Debate on the Address

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Tuesday 11th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con) [V]]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. My apologies: my internet crashed a little while ago, so I am grateful to you for letting me participate orally.

I am pleased to be able to contribute to the debate, the day after the Prime Minister has confirmed that the country will move to the next stage in the relaxation of restrictions on Monday after 14 months of covid-dominated disruption to our daily lives, and in the week after a seismic set of mid-term elections showed such strong waves of support for the Government, not just across most of England but with gains in Scotland and Wales and the blue wave, through which I am pleased to welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer) to these Benches.

The focus of the Government’s programme is the delivery of manifesto commitments at the general election 18 months ago, meeting the aspirations of people across every part of Britain, including in rural areas that have so often been left behind. The levelling-up agenda needs to reach beyond Whitehall, and not just to the great urban centres of the north and the midlands but to rural communities everywhere. I was pleased to see the publication before Easter of the rural-proofing policy paper, and I will look for those principles to be applied to the 30 Bills outlined in the Gracious Speech as they pass through this House.

Before I turn to the main thrust of my remarks, I would like briefly to welcome the health and care Bill, which will build on the new ways of working brought in to cope with the pandemic, to improve outcomes for patients by focusing on prevention and closer collaboration within the NHS and with local authorities. On social care, however, we must make progress during this Session to develop a long-term plan and then legislate during this Parliament, as other hon. Members have said. The current funding mechanisms are putting real pressure on the families of those who require residential and domiciliary care, as well as on local authorities, whose budgets are increasingly dominated by the cost of providing care.

I particularly welcome the procurement Bill, as a former Minister with responsibility for procurement in the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Health. It will allow the public sector deliberately to buy British where that makes sense and represents value for money. We could not do that, even for food and drink, when subject to EU procurement rules.

I want to focus my remarks on environmental measures, including the focus on green jobs as the economy recovers, on which the Committee I chair will soon be making recommendations to the Government. The animal welfare provisions are welcome and will deliver on specific manifesto pledges.

I particularly welcome the reintroduction of the vital Environment Bill—a casualty of covid, which prevented its passage in the last Session. It establishes a new overarching regulator for the environment following Brexit. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has set up the new Office for Environmental Protection in shadow form to start undertaking its work.

The main issue that I wish to welcome is the Government’s announcement that they will introduce three amendments to the Environment Bill to take forward the principal objectives of my private Member’s Bill, the Sewage (Inland Waters) Bill—another casualty of covid, as its Second Reading was deferred five times and it ran out of parliamentary time in the last Session. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), has shown admirable determination to support me and the 135 other Members across the House and the almost 45,000 members of the public who signed a petition to end sewage pollution to address the truly shocking state of our sewage and drainage infrastructure.

The spotlight of data transparency has begun to reveal the state of water quality in our rivers. On 31 March, the Environment Agency published the astonishing admission from water companies, detected by monitoring equipment progressively installed in the past few years at sewage treatment plants and other drainage assets, that raw sewage was discharged into our rivers on more than 400,000 occasions for more than 3 million hours during 2020. Much of that was done within the limits permitted by the Environment Agency. In effect, the water companies have been licensed to spill.

The reasons for that are complex, but they reflect a lack of adequate investment in our drainage infrastructure to keep pace with housing and commercial development since the 1960s. The consequences for the aquatic environment and the species reliant on our waterways are increasingly devastating. I do not have time to go into the causes and effects, but I am genuinely delighted that the Government have adopted the principles of my Bill, and I shall monitor its progress carefully on Report in this House and during its passage through the other place.

I was also pleased to hear the Prime Minister highlight the role of a new infrastructure bank in levelling up investment to modernise the country’s infrastructure. There will be plenty of opportunities to help to fund creaking and leaking sewage and drainage infrastructure, which is very reliant on the legacy of our Victorian forebears. Levelling up needs to accommodate digging down if we are to improve water quality and meet the binding environmental targets. I look forward to scrutinising the implementing legislation for those targets, to which the Government committed today.

While we debate a programme of legislation for the next 12 months, it is understandably difficult to lift our eyes to targets set for at least three Parliaments from now, but the actions taken by the Government now will be crucial to how and whether we can get back on track to meet their ambitious interim target for emissions reduction, announced as our nationally determined contribution for the COP26 conference this November. The draft statutory instrument setting the level of the UK’s sixth carbon budget for the period from 2033 to 2037 was laid shortly before Prorogation and must be put to the House for approval by the end of June. It envisages a 78% reduction in UK total emissions by 2035, compared with the 1990 baseline.

There is no greater environmental protection target than the one the House will shortly be invited to agree. It does not require primary legislation and so was not in the Gracious Speech. The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), recently told the Environmental Audit Committee that the Government cannot spend their way to net zero. I happen to believe that while there is a place for legislation, we cannot rely on legislation to achieve net zero. The strategies and measures to be published by Ministers in this Session ahead of COP26 will be crucial in setting the policies required to deliver climate change targets over several Sessions to come.

We should also look to the net zero review by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer for how he plans to balance as equitably as possible the contribution of households, businesses and public funds to different elements of the transition to net zero. To paraphrase a renowned Finance Minister from another age, the Government’s objective must be to secure the largest possible reduction in emissions with the least hissing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

As someone who was partly responsible for preparing the 10-point plan, may I suggest that the hon. Gentleman actually reads the detail of it? I have discussed the sector-specific points in it with individuals in different sectors of industry, who have found it quite compelling. Of course I agree that we need to be doing more, and that is why I have committed to publishing the comprehensive net zero strategy ahead of COP26.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con) [V]]

What steps is my right hon. Friend taking, in his extensive discussions with leaders around the world on making progress at COP26, to develop a global standard or taxonomy of climate change impact in financial reporting and in green labelling investment products?

[Alok Sharma]

As my right hon. Friend will know, the UK has taken a leading role in climate-related disclosures by implementing a green taxonomy and, very importantly, by making TCFD-aligned disclosures—recommended by the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures —mandatory across the economy by 2025. In the conversations that I have with Governments around the world, I am urging other countries to follow a similar approach on financial disclosures. My right hon. Friend talks about asset owners in the financial services sector, and we are also encouraging asset owners and asset managers to make net zero commitments.

His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Monday 12th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con) [V]]

I, too, am grateful for the opportunity to join others who have spoken in paying my condolences to Her Majesty and the royal family on the death of His Royal Highness The Prince Philip. The Duke of Edinburgh arrived on these shores as a young boy lacking immediate family, having been educated initially in France in an American school before going on to Gordonstoun. Those experiences clearly shaped his determination to help other young people to develop the confidence to shape their own futures, as he had his own as a young man, through the award scheme he founded. Millions have benefited from it, as others have spoken about already today.

I would like to briefly add some reflections as a commissioner of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The Duke’s wartime experience and distinguished military service gave him and others of his generation such a powerful sense of duty and of the importance of remembrance for those who served their country and paid the ultimate sacrifice. He attended many memorial and cemetery dedications and unveilings through a lifetime of service. Perhaps the most appropriate was one of the earliest, when he unveiled the second world war extension to the Chatham naval memorial in October 1952. He pointed out that like all others who had served in the Royal Navy during the war, he had lost many friends who were commemorated there.

He visited thousands of Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries on many of his 143 overseas and domestic visits. There were also the many commemorative events held during his decades of service in leading the nation as Her Majesty’s consort and in his own role, as we have just heard, across so many units of our armed services.

Wherever he went, he would show genuine interest in the smallest detail. For example, he would give tips to gardeners—often, I suspect, unsolicited—about their work and the plants they tended. He had that skill of making each person he was talking to feel as though they were the focus of his attention, often through his sharp and engaging wit and powerful observations. He helped people laugh, which broke the ice.

We have been reminded already of Prince Philip’s pioneering role in drawing attention to protecting the environment around the world. He was one of the first to speak of how humans are pushing the planet to the edge. He once said:

“We can’t make the Earth any bigger and we can’t squeeze any more out of its natural resources without changing its whole character and damaging its systems.”

He was always interested in conservation and wildlife, but his visit to the south Pacific and south Atlantic in the mid-1950s sparked his interest in the threats to nature. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) mentioned Prince Philip’s role helping Sir Peter Scott to establish the World Wildlife Fund. That enthusiasm never waned. He visited hundreds of WWF projects across five continents over five decades. He also used his position to promote conservation issues, inspiring people, from members of the public to world leaders, to protect nature and wildlife. That passion has clearly been passed on to his children and grandchildren.

Briefly, if I may, I will say something on behalf of my constituents who have expressed their sympathies in the last few days. Many of them saw the Duke in 2012 when, as part of the diamond jubilee tour, he accompanied Her Majesty on her tour to Shropshire. They attended a pageant at RAF Cosford, where thousands of people took part and watched the display with them. He also visited my constituency in south Shropshire in 2003 before I became the Member of Parliament. He and Her Majesty attended the Wenlock games, now widely acknowledged as the inspiration for the Olympic games, and chose rather provocatively to have lunch in Craven Arms in preference to Ludlow—the more obvious food capital of Shropshire—where they concluded their visit.

We celebrate the life of Philip and all that he has done for this country, especially because this most British of the British was actually Greek and Danish, as well as British. He certainly was connected to Britain, but Britain was also his choice. The wind did not blow him to these shores; he set a course. His were marriages of love: to England and to Elizabeth, his Queen. He served well, and will be both missed and well-remembered.

COP26

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con) [V]]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your generosity in this debate.

Although it may have been a little hard to determine from the remarks by my immediate predecessor in this debate, the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), he welcomed this debate and I join him in doing so. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) on his opening remarks. He is right that there is a consensus across the House. We all want to see COP26 as a hugely successful conference, not just for the UK but for the whole world, to set us on a path to zero emissions by 2050, an ambition that was set out some time ago.

The objectives for the COP26 series of discussions, which of course were due to have taken place last year had it not been for covid, were actually set at Paris five years ago. It is worth reminding ourselves, at the outset of my remarks, of the four particular commitments that were set for the forthcoming conference. The first was to enhance Governments’ nationally determined contributions. This will be the first time since Paris that they will have been ratcheted up. The second was to invite each country to provide a long-term strategy, to give a pathway to decarbonisation by 2050. Where I agree with the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington is that it is beholden on the Government to set out clarity over the path to 2050, not just the target.

The third commitment was to do with finance. There was $100 billion per annum mobilised for the poorest countries to help them green their economies and adapt to the impact of climate change. We need to see how that is going to be delivered when we get to Glasgow.

Finally, there was the issue of the rulebook for a global carbon market to avoid double counting and to set the standards. Here, I think the UK has a great opportunity to show its famed global leadership. This conference will be the largest ever held in this country in terms of the number of countries participating, and I hope that most of them will be able to be here, in one form or another, in person. It is a real opportunity for the nation to lead the world and for the Prime Minister to put his stamp on the future.

As the UK is acting as host country—with Italy, as has been said—we will act as a neutral arbiter in these negotiations. We need to ensure that every country—every Paris signatory, at least—is supported in bringing forward its updated nationally determined contribution. At the beginning of the Paris conference, 186 of the 196 parties attending had presented their nationally determined contributions. I know that progress has been made, but we have a long way to go to match France’s performance when it hosted the last of this series of conferences.

The UK announced its contribution, a 68% reduction in emissions against the 1990 benchmark, last December. Several other countries have set out high-profile ambitions since, including China, Japan and South Korea looking to get to net zero by the mid-21st century, and some presenting nearer-term targets ahead of COP26. However, we still have to see progress from some major economies, including Russia, Brazil and Australia—and I know that the US will now be joining; we need to see where it gets to, too. Perhaps the COP26 President will update us on his discussions with President Biden’s special envoy, John Kerry, who was in the UK very recently.

I want to touch on two other aspects—first, how does Parliament engage in scrutinising progress? The Environmental Audit Committee—in common with other Committees, as we have heard—has undertaken various sessions in relation to COP26. The first was a year ago, when we engaged with stakeholders who were involved with previous COPs to establish what the Government’s preparations needed to focus on. We then had a session with Nigel Topping and Fiona Reynolds in May last year on the role of finance in leading the way for the upcoming COP, and we also questioned Christiana Figueres, the former executive secretary of the UN convention, last year. We questioned my right hon. Friend the COP26 President, who was then President-designate, in September last year.

Nine Select Committees have locus in relation to this issue, and we have all agreed to work together in scrutinising the UK Government preparations. We, as the Environmental Audit Committee, will lead the first of those scrutiny sessions, on cross-Government arrangements and the machinery of government, tomorrow morning. I am very pleased that my right hon. Friend the COP26 President will be attending, with two of his senior officials.

The eyes of the world will be on us to make a credible success of COP. The challenge is across many areas. We need to use the national events that we have to demonstrate UK leadership. The UK has met the first and second carbon budgets and has already reduced emissions below the level expected in the third carbon budget, up to 2022. However, as is widely acknowledged, we are not on track to meet either the fourth or fifth carbon budgets, which were legislated for on the basis of an 80% cut in emissions using the 1990 baseline by 2050, rather than the more ambitious net zero target that we now have in legislation.

A major ramp-up is needed, as is acknowledged by the Committee on Climate Change, to achieve that, and the UK will have to make more progress. Although it has been succeeding in the power sector, emissions are either not falling or not falling fast enough across transport, agriculture, housing and industry. Bringing forward the petrol and diesel car ban is welcome, but it is not the only measure that the Government have to take—[Inaudible.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The right hon. Gentleman has exceeded the time limit. I was trying to give him a little leeway, but the system will not allow me to let him finish his sentence. We therefore go to Kilmarnock, and to Alan Brown.

Integrated Review

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I could not quite hear that question, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the hon. Gentleman seemed to be saying that terrorism is somehow caused by injustice in this country. I do not believe that to be true.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con) [V]]

I very warmly welcome this material increase in the defence budget and, in particular, the multi-year nature of the settlement. A significant challenge in defence budgeting is the stop-start nature of political decision making on multi-year projects, so this statement will help to modernise the equipment plan and get it back on track, which is welcome. Does the Prime Minister agree that the United Kingdom can now fully take into account the UK prosperity impact of defence procurement, and will he do what he can to ensure that state aid issues and the opportunity cost of making in the UK are fully recognised by the Treasury?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend makes a really important point. This is a big moment for us, because we can ensure that that these colossal investments do drive jobs and growth in this country, and that is what they are going to do. That is why I am so thrilled about the announcements for shipbuilding in particular, but this is not just about shipbuilding; it means new jobs in new technology in all kinds of ways across the whole country.