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 February 2020 - (11 Feb 2020)
Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)
Q
Nick von Westenholz: As far as they go, we are pleased with the inclusion of the tenancy clauses in the Bill. They are quite technical and we are looking to develop some amendments to strengthen them, which we will be happy to share with members of the Committee. In particular, we want to bring in more of the recommendations of the tenancy reform industry group, which has been up and running and working for some years now, so that those are properly reflected in the Bill. We will suggest some improvements, but we generally welcome the clauses that have been introduced in this Bill that were not in the last one.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Q
David Goodwin: Yes, very much so. County farms have been a shining light for getting younger people into holdings. In the counties where it works well, it works very well. Obviously, there are counties where there are challenges and more pressures on estates. Unfortunately, we see those in the news regularly at the moment. There are some good examples. The number of county estate farms is very small, compared with the number of people who are perhaps looking for opportunities. Some of those individual holdings are very small and do not always offer the stepping stone that is needed. Going on from there, there is still a lack, particularly with tenanted farms, of progressional farms to go on to from a county starter farm.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
Q
Nick von Westenholz: It is a fair point, because the question of how you compare standards in this country with those in other countries is very complicated. I think there is a way that you can still build requirements into the Bill that address those concerns. Basically, you can provide safeguards to the Government’s stated aim on these issues. I should add that that is one reason that we very strongly called for a commission with the Government, stakeholders and industry to be set up that would examine these very difficult issues and make clear recommendations for precisely how the Government can safeguard our standards in future.
In terms of the Bill, you could require the Government to produce a register, for example, of what our food and farming standards are, or certainly the ones that we are keen to safeguard. We can then put in a requirement that imports should meet those standards or should have to demonstrate that they do, and possibly some sort of reporting mechanism to demonstrate whether imports are meeting those standards. There have been several amendments to this Bill and the last Bill to attempt to address that.
You could introduce amendments that are much more explicit. For example, they could set out the sorts of veterinary medicines—whatever it might be—that are prohibited and would not be allowed to be put on the market, as well as goods treated with those medicines that could not be put on the market in this country. That would be a very clear and straightforward legislative safeguard on standards, but you would be looking at quite a lot of text if you were to go completely across the board. There are a number of options.
Mr Goodwill
Q
Jake Fiennes: I think the ELM schemes will do exactly that. If we can demonstrate better land use for our land that is less productive—use for the environment, biodiversity, carbon storage, cleaner water and cleaner air—everyone gets to benefit.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Jake Fiennes: Game is not agriculture. Game has never been part of agriculture. Forestry is agriculture; farming, dairying and beef production are agriculture, but game sort of sits on the sidelines and is not part of agriculture.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Jake Fiennes: It is a technicality, but game has never been—
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Jake Fiennes: But a game farmer is not a farmer. He is not a poultry producer either, strangely. Sorry, but it is a real technical difference.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
My other question is that you mentioned your views about county farms, and I am keen to see what you think should be in the Bill. I think there is general support for the idea that county farms are a good thing, but that does not necessarily mean that they need to go into the Bill. Can you say what you think needs to be in the Bill on that front?
Graeme Willis: On peatland, it interesting how broad that goes in terms of land management. Going back to the Minister’s question, I would imagine that large-scale restoration might well be part of ELM. The public goods statements are quite broadly framed, but they do talk about soil, and the supporting position statement talks about soil and peat.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Graeme Willis: Yes, climate change being one of the objectives. It is very important, given we know the level of emissions from upland peat, that the intentions of the Bill should cover those areas and ELM should be able to deliver on that within that wider land restoration component, if that be. I think that will be very important, because where else will the resource come from to do that? The 25-year plan had a £10 million fund. Scotland has committed £250 million for restoration, so we need money to be identified that can go towards that restoration over the longer period. There is an issue about the viability of those peatlands in the long term in a warming climate if they are managed in a different way. That makes things even more contentious.
I am pleased that you mentioned county farms. I am not a specialist on entrants, but I think something on supporting new entrants should be in the Bill through an amendment to that effect. The Minister has spoken about investing in county farms on several occasions and to the EFRA Committee. He welcomed the idea as a very interesting development. The farms could be invested in so that they can produce more peri-urban horticulture, for example, which might be one way to make smaller units viable. As was referred to earlier, there is an economic question around those. An amendment to invest and fund—or to give the Secretary of State powers to invest and fund—county farms to be developed and improved for wider purposes, would be great.
We would also consider asking for a protective lock on county farm estates while they can develop new wider sets of purposes, so that they can be invested in for the future. Wider purposes in terms of mitigating and adapting to climate change, supporting connection to the countryside, access to land and landscapes and the realities of farming, would be very welcome.
Virginia Crosbie
Q
Jim Egan: When you are on the receiving end of the inspection regime does not seem proportionate at all at the moment. It is heavy-handed. We all accept that there must be rules and that there has to be an inspection, but you are working on a farm, on a shop floor that has no straight edges. When somebody can come and deduct a payment for being four decimal places out in area, which is what it could go to, it does not feel right. It actually puts an awful lot of people off engaging with agri-environment schemes and measures because of the pure fear of the inspection. The inspectors are great people—they are doing a job—but they do not engage during their inspection process. There is a finality to the inspection process that says, “Mr Egan, you are wrong.” There is an appeals process, but there is no face to face. That is not a very nice place to be.
It would be better if it was done in a much more approachable way. We all accept that a lot of money goes into the industry, but we should be approachable. We should be able to say, “Oh, I didn’t quite get that right.” If it is a minor infringement, it is nothing. There will be something else on the farm that delivers above and beyond what it was intended to, but it is never taken into account.
When I worked at the Allerton project, we had three inspections in seven years. That is in a place where there is a board of trustees, a management team and we all get on. There is a lot of pressure on the people responsible for that. Imagine being on a farm on your own. It is not a good place. It needs to be more human and a better process.
As for success for me, do you mean in terms of the scheme or the inspection regime?
Oral Answers to Questions
Kerry McCarthy Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Rebecca Pow
My hon. Friend raises a good point. Scotland introduced its scheme first. We are consulting to ensure our scheme is absolutely fit for purpose. We want ours to completely align and we are very much lining up with manufacturers and processors to get the right system that suits them.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
During the debate before the election on restoring nature and climate change, the Minister, who is now in the Lords, told the House that a legislative response to the problem of burning peatlands was being developed. When can we expect to see legislation being published?
Theresa Villiers
We are looking carefully at the issue of rotational burning on blanket bog. We are working closely with land managers to ensure that we see this practice come to an end. We have scrutinised the voluntary mechanisms and in due course we will have to consider whether to legislate in this area.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire)
It is a real pleasure to answer questions on behalf of the House of Commons Commission. This is the first time that a member of the Scottish National party has answered questions in the House. I pay tribute to my predecessor, Tom Brake, who answered questions diligently and conscientiously.
I thank the hon. Lady for this first and very important question. To ensure that compostable food and disposable materials such as coffee cups and salad trays are composted, Parliament’s environmental sustainability team has set up a process to enable them to be effectively segregated. It covers the first point of disposal in dedicated compostable bins located throughout the estate to the final in-vessel composting facility. This initiative is backed by a wide range of communication and engagement tools to support Parliament’s “Right Waste, Right Bin” campaign.
Kerry McCarthy
To the establishment! A knighthood cannot be far behind.
An investigation by Footprint, whose findings were published in July, found that all the compostable packaging collected in the Houses of Parliament between October 2018 and May 2019 was incinerated rather than composted. Can the hon. Gentleman confirm that that is not the case, and that no further compostable waste has been incinerated since May 2019? Can he also share some of the challenges involved in trying to introduce composting on such a huge estate with other organisations that are seeking to introduce it?
Pete Wishart
I can reassure the hon. Lady that Parliament takes composting very seriously, and so far 15.4 tonnes of waste have been successfully composed. However, as she says, there was an issue with the new scheme at first because of the levels of non-compostable waste and the fact that the bins were far too high for the receiving facility to compost the first batch of it. I can reassure her that every subsequent load has been successfully composted as use of the bins has improved.
Agriculture Bill
Kerry McCarthy ExcerptsMonday 3rd February 2020
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Luke Pollard
The right hon. Gentleman is right that acetic acid is used in many cases instead of chlorine. Whether the infection is killed by acetic acid, chlorine, or any other process, the concern is that there is an infection there in the first place through poor animal husbandry. I invite him to look at that and at the work produced by the EFRA Committee under his colleague, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton. It goes into detail to make sure that the standards of any imported food are as least as high as those we have in the UK.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
This goes to the heart of why Labour is supporting the reasoned amendment and does not want to allow Second Reading to go through. In the last Parliament, we supported the Second Reading of the Agriculture Bill. I sat on the Bill Committee. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton tabled new clause 4 and I tabled new clause 1 to the Bill. The Government were terrified that they were going to lose, because we had such cross-party consensus on this—from the NFU to environmental groups, to farmers and to greener people—so they suddenly shelved the Bill. We have not seen anything of it since December 2018. We cannot trust the Government this time and allow Second Reading to go through without trying to raise this point now.
Luke Pollard
I thank my hon. Friend for that very good point. Farmers will be watching this discussion tonight who are unfamiliar with parliamentary process. For them, the idea of letting the Bill pass Second Reading without making a case for this might seem appealing, but unless the Government and the Secretary of State, in particular, will accept an amendment or propose one that sets the promises in law, it is important that we make the case now. I say to all the farmers who do not want their standards undercut, who are genuinely worried about this, that they have an opportunity to ask their Member of Parliament, whichever side of the House they sit on, to make that case, because that challenge about putting this into law is important. Every day that passes when it is not proposed, including in the Bill, we have to ask why.
We do not need to look too far back to find a precedent that would help the Secretary of State. Last week, the Government whipped their MPs to vote for the NHS Funding Bill to set into law their commitment to spend more on the NHS. Why do the Government need a law to implement promises on the NHS but not a law to implement promises on animal welfare and environmental concerns? Let us look at what the Health Secretary said about that Bill:
“The crucial thing in this Bill is the certainty: the Bill provides everyone in the NHS with the certainty to work better together to make long-term decisions, get the best possible value for money”—[Official Report, 27 January 2020; Vol. 670, c. 566.]
Indeed, certainty is a good thing. The certainty that British farmers will not be undercut by cheap imported US produce grown at a lower cost with lower standards would help them as well. Why is legal certainty good for one election promise but not for another? We know the reason: one they intend to deliver, and one they do not. That fact has been pointed to by leaks from DEFRA officials that were unearthed by Unearthed. A report published in October said:
“Weakening our SPS regime to accommodate one trade partner could irreparably damage our ability to maintain UK animal, plant and public health, and reduce trust in our exports”.
That is why this matters.
I am proud of British farmers—not just the ones who are in my family, but all of them. Because the Bill fails to uphold animal welfare and environmental standards in law, Labour cannot support it. We need a legal commitment not to allow imports of food produced to lower standards or lower animal welfare standards. We need advice and support to help smaller farms transition to more nature-friendly farming methods that tackle the climate crisis, and we need the Government to set out a clear direction of travel for future agricultural regulation. Food grown to lower standards, some with abusive practices, must never be imported to undercut British farmers.
I have no doubt that Tory MPs will dutifully vote for the Bill tonight, but each and every one of them must know that my argument has merit. They might be wise to ask themselves why the NFU, the RSPCA and Greenpeace are saying the same thing as that Labour chap at the Dispatch Box. Why did the re-elected Chair of the EFRA Committee present a similar argument in the last Parliament? Could it be that collectively we are on to something? If we are—spoiler alert: we are—I encourage Members to make a beeline to the Secretary of State to encourage her to propose an amendment to the Bill as swiftly as possible to set in train the promises made at the general election, not only by the Prime Minister but, I believe, by nearly every Tory MP here.
I and my colleagues on the Opposition Benches will be voting for the reasoned amendment to deny the Bill a Second Reading because it omits the legal protections to prevent our British farmers from being undercut. I hope that the Bill can be improved—and swiftly—because in proposing a greener and better future it will also allow for that future to be undermined by imported food grown more cheaply and to lower standards. Who will eat that food? It will be the poorest in society. Who will be able to afford food grown to higher standards? The better-off. It will lead to deregulatory pressure to ensure that Britain’s farmers can compete with US industrial agriculture, which is the opposite of the spirit of the Bill and of what the Secretary of State said at the Dispatch Box, and it is the reason we need legal protection to ensure that no food is imported that has been produced to lower standards than we have today. The Secretary of State has the opportunity to do that. Every day that she lets that opportunity slip by is an indication that they intend to renege on their promise.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) on her maiden speech. Her Welsh pronunciation sounded absolutely fine to me, but what would I know? Perhaps my colleague here, my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), is in a better position to judge.
I do not want to repeat everything that I said on Second Reading or in Committee last time round. I hope to be on the Committee again. I will start on a positive note by saying that an addition to the Bill will now give financial assistance to farmers to share information about agroecology. Those of us in the all-party parliamentary group on agroecology have been involved in this for a long time and we would like to see a little bit more clarity in writing from the Minister about how that will work in practice. We are rather disappointed that there is not more of a commitment to financially rewarding the transition to and practice of whole-farm agroecological systems. There is a concern that we are still looking at small tweaks to a system in which environmental stewardship will be located very much on the margins, rather than being done at farm scale. That is one of the weaknesses of the Bill.
We have talked in the past about county farms, and I know that there was a commitment to support county farms, but it is not in the Bill. I would like to hear more about that if the Minister has time when he winds up.
There is no commitment to net zero by 2040 in the Bill. The NFU supports that, and I would have thought that the Government felt able to commit to putting it in the legislation. That ties in with the whole debate that we need to have about land use, which ranges from the impact of the deforestation of the Amazon and the importation not just of meat but of livestock feed, which has a direct connection with our farming here, to the burning of peatlands—the natural carbon sinks that ought to be protected and preserved, not burned to a cinder because of grouse shooting.
It is widely acknowledged that the common agricultural policy was a failure. It was a blunt instrument that led to the inefficient and unsustainable use of farmland. Landowners and farmers were often rewarded for how much land they had, rather than what they did with it, so I very much support the public money for public goods approach, but there is concern that the future environmental land management scheme could end up failing in the same way if it does not adopt that whole-farm approach to landscape-scale delivery. We also need to build in natural climate solutions to that, and to have far more debate about rewilding, peatlands, the planting of trees, agriforestry and so on. I hope that we will do that in Committee.
The Bill is also silent on the baseline of environmental standards that all farmers should adhere to, whether they are in receipt of financial assistance or not. We discussed that in Committee before, and it is really important that we establish that baseline in law and make it clear not only that farmers will be rewarded for going above those standards but that they will be punished if they go below them. This morning’s report by the Institute for European Environmental Policy highlighted the fact that hedgehogs, birds and mammals could all be at greater risk because of the gaps in domestic regulation as a result of our leaving the EU.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
As a member of the Children’s Future Food Inquiry, which I co-chaired, my hon. Friend will be aware that we made recommendations to the Government to establish an independent children’s food watchdog to implement policies that could improve families’ access to affordable and healthy food. Does she agree that the small nod to food security in the Bill by way of a report to Parliament every five years is just not good enough in this regard? Does she also agree that the Government should look into implementing a food watchdog?
Kerry McCarthy
Yes, I think that that is very much the case. As I am fond of saying, the F in DEFRA stands for food, not just farming. Food is quite cheap and there are question marks about who is paying the price. We only have to look at the breaches of human rights and the modern slavery that is prevalent in our food chain, as well as the difficulties involved in trying to find people to work here. Despite food being cheap, many people still cannot afford to feed their family in a healthy, nutritious way and are forced either to go to food banks or to buy food that is barely worthy of the name. It might have calories in it, but it has very little nutritional value. I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the brilliant work she has done with the Food Foundation and on school food. She has done so much to make the case that food is intrinsically connected with our health. That is such an important thing, and I hope that we can carry on talking about it.
On trade, I tried to introduce new clause 1 on Report in the previous Parliament, but the Bill mysteriously disappeared as we were gearing up for victory. It is so important to have a black-and-white commitment, because I do not believe that many Back Benchers are prepared to accept the Government’s word. Without such a commitment, we will offshore our nature and climate commitments, exacerbating the crisis we face, we will undercut UK producers, creating a race to the bottom here at home to compete on price, and we will leave consumers unprotected against low-quality imports produced to standards that would be illegal on British soil.
Whenever we question the Secretary of State, junior Ministers, the International Trade Secretary or even the Prime Minister, we must listen carefully, because they tend to say, “No lowering of UK standards,” but that is not good enough. This is about the standard of goods that we allow into this country, so it is completely irrelevant to make promises about UK standards. A leaked DEFRA briefing stated that the Department would come under “significant pressure” from the Department for International Trade to weaken our food and environmental standards to secure trade deals, particularly with the US and Australia. I happened to be in Washington at the same time as the previous International Trade Secretary, who was on television saying that he did not think there was a problem with chlorinated chicken.
Now, with the publication of the leaked US-UK trade talk papers, we can see just how determined the US is to weaken our standards. Taken with the evidence American farming lobbyists provided to the US Trade Policy Committee last year, the US wish list now includes: abandoning the precautionary principle for food and farming; accepting hormone-treated beef, chlorine-washed chicken and meat raised with high levels of antibiotics, when we know that there is a crisis in the routine use of antibiotics in farming and its impact on human health; lifting the ban on ractopamine in pork and stopping parasitic tests on pigs; allowing genetically modified foods to be sold with minimal regulation; scrapping mandatory labelling on GMOs and for E number additives and food colourings—if anyone is lost, this is what the US has said its priorities are—ditching rules that protect traditional food and regional specialities, such as pork pies and the salt from Anglesey; removing our safety-first approach to chemicals; and legalising hundreds of pesticides currently banned in the UK under EU law. The latter is a particular cause for concern if we are serious about transitioning to a sustainable food and farming system, because the US currently allows around 1,430 pesticides compared with just 486 in the EU.
That is why those of us who have been engaged in these issues for a while have always been clear that while chlorinated chicken has become totemic, it is just the tip of the iceberg. While the Secretary of State’s commitment on “Countryfile” that we would not import hormone-treated beef or chlorinated chicken was welcome, it does not cover the million and one other issues that we ought to be equally worried about. There are questions, for example, about how easy it would be to unpick the statutory instruments that underpin that position and, frankly, all SIs that contain transferred EU food safety legislation.
I look forward to serving on the Agriculture Bill Committee, Whips permitting, to bringing back my new clause 1 on Report if the Government do not make any concessions—and to winning this time.
Several hon. Members rose—
Environment Bill
Kerry McCarthy ExcerptsMonday 28th October 2019
(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I, too, hope that I will be able to serve on the Bill Committee.
I welcome the direction of travel and the fact that we are discussing these issues in such detail. However, given that we have only a short amount of time, I want to focus on a few concerns about the Bill. The first is that, as others have said, there is no commitment to non-regression in environmental standards. We are being asked to take the Government’s word for it that they will not lower standards in any future trade deal. I am sorry to say that I just do not believe that. The Government took non-regression out of the withdrawal agreement, and a recent leaked DEFRA briefing stated that the Department for International Trade would be putting it under significant pressure to lower standards. I served on the Public Bill Committee for the Agriculture Bill and tabled new clause 1 on Report, but we know from the reaction we got when we tried to get something put in writing, that, frankly, if you like it, you gotta put a ring on it—as Beyoncé once said. I just do not accept the oral assurances. That measure needs to be enshrined in the Bill.
The environmental principles are not enshrined in law in the Bill either. Instead, Ministers only have to have due regard to them, which is a significant step backwards compared with the current EU arrangement. Long-term targets do not need to be set until 2022 and might not be enforced for almost two decades. We must have shorter-term milestones, perhaps in the same way that we have carbon budgets under the Climate Change Act 2008, because we need to know. There is no point getting almost to the deadline and realising that we have failed hopelessly to meet the targets. There has to be a way of monitoring progress more quickly.
I very much welcome the fact that the Office of Environmental Protection will be based in Bristol. I welcome the jobs that will come, but it needs the resources. We know from the Environmental Audit Committee and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee —I am a member of both—that the Environment Agency struggles to do its job in enforcing the laws that exist because it simply does not have the resources; the waste hierarchy, for example, is just not enforced. Everything becomes meaningless unless there is adequate staffing, resources and expertise, and the Office of Environmental Protection will also need the independence to act.
The EU water framework directive was agreed 20 years ago, and I am concerned that time is running out for the Government to meet their targets. The final deadline for the UK’s rivers and streams to be in good condition—to achieve good ecological status—is 2027. At the moment, we are at 14%, which compares with an average of 40% in the EU. I am not convinced that this Bill alone will be enough to bring us up to scratch by the 2027 deadline.
Finally, the Bill is very much about what we are doing in this country. It does not address the role that the UK is playing in driving the destruction of nature overseas, which is something that we have discussed in Westminster Hall, both earlier today and in the debate a few weeks ago on the deforestation of the Amazon. We must look at reducing our international footprint, too. I completely support calls by the World Wide Fund for Nature and Global Witness to amend the Bill to provide for a due diligence obligation requiring businesses to assess what is happening through their supply chains and investment activities in other countries, and to take appropriate action to avoid and mitigate any negative environmental impacts. If they cannot avoid those negative environmental impacts, they ought to cease operations and investments in those countries. We cannot have UK companies paying lip service to the need to protect our environment at home, yet supporting the deforestation of the Amazon and all sorts of other environmental destruction in other countries.
Restoring Nature and Climate Change
Kerry McCarthy Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hosie. The parliamentary authorities are doing their bit to combat global warming by not having the heating on today—I sent for my cardigan, so I will survive.
The hon. Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick) made an interesting speech. His was a slightly imaginative interpretation, perhaps, of the subject of the petition, but I say to him that the Environmental Audit Committee, on which I serve, is, as part of its greening government inquiry, looking at the environmental footprint of the NHS estates. Some of those issues are coming up as part of that inquiry. I think that all areas of Government need to look at how they can reduce their carbon footprint.
The petition under discussion today had 405 signatories from Bristol East. Many of my constituents are passionate about this issue. I am very pleased that we are now talking about rewilding as a natural climate solution. It can draw millions of tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere. I agree, though, with what the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) said: we need to look at both sides of the coin. I find when I take part in debates such as this and particularly when I talk about agriculture and its footprint—we had a debate in this Chamber three weeks ago about deforestation of the Amazon—that there can often be a focus on the positive side, with people saying, “Let’s restore our soil; let’s plant lots of trees,” but not addressing the fact that huge amounts of destruction are going on. There is not much point in planting trees if, with the other hand, we are destroying the Amazon to grow soya for livestock feed or whatever.
Mr Sheerman
Do we actually have to go to the Amazon on this issue? A leading professor at the University of Cambridge, Professor Steve Evans, who is a great friend of mine, believes that soil degradation here at home, and worldwide, is probably the greatest challenge that we face at the moment. I am talking about what we actually grow our plants and trees in.
Kerry McCarthy
Yes, soil is a huge issue. The Environmental Audit Committee did a very good inquiry on it a few years ago, and the all-party parliamentary group on agroecology for sustainable food and farming, which I chair, did a three-part inquiry. One of the amendments that I tried to get into the Agriculture Bill, with the list of public money for public goods, was to say that better soil health ought to be identified as a particular public good. The response of the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), who was responsible for farming, was that it was covered by the broader list and the Government did not want to be too specific, but now that the Agriculture Bill—well, who knows whether the Agriculture Bill is coming back? Who knows whether we will even be here tomorrow, let alone in time for the Agriculture Bill to come back? But I would like to see the point to which I have referred spelled out more specifically and in the Environment Bill, too.
As the petition stated, we need to act fast to avoid a climate emergency. Reducing carbon emissions alone will not be enough to keep the heating of the planet below 1.5°C. We also need to find ways of removing carbon from the atmosphere, and nature is our greatest ally in doing that. Evidence suggests that natural climate solutions could provide more than one third of the greenhouse gas mitigation required globally between now and 2030, yet natural solutions currently receive only 2.5% of the funding spent globally on cutting emissions. The lack of focus on natural solutions is indicative of the wider lack of action on reversing the ecological crisis over the past 40 years.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
On that point and on the earlier point about deforestation, here at home peat bogs play a hugely important role in carbon sequestration. Should not the Government invest more in restoring peat bogs in the UK?
Kerry McCarthy
Yes, that is really important. I think that there should be a ban on the burning of blanket bogs. I will have something to say about grouse moors in a moment. Another issue is peat in horticultural products. There has been quite a campaign to stop that, and I know that quite a lot of gardeners would support that. That is all part and parcel of this.
The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services found that 1 million species
“already face extinction, many within decades, unless action is taken”.
It is a very sad fact that the UK is now one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world: it is ranked 189th out of 218, with a 41% species decline since 1970. Many of us are species champions; I am the parliamentary swift species champion. I know that other people are doing very good work on that front, and it is now more on the political agenda, but it is still shocking how much damage has been done in recent decades.
It is clear that nature is struggling against climate change, habitat loss, pollution and intensive farming, but we can turn that around radically by changing the way we manage land. Rewilding is the only solution that offers the opportunity to tackle the climate and ecological emergencies together. The benefits of rewilding our peatlands, heathlands, grasslands, woodlands, saltmarshes, wetlands and coastal waters are diverse. That would lock away carbon, clean air and water, reconnect us with nature, protect communities at risk of flooding, revitalise wildlife, restore our soil and support new economic opportunities.
In preparation for this speech, I read an article in The Spectator by the Minister’s brother, Ben Goldsmith, that was titled “The triumphant return of the British beaver”. He was saying that some people say, “Well, beavers are a bit messy, aren’t they?” This is the same sort of thing that we were talking about in relation to grass verges. I have some constituents who say, “Now that the grass in the parks and along the roadsides isn’t cut to within a centimetre of its life, it looks a bit messy with all this stuff growing,” but that is what nature ought to look like. Ben Goldsmith, in response to people saying that beavers make a bit of a mess, said:
“Considering that the majority of our land is stripped, cultivated, tidied and managed by humans, surely we can…allow nature a bit of free rein along our watercourses.”
That underpins this debate. Nature ought to be allowed to do what nature does. It should not be controlled and tidied out of existence.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) mentioned peatland. We are lucky to have 13% of the world’s peatland in the UK, but the habitat is suffering: 80% has been damaged by drainage, extraction, burning or overgrazing. As a result, the equivalent of the emissions of 660,000 UK households are released each year. This natural resource can take carbon out of the atmosphere, but because of the way we treat it, it is releasing more emissions. The Government should ban the extraction and burning of peat immediately. Extraction for compost releases almost half a million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, which is the equivalent of 100,000 cars on the road, so why do we always talk about cars, but not how domestic gardening is causing a problem?
Voluntary targets to phase out horticultural peat are not being met and it is over a year and a half since the Government said progress was insufficient. It is now time for action. Rewilding our peatlands is a no-brainer: it sequesters significant amounts of carbon, provides clean water and reduces flooding. Several years ago, I went to flood-hit areas with my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch). Anyone who has been there can see the impact of the burning of the moors on the catchment area. It makes sense to look after our peatlands and plant trees.
Some critics of the rewilding agenda say that there is a choice between feeding ourselves and nature, and that turning more land over to rewilding, rather than using it for agriculture, will mean that we lose out in food security. However, the least productive marginal land often provides the best options for carbon sequestration, rewilding and other ecosystems services. We already have large areas of land that produce little food, which could be used to store vast amount of carbon. Grouse moor estates cover around 1.3 million hectares of England, Scotland and Wales. Deer stalking estates account for around 1.8 million hectares in Scotland. These estates are commonly located on degraded peatlands, currently managed at high environmental cost, using practices such as burning, for the benefit of a relatively tiny number of shooters. We need to reassess our priorities and take a more strategic approach to the use of that land.
I chair the all-party parliamentary group on agroecology for sustainable food and farming, which does excellent work on this agenda. The Minister was, before his elevation to greater things, one of the vice chairs of the APPG. Rewilding must be accompanied by a wider transition to nature and climate-friendly farming. The Knepp estate is a good example of how that works.
It is well documented that the intensification of farming since the second world war has left less and less space for nature in the UK. To turn that around, the Government ought to commit to a transition to sustainable agroecological farming by 2030. That is supported by the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. The Government must also commit to net zero emissions from agriculture by 2040 and reverting parcels of arable land, particularly the third that is used for animal feed, to permanent grassland, which has high levels of soil, carbon and biodiversity value.
I mentioned that the Agriculture Bill’s approach of public money for public goods is a step in the right direction, but it needs to be more ambitious. If £1.9 billion of the £3 billion currently spent on common agricultural policy payments were allocated to supporting native woodland re-establishment, and the restoration and protection of peat bogs, heaths and the species rich grasslands over a total of 6 million hectares, that could mean sequestering 47 million tonnes of CO2 a year, which is more than one tenth of current UK greenhouse gas emissions.
As I mentioned, we cannot think of natural solutions only on a domestic level. The UK should play its part on the world stage by ensuring that all UK aid is nature-positive. I know that the Minister, in his role as Minister for the Department for International Development, thinks that is important. We need to support more integrated interventions that improve people’s lives and enhance the natural environment. We need to stop harmful investments that destroy nature and contribute to climate change, such as the deforestation of the Amazon. We need to look at how our consumption patterns here are harming the environment overseas.
We need to negotiate an ambitious deal with people and nature at the Convention on Biological Diversity next October. We need to look at other countries that are leading by example on rewilding. Ethiopia planted more than 350 million trees in one day in July—God knows how they managed that, but that is what they did—with the aim of planting 4 billion in the next year. We should seek to follow that scale of ambition.
To conclude, the UK has the chance to become a world leader in natural climate solutions, but we need financial commitments from the Government. Markets alone will not solve the climate and ecological crisis. Next week, assuming we will still be here, the Government have the chance to prove their commitment—actually, this refers to the Budget, which is definitely not happening next week. At some point in the near future, hopefully, if there is not an election, the Government have the chance to prove their commitment, by guaranteeing at least £2.9 billion for the new environmental land management scheme in the Budget, as called for by the National Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the wildlife trusts, whenever that happens. It could also reverse the 42% funding fall as a percentage of GDP for biodiversity conservation since 2008.
Finally, taking a different approach to the way land is managed is as important as high-tech solutions to address climate breakdown. I have heard the Minister of State for Climate Change and Industry talk about weird technological advances that would suck carbon out of the air. I do not see why we need to do that when trees and peat bogs can do the job for us.
Plastic Food and Drink Packaging
Kerry McCarthy Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Neil Parish
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He does a great deal of work with the food and drink sector, and he is right. It is a question not only of working with the food and drink sector in this country, but of imports. As we change things—as we start to put taxes on plastic, and so on—we must ensure that our businesses here are not affected more than businesses that make the goods that we import. That is very important, and I am certain that the Minister has taken a great deal of notice of what my hon. Friend has said.
We need to take the industry with us, because they are the ones who will create the packaging in the first place and will then need to have a method of disposal through the retail system; they will need to work with retailers and consumers to ensure that we get it right.
To conclude, we in Parliament need to lead by example, by removing all single-use packaging from our catering facilities. Will the Minister work with House authorities to help us achieve a plastic-free Parliament?
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for giving way. Will he join me in congratulating Surfers Against Sewage for all the work it has done on a plastic-free Parliament? We have been doing it through the all-party parliamentary group on ocean conservation. As he says, there is some way to go—that is why I brought my own cup today rather than using the compostable ones, just in case they are not composted—but the organisation has done a good job in trying to get the parliamentary estate to change its ways.
Neil Parish
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention; she is an excellent member of the Select Committee and I know she has also done a great deal of work on food waste. This is important. We have all worked together with the authorities here to deliver a much better system, but we must ensure that we carry on to conclude it. That is why I ask whether the Minister will work with House authorities to help us to achieve a completely plastic-free Parliament. We have made a lot of progress, but we need to finalise it.
We also need consistency in recycling collections and simpler labelling for consumers—not just putting a green dot on things, because a green dot means nothing; it just means that somewhere along the line, something might have been recycled. It does not mean that that particular item is recyclable. When does the Minister expect new systems to be introduced—knowing her, it will be immediately—and will she commit to ensuring that businesses that produce 1 tonne of packaging per year report on how much packaging they place on the market? That is important, because a lot of plastic is coming through that is not being measured.
Finally, the most important message of our report is that reduction of plastic in the first place is the best way to prevent plastic pollution. Will the Minister work closely with the industry to ensure that we stop the use of unnecessary plastics in the first place?
Derek Thomas
I will not comment on Tiverton and Honiton again. I say that my constituency is the most beautiful because, apart from a short section that neighbours the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) and for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), we are entirely surrounded by the sea. However, although ours is a beautiful, unspoiled part of the world where every Member—as well as most of the country—gladly chooses to holiday during the summer, the truth is that we do see plastic pollution.
Kerry McCarthy
My researcher loves going to Scilly; he is going there for Christmas. He was showing me in the office just now that it is 12 °C in Scilly and the sun is shining. He was rather wishing, given the weather today, that he was there. Beautiful as Bristol is, I might have to agree with the hon. Gentleman.
Derek Thomas
I welcome that intervention, and the fact that we agree on that is brilliant. The hon. Lady is right: I always say to everyone who comes down, or who wishes to, that the sun always shines—which is true, although sometimes the rain gets in between.
Derek Thomas
I can, but the clouds sometimes obscure it.
On the Isles of Scilly, where it is 12 °C and warm and beautiful, there is no hiding the fact that plastic pollution is taking its toll. I am the parliamentary species champion for the Manx shearwater, a ground-nesting bird that was in significant decline. We have been able to turn that decline around on the Isles of Scilly because we have been able to get some of those islands—they are both inhabited and uninhabited—completely clear of plastic pollution and rats. As a result, the birds are now thriving, and last year they were the fastest recovering species at risk in the UK. They nest only in two parts of the British Isles. That is an example of the immediate benefit of getting on top of this problem for wildlife.
I was shocked by something that I learned when I went on a visit to Nancledra school, which was holding an eco-fair. People took shovelfuls of sand—anyone who looked at it would have assumed that it was just ordinary sand from the beach, as it was—and poured it into water. As they did so, the plastic came to the top. Anyone who has not done that experiment should do so when they—or their member of staff—go on holiday to Cornwall. If we pour sand that looks perfectly ordinary into a bucket of water, we will find it startling how much plastic is in that water. That plastic harms our marine life, so we really must get on top of it. We will never get on top of all the minute plastic pieces that are in the sand but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton says, we can certainly stop contributing to that.
In my constituency and around the country, as we heard from the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman), who is from way up north—I have not been here long enough to learn all the pronunciations—there is a huge amount of effort and will from people on the ground. Right across the Cornwall coastline, organisations continue to undertake regular beach cleans, and they are now moving inland because of all the plastic caught up in bushes and hedgerows. We will see less and less plastic there, but mainly because people are working so hard to clear it up.
Every year, I run an outdoor adventure camp, and I have done for 20-odd years. This year, we decided that we would be plastic free. I cannot tell hon. Members how difficult it was to run a camp for 100 young people and not bring on to the site unnecessary plastic packaging. Schools tell me exactly the same. Mounts Bay Academy in Penzance held a huge event to celebrate its plastic-free status, but staff kept telling me that they could not get suppliers to stop sending into the school stuff that was wrapped unnecessarily in single-use plastic. We need to address that, and I hope that the Government will do so as a result of this report.
There are a couple of things I want to commend. Penzance was the first town to become plastic free. Surfers Against Sewage was started in Cornwall 20 or 30 years ago, campaigning to clean up our beaches. We were pumping raw sewage into our beaches, but we have been able to address that and now we have blue flag beaches that are the most beautiful in the country. SAS staff have now rightly turned their attention to plastic, and they have done amazing work. They have been into Parliament—I am sure that most Members will have met them already—to make the case for bottle deposit schemes and legislation from the Government to change things. SAS also supports the industry to move away from unnecessary plastics.
Despite all that effort, herein lies the problem: there is still no let-up in the use of unnecessary plastic packaging. Supermarkets continue to use it for no good reason. If there is a good reason, I would be delighted if someone—perhaps the Minister—could correct me. I am an old-fashioned person of faith, and I believe that we are provided with what we need. Fruit and veg are provided with their own natural wrappers and protections. Why do our supermarkets choose to shrink-wrap cucumbers—or swedes or turnips, depending on the part of the country—and other fruit and veg? It is completely unnecessary, and it amazes me that we continue to do that.
Kerry McCarthy
There is a counter-argument for some of this packaging, particularly when it comes to cucumbers. The hon. Gentleman will find people who say that if we are trying to address food waste, such packaging is the way to keep cucumbers fresh. However, the Select Committee had a really interesting session with people who are developing alternatives, and the seaweed-based alternatives in particular were absolutely fascinating. Perhaps that is the route to go down.
Derek Thomas
I completely accept that. Cutting down on food miles and getting better at using food when it is available, and from close to where it is supplied, might be part of the solution to food waste. I agree with the hon. Lady, however, and I will come to the alternatives in a moment.
Rebecca Pow
That is a good point. Members touched on funding. We will give increased powers to local authorities, fully funded through the producer responsibility scheme, which I will go on to talk about. They should not fear; they are going to be a key part of this. As so many Members have referred to, achieving this alignment is critical to the future of the plastics world. That is all being listened to and consulted on, and there will be further consultation in the environmental improvement part of the Environment Bill.
The Government also carried out a consultation on producer responsibility, which will be a radical reform for producers of packaging. It will put the onus entirely back on them to be responsible for what happens to their product, how much recyclable material it contains, where it will go at the end of its life and all that.
Kerry McCarthy
On a point of clarification, I understand that the EU is currently reviewing both the extended producer responsibility rules and the essential requirements in the packaging waste directive. How does that fit with the reviews that we are carrying out here if we are to leave the EU?
Rebecca Pow
I urge the hon. Lady to look at the detail of the producer responsibility scheme and the consultation. We will develop our own bespoke system. This is all being done in conjunction with businesses, and there is a great deal of support for it.
A point was raised about the thresholds for reporting the amount of packaging waste. Some consultation has been done on that and feedback has been provided, and I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton that information will be available in the near future. Similarly, we want consistent labelling on packaging so that consumers know what to recycle, in order to reduce the confusion that everyone keeps talking about regarding what is and is not recyclable. Another consultation is being carried out on that to gather yet more data.
We have also consulted on the deposit return scheme—one of those critical subjects that everyone seems to contact us about. The details of that scheme will come forward in the Environment Bill, with a view to introducing what we hope will be the best system in 2023. There will be a further, final consultation on that in the second part of the Bill to make sure we get it right. As I am sure Members are all aware, there is so much to this: what are we going to include? Will it be glass? Will it be plastic? What does the industry want, so that the scheme is usable by them when they gather all the material? It is not quite as straightforward as people think, but it is definitely coming forward.
TB in Cattle and Badgers
Kerry McCarthy Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I have been out with Avon Wildlife Trust, which has an excellent badger vaccination programme. The cull is now being rolled out to Avon, and we have a ridiculous situation where badgers that have been vaccinated are now liable to be culled. Does my hon. Friend agree that that seems a complete and utter waste of money and effort?
Ruth George
Absolutely. We would not want that to happen in Derbyshire either.
In 2014, 20% of culls were supervised by Natural England staff, but by 2018 the organisation was able to monitor only 0.4% of them. That gives rise to safety concerns, particularly if protests are involved. Without even responding to their own report, last month the Government extended the badger cull to a total of 40 areas, including around Bristol, Cheshire, Devon, Cornwall, Staffordshire, Dorset, Herefordshire and Wiltshire. It was not extended to Derbyshire, however. That delighted the thousands of supporters of Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and its vaccination programme, but not the Derbyshire farmers, 700 of whom had signed up to the cull in their area.
With infections increasing so much recently, and no other Government policy forthcoming, farmers feel that the badger cull is their only option to escape the real fear of TB. As has been said, however, there is conflicting evidence about the effectiveness of the cull, and it is disappointing that Professor Godfray’s team was specifically asked not to evaluate whether ongoing culls are reducing TB in cattle. A recent report from the Animal and Plant Health Agency stated explicitly that the data cannot demonstrate whether or not the badger control policy is effective.
The Downs report shows some reduction in infections during and immediately after the cull, but infection rates are now rising again and TB is spreading among cattle. Professor Godfray stated that the only feasible alternative to control badgers is vaccination, and that leads me to the work of Derbyshire Wildlife Trust—the largest volunteer-led vaccination programme in the UK, supported by the National Trust, the National Farmers Union, Derbyshire County Council, the Badger Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Derbyshire police and local badger groups. Derbyshire’s police and crime commissioner is also a strong supporter, especially after assessing the resources that policing protests against the cull would involve. DWT is supported by more than 100 volunteers, and that number is continually increasing. I thank the small band of professionals and all the volunteers who dedicate a substantial amount of time in the evenings and early mornings to trap and vaccinate badgers. They have vaccinated 742 badgers so far, including 218 this year.
The Climate Emergency
Kerry McCarthy Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Sue Hayman
I agree with my hon. Friend. The matter was mentioned during Labour’s party conference this year, because we are taking this very seriously.
My concern is that the Conservative Government have a track record of missing environmental targets on air quality, major pollution incidents and biodiversity, and last year a leaked document showed that the Government had abandoned altogether an agreed target to restore 50% of England’s sites of special scientific interest to a favourable condition by 2020. It is therefore disappointing, but unsurprising, that the legally binding targets will not apply for nearly two decades.
Once the Government’s record on climate change and the environment is examined more closely, we find practices and policies that completely undermine and work against efforts to tackle the climate and ecological emergency. The Government continue to use UK export finance to support fossil fuels, but it is totally hypocritical for the UK to limit extraction at home while promoting extraction abroad. The Natural Capital Committee recently concluded that only half of our habitats currently meet minimum quality targets, with bees, butterflies, birds and many plants species continuing to decline.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
My hon. Friend has already mentioned the fact that we are financing fossil fuels overseas while trying to reduce their usage here, but we also consume 3.3 million tonnes of soya per year, 77% of which comes from high-risk deforestation areas in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. It is one thing to talk about protecting natural habitats here, but if our consumption habits are contributing to deforestation overseas, we are not really solving the problem.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I welcome the cross-party consensus around stronger action on climate change, but action there does need to be, including in the Environment Bill. In 2006, as Labour’s Housing Minister, I put forward a 10-year plan for zero-carbon homes by 2016, including a regulatory timetable, that was backed by the housing industry and environmental groups, but sadly it was ditched in 2013. We still need that stronger action to cut emissions from new and existing homes as part of our action on climate change.
I want to talk about the importance of public transport as part of our action to cut carbon emissions and the desperate need for more support for public transport in our towns, which was missing from the Government’s agenda, but first I want to make a point about the Government’s Brexit plans. It is deeply disappointing that the Government seem to be moving away from a Brexit deal with a customs union, rather than towards one, as that idea lost by only three votes in Parliament in the spring and is something that many Opposition Members have argued for. Fundamentally, we have to make a choice about what kind of trading nation we wanted to be: do we want our closest trading relationships to be with our nearest neighbours, through a customs union approach, and built on safeguards, standards and workers’ rights, or do we instead, as the Government seem now to argue, want the price to be deregulation and an opening up of markets to the biggest global corporations, risking cuts in environmental standards and prioritising a deal with Trump’s America?
Kerry McCarthy
I tried to intervene on the Secretary of State about this. I and the Chair of the Select Committee tabled new clauses 1 and 4 to the Agriculture Bill to say there should be no lowering of standards in any future trade deal, which I think was one reason why we did not see the Bill after last December. Does my right hon. Friend agree it is important that when the Bill comes back, such provisions are back in there?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We want rising standards and support for higher standards. It is the only way to cut carbon emissions, support our environment and protect our workers’ rights.
There is nothing in the Queen’s Speech to address the serious challenges facing our towns and the unfair deal they are getting. We see that particularly in public transport. Our bus services have been cut and our trains, particularly across our northern towns, are still rubbish. We are not getting our fair share of investment. Billions of pounds is locked up in transport investment in our cities, while in Normanton we still have only one train an hour to Leeds, even though it is just half an hour away, and we still do not have disabled access at busy stations such as Pontefract Monkhill and Knottingley. We had the awful situation of a constituent in a wheelchair having to crawl over a bridge because the Government, despite our requests, refused to fund the basic disabled access. Moreover, we still have rubbish Pacer trains and no proper plan for transport in our towns.
That compounds the wider problem of the growing gap between our cities and towns. Our towns, which have strong communities, are great places to live and are proud of their history, are getting an unfair deal, and Tory austerity has hit them harder. As public services budgets have been cut, many public services providers have pulled services out of towns altogether. We have lost libraries, sports centres, magistrates courts, police stations, fire stations, hospital services, maternity units, swimming pools, Sure Starts, jobcentres and council services, as so many of these services have shrunk back into the cities. We are supposed to travel to the nearest cities instead, but the public transport is not there, because bus services have been cut and the trains are inadequate.
Private sector investment, always pursuing economies of scale, is pulling in the same direction. Banks, ATMs and post offices in our towns have closed. The big cities and shopping centres may still be able to compete with Amazon, but our smaller town centres are struggling with business rates and parking charges, and having their heart taken out. The numbers of new jobs are growing twice as fast in the cities as in the towns, and as our town centres have shown, foreign direct investment in the cities is accelerating and our towns are not getting a fair deal. The Government’s stronger towns fund is still a top-down approach and only reaches a certain number of towns. Areas still have to bid and most towns still lose out.
We need a proper industrial strategy for our towns, which is why the Labour party’s approach of more investment in our towns, listening to towns and putting power back in towns is so important. We need towns to be at the top of the list, not the bottom, so that they can get our fair share of funding. We need public services back in our towns with a proper guarantee. We need a fair deal for Britain’s towns.