Nutrient Neutrality: Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Kerry McCarthy

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Does the Minister accept that the proposed investment in the Natural England nutrient mitigation scheme covers only 15% of the total mitigation requirement to 2030? Where will the additional funds required to address the shortfall come from?

[Rachel Maclean]

I do not accept that figure, and I do not know where the hon. Lady got it. Those schemes are very much in progress at the moment, on an ongoing basis. We are working through some of the details. I should also mention that as well as the Natural England scheme we have the Government’s own scheme, administered by my Department, which we will be able to deliver throughout the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank my hon. Friend for his determination in bringing forward this innovative measure, which will enable the Government to meet their ambition of delivering the houses that are needed all over our community. He is right to say that local communities should be able to set their own local design codes. That will be a fantastic way for them to create a huge number of houses, building up, out and possibly around and across as well.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Bristol is committed to building more houses, and we know that density is very much part of that, but with that comes pressure on local infrastructure. Can the Minister update the House on what the successor is to the housing infrastructure fund and on what funds will be available to ensure that local communities can cope with that new density?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that this is a multi-agency and community approach. Yes, of course, the police are responsible for tackling and dealing with antisocial behaviour, which is why we are providing £695 million funding to West Midlands police, an increase of £40 million. The force has also been able to recruit over 1,000 additional officers. It is also the case that we have provided the police with additional powers. It is vital that the police work with their local police and crime commissioner and other agencies with responsibility for tackling this behaviour.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

In Bristol, we have a successful e-scooter rental pilot, but we also see people using e-scooters illegally and using rental e-scooters on the pavement. That can be very scary for people trying to walk along the pavement while that is happening. I know the Government are looking to legalise and regulate private ownership, but how will the Home Office team work with the Department for Transport team to ensure the police have the powers to stop them being misused in a way that scares people who are just trying to go about their daily business?

[Rachel Maclean]

The hon. Lady speaks of an issue that both she and I have some experience of—when I was in the Department for Transport, she was my shadow. The Department is introducing new legislation to deal with some of these issues. Until that is on the statute book, however, it is the responsibility of the police to deal with the issue, and they have clear guidance: riding an e-scooter on the pavement is illegal in all circumstances. We welcome new forms of transport, but of course they must be introduced safely and ridden responsibly.

Support for Black Victims of Domestic Abuse

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 28th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Maclean]

I will not detain you for that long, Sir Christopher, and I will allow the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead time to sum up.

The hon. Lady knows that we have a new full-time national police lead for violence against women and girls, Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth. One of her key roles—I meet her regularly to discuss this and to ask her to ensure that she includes it—is to build trust and confidence in the police. Members have referenced various individual forces, but this wider piece of work is happening across all police forces in the country. That includes her working directly with charities that support black and minoritised women and girls, to make sure that the police are not overlooking their specific needs.

To finish, I will talk about domestic homicide, which is an utterly abhorrent tragedy. When it happens to women like Valerie, it is vital that we remember her legacy and that we learn lessons when such terrible crimes happen. We will continue to build our evidence base on domestic homicides through the domestic homicides project, which is now in its second year. That is built on the recognition that there is more to do in the case of domestic homicides to understand, to build that learning within the force and to ensure that the police improve their response to tackling domestic abuse, so that they can prevent more such crimes from taking place.

We are creating an online repository to hold all domestic homicide reviews in order to allow for more analysis of the patterns, trends and triggers for domestic homicide, and the data, as the hon. Member for Halifax mentioned, to allow us to prevent further tragic deaths.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Will the Department also look at suicide rates and whether there is a connection to them? We know that in some cases violence in relationships ends up with women taking their own lives. I do not think that that is documented, but will it form part of the strategy, because it is as tragic an event as a homicide?

[Rachel Maclean]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise that point. It is something that we are looking at very closely, because we recognise that the pattern of domestic abuse leading up to suicide is sometimes overlooked. The work that is taking place in the domestic homicide review project is looking specifically at the tragic cases of suicide as part of the wider work, and I will be happy to update the House in the normal way.

I thank all the Members that have taken part in the debate, including the hon. Members for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) and for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), and the hon. Members for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) and for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald). We have heard striking personal accounts from Members across the House, and I thank everyone who has shared their experiences. We all want to do better by those Members, their constituents and the victims and survivors represented so well by the Sistah Space charity.

I am grateful for the opportunity to address the Government’s position. Domestic abuse is a terrible crime and we are committed to doing everything we can to stop it happening, to pursue perpetrators when it does, and to give victims the best possible support.

Violence Against Women and Girls: Police Response

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Kerry McCarthy

Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

The right hon. Lady makes a valid point, and this is an area that the Home Office is determined to look at in more detail. As she will appreciate, there are difficulties in gathering evidence, which is why we have focused on the communications strategy, helping women to have the confidence to come forward to report offences—and, most important, to know when they do come forward that they will be believed and action will be taken. That is a central part of our action plan.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

As the Minister will know, the Department for Transport’s consultation on personal safety on the streets of England closed on 15 September. I appreciate the fact that when she was my opposite number in that Department she met me to talk through the issues, but, as she will also know, the Department for Transport is not the quickest Department when it comes to acting on responses to consultation, and I could reel off a whole list of issues that I am waiting to see turned into concrete action. Could she take it upon herself to talk to her colleagues in that Department, and ensure that there is speedy action on those responses?

[Rachel Maclean]

It is a pleasure to see the hon. Lady in a different capacity. That was a strategy that I initiated during my time as a Minister in that Department, and she will see that my successor in the role, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison), is sitting here on the Front Bench listening carefully to her comments. I am sure that my hon. Friend would be delighted to meet the hon. Lady. This is an important issue for the Department for Transport, and I am sure that the Department will respond in its usual speedy way to this consultation and all the others.

Transport Decarbonisation Plan

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Kerry McCarthy

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Member for his comments, but I have addressed them already with the roles that local authorities, the private sector and Government have to play. I also point him back to what I said about our delivery plan, which will, absolutely, set out how we intend to ensure that every resident of the United Kingdom, no matter where they live, has equal access to this electric and low emission revolution. We will continue to monitor the market, and where it is not delivering, it is right for central Government to step into those areas of market failure.

Members mentioned the experience of public charging. We have consulted recently on measures to improve that experience, including opening up public charge point data, improving reliability and streamlining the payment methods for drivers—they should not have to have multiple active apps and accounts on their phone. We want to increase pricing transparency. I have done a huge amount of work with charge point operators as part of that vital work. We also plan to lay legislation later this year.

We want people across the country to have the opportunity to move to being electric vehicle drivers.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Am I right in thinking that that would be legislation requiring charge point operators to meet certain reliability standards? Is that what the Minister is suggesting?

[Rachel Maclean]

Absolutely right, it is that. We already have those powers in legislation, and we intend to use them.

The vast majority of electric vehicle drivers choose to charge their cars at home overnight or, increasingly, at the workplace. We plan to support people to charge their cars at home, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington said. We are working closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government at the moment and we have consulted on plans to introduce a requirement for every new home to have a charge point, where there is an associated parking space. We will publish our response soon. We aim to lay regulations in Parliament in 2021—this year. That will make England the first country in the world to introduce mandatory charge points in new homes, again cementing our position as the global leader in the race to net zero.

My hon. Friend spoke about R&D, and we are world-leading in the automotive manufacturing sector. We have prioritised securing investment in battery cell gigafactories. That is key to anchoring the mass manufacture of electric vehicles in the UK, safeguarding green jobs and driving emissions to net zero by 2050. We must also create a circular economy for electric vehicle batteries to maximise the economic and environmental opportunities of the transition to zero emission vehicles. That is why we support innovation, infrastructure and a regulatory environment for the UK battery recycling industry. The £318 million Faraday battery challenge is about tackling those technical challenges of reusing and recycling battery components with the aim of making them 95% recyclable by 2035—up from 10% to 50% today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley mentioned many of the critical minerals. He will have to forgive me, that topic is not my direct brief, but I assure him that a lot of the work on the Faraday battery challenge is to address such critical challenges, of which Ministers are well aware.

We must also continue to support public transport as one of the most sustainable ways around. On rail, we are building on our Williams-Shapps plan for rail to decarbonise the rail network. We have already completed 700 miles of rail electrification in England and Wales, and we will continue to electrify more of the network in the years ahead. In the past year, there has been a meteoric rise in cycling and walking, and all of our policy development is aimed at embedding that shift. As I said, we are investing £2 billion to enable half of all travel in towns and cities to be cycled or walked by 2030.

Driverless Cars

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Kerry McCarthy

Wednesday 26th May 2021 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Member for asking that. We intend to publish that plan shortly.

[Kerry McCarthy]

We were all led to believe that the plan would be published in the spring. When does the Minister think spring officially ends?

[Rachel Maclean]

That is one of those questions that I am not qualified to answer, but I assure the hon. Lady that we are committed to publishing the plan shortly.

I hope that I have set out the wide range of Government efforts to make the UK the best place in the world to develop and deploy self-driving vehicles safely. The coming years will prove crucial in securing the many benefits of self-driving vehicles for the UK—for our economy, for the environment and for safe and accessible travel for all citizens. I thank everybody for taking part in the debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Kerry McCarthy

Thursday 29th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I commend my hon. Friend for raising that concern in the House and standing up for her constituents. I fully understand that this is a long- running issue involving several parties, including the water utility company and the housing developer. I completely share her and her constituents’ frustration. I would be delighted to ask my noble Friend the roads Minister, who deals with this, to meet her; she has already undertaken to do so.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I do not know whether the Minister has recently visited Tory-controlled Derbyshire, but I have, and the roads are in a shocking state. Plugging potholes and patching up roads in a piecemeal fashion simply does not work. What we need is a proper road maintenance programme, yet the Government have slashed funding by £375 million and are ploughing £27 billion into road expansion during a climate emergency. Does the Minister not think that it would be better for motorists, cyclists and the planet if we focused on fixing what we have got?

[Rachel Maclean]

I am delighted that the hon. Lady enjoyed her visit to Derbyshire—long may it continue to be Conservative-controlled. She is wrong to say that we are not investing in local roads. The Government announced £1.7 billion for maintenance and upgrades to tackle potholes, relieve congestion and boost connectivity.

I would like to address this allegation head-on. It is incorrect to say that we are spending £27 billion on road building or that 4,000 miles of new roads are planned. We are actually investing £27 billion in the operation, maintenance and renewal of England’s strategic road network to secure safer and more reliable journeys that have less impact on adjacent communities and places.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Kerry McCarthy

Thursday 11th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

We have ambitious plans to meet our target dates of phasing out the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030. At the moment, a driver is never more than 25 miles away from a rapid charge point anywhere on England’s motorways, and there are 36 rapid charge points available per 100 miles, but we obviously need to go further. We are working through our rapid charging fund and we will make further announcements very shortly on this topic.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]]

We know that the Government’s road-building expansion will lead to an estimated 270,000 additional tonnes of carbon entering the atmosphere by 2032. However, in an answer to a recent question, the Minister told me that she was content that the Government’s road-building expansion programme was compatible with the net zero target. Will she tell me how she reached that view when the Secretary of State overruled his own civil servants on the need to conduct an environmental review of the policy? And does she agree that if the Government are serious about reaching net zero and setting an example before COP26, that review should be carried out now?

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. She will know that we are serious about decarbonising the entire transport sector. We will publish our transport decarbonisation plan in spring this year, as we have committed to do, which will set out how we will decarbonise the entire sector, including roads. I just say to her that, of course, we do need roads, but we want the vehicles driving on them to be electric, and we are investing in electric vehicles—cars, vans, buses and lorries.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Kerry McCarthy

Thursday 28th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

He will pay, of course.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]]

I am afraid that my question for the Minister might be slightly tougher to answer. As she knows, the new three-stop limit will be devastating for UK hauliers working with touring musicians or on events that involve multiple stops in EU countries. This is such an important sector for the UK, and it has already been hit so hard by covid. Can the Minister at least acknowledge today that the Government’s failure to seek an exemption during the negotiations was a massive own goal? Will the Government get back round the negotiating table and sort this out before the summer, when we all hope that the live music scene will be open once again for business?

[Rachel Maclean]

We certainly share the hon. Lady’s desire to see the live music scene open once again in this country. The trade and co-operation agreement that the Government have negotiated with the EU is an excellent deal for our hauliers that allows 95% of haulier movements to continue as they did before. All hauliers who carry out work for a commercial purpose in the EU will be subject to the provisions of the UK-EU trade and co-operation agreement. It is really important to put on the record that during negotiations with the EU, the Government proposed exemptions for specialist hauliers such as the ones she referred to due to the nature of their businesses, but unfortunately the EU did not agree to those asks. However, because we recognise the important impact that this will have, we continue our discussions.

Draft Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations (Amendment) Order 2020

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Kerry McCarthy

Tuesday 8th December 2020 General Committees

[Rachel Maclean]

This has been an incredibly useful discussion. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bristol East and my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby for their contributions. With his considerable expertise, my right hon. Friend identified the importance of the industry and the potential that the Government have to support our home-grown British industry, which is exactly what we want to do.

My right hon. Friend and the hon. Lady asked about E10, and we are working hard to publish our response to the consultation on its introduction as soon as possible. I am aware of the industry’s keen interest in the matter. We anticipate that any requirement to introduce E10 would come into force in 2021. There would need to be a period of at least six months in advance of that introduction so that fuel suppliers and consumers could prepare for the change in grade. The experience of other countries suggests that a comprehensive communications campaign is crucial to any successful roll-out to ensure that motorists are well informed ahead of the change in grade. Should E10 be rolled out in the UK, I reassure those who are interested that we will remain committed to ensuring the retention of an E5 grade for those vehicles or equipment that cannot use petrol with high levels of ethanol.

I am delighted by the hon. Lady’s support for the statutory instrument, for which I thank her. She rightly referred to the transport decarbonisation plan that she and I have discussed on many occasions. It remains at the forefront of the Government’s efforts to decarbonise the entire sector. Regrettably, in the light of the covid pandemic, we have had to deal with very pressing public health issues, but that has not detracted from our intense work on the plan, which we will publish in spring next year.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Following my conversations with people in the sector, I am concerned that some companies, particularly those operating fleet vehicles or bus companies —I know that the right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby has a company in his constituency that is keen to manufacture cleaner buses—have been so financially hit by covid that they have put their plans on hold, because it is not an ideal time for a company to upgrade its vehicles if it has not made a profit in the previous year. Will that affect what is in the decarbonisation plan?

[Rachel Maclean]

I do not want to stray too far from the statutory instrument, but the hon. Lady rightly raises very important questions. I will be happy to discuss that further with her, but I want to reassure her that our commitment remains. We work very closely with the sector, as she does, and we understand those natural concerns. Of course, the Government have supported the entire economy to the tune of at least £330 billion, which has gone to transport operators and many others. We recognise the challenges that operators face, but we nevertheless remain determined to decarbonise the transport sector.

The order makes a small but important amendment to ensure that the RTFO continues to support the renewable fuels industry as intended. We need the industry to drive down emissions in sectors that are harder to decarbonise, such as heavy goods vehicles and aviation, and to deliver the cleaner fuels that will play an even greater role in achieving our aim of a greener and more prosperous economy. I reassure members of the Committee that we have the most ambitious crop cap in Europe for fuel sources, which is 4% and will be decreasing to 2%. We have therefore taken note of the concerns that hon. Members have raised.

It is true that as we transition to zero emissions vehicles, we cannot ignore measures to reduce emissions from the conventional road vehicles in use today, particularly given the contribution of renewable fuels to meeting UK carbon budgets. We will be setting out in our transport decarbonisation plan more detail about the future of low-carbon fuels across transport modes, and that will be published in spring 2021.

The statutory instrument will change the RTFO buy-out price for the start of the next obligation year—1 January 2021. That timing is important so that we can provide certainty for fuel suppliers and minimise administrative costs. I hope that the Committee will join me in supporting the statutory instrument.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Kerry McCarthy

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Rachel Maclean)]

The rail to refuge scheme, as of 15 November 2020, has assisted 626 adults and 210 children in crisis.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank the Minister for her response. She will know that domestic abuse services have, sadly, seen a real surge in demand during the lockdown. Rail to refuge schemes, including the GWR scheme that serves my constituency, have helped more than 800 people to flee domestic abuse through the use of a free rail ticket. Can the Minister commit to funding these schemes in the future, because they are really important to people who need to get away?

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Lady very much for her support for this scheme. She will know that over 63% of victims of domestic abuse accessing the support have stated that they would not have been able to access a journey at all if the scheme had not been in place. I am pleased that this vital scheme is extended until next March, and we keep all these schemes under review all the time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Kerry McCarthy

Thursday 17th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not attempting to travel to Wales via New York because that would definitely encourage congestion. I can assure him that we are investing strongly in public transport. We will continue to support the bus sector. We have provided £218.4 million of funding on a rolling basis from 4 August. We have provided over £700 million-worth of funding for public transport throughout the pandemic.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I am pleased that the Government have listened to Labour and are considering bringing forward the date for the phase-out of the sale of new diesel, petrol and hybrid vehicles, but how is the Minister actually going to get us there? All we have had from the Government lately is gimmicks like green number plates and the suggestion that they will paint electric vehicle parking spaces green. The charging infrastructure is woefully inadequate. Other than painting everything green, what is her actual strategy?

[Rachel Maclean]

This was a Conservative Government pledge in our latest manifesto. We are accelerating the transition to zero-emission vehicles with £2.5 billion of support. We already have one of the most extensive charging networks in Europe, and we are ramping it up all the time.