Oral Answers to Questions
Stephen Pound Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Dr Coffey
It is suggested that about 80% of the plastic litter that goes into oceans around our country—it goes out of our rivers and into the sea—comes from land-based litter, so it is something on which we are focused with our litter strategy, and we will keep working on that. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, the Prime Minister has announced that there will be an environment Bill in the next Session.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (David Rutley)
After our departure from the EU, our priority will be to maintain the UK’s high standards of food safety. We are considering options for the future of risk assessment and scientific advice in the UK as part of the exit negotiations. We are seeking to retain the long tradition of close scientific collaboration with the EFSA. The Secretary of State meets Cabinet colleagues weekly at Cabinet, and through relevant Sub-Committees, where discussions take place on the future relationship that the UK will have with the EU and associated bodies.
Stephen Pound
I appreciate that the Minister has already addressed a similar question from the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), but this contribution should not be seen in any way as evidence of collusion between me and the Scottish National party. As we move from—to use Fintan O’Toole’s phrase—the “epic dream” of Brexit to the nightmare reality, we find ourselves having to deal with more and more aspects of minutiae. I implore the Minister not to forget the dairy farmers of Northern Ireland and, particularly in this area, to concentrate on discussions with Cabinet colleagues so that we do not let down those dairy farmers, who face a terrible future as a result of that disastrous decision of June 2016.
David Rutley
I had never really thought of the hon. Gentleman as colluding. He is incredibly independently minded—we respect him for that—and forthright in his views.
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We will do all that we can to support dairy farmers across the UK, not least in Cheshire, where I also have many dairy farmers. Of course, we will be working across the board not only to ensure that the best possible standards of food safety are maintained, but to support agriculture as we move to a world outside the EU.
Plastic Bottles and Coffee Cups
Stephen Pound Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
My hon. Friend has taken us a slight distance away from the subject at hand, but I must say that I am always willing to listen to any discussion about disposable Japanese chopsticks. On water fountains, when she looks around the Chamber, is she not as horrified as I am to see these carafes and glasses of water? Would it not be an excellent idea to have a water fountain adjacent to the Speaker’s Chair, and perhaps one opposite each of the Front Benches, with disposable, biodegradable cups? Let us start as we mean to go on and let this place be an example to the nation.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
I think we will carry on using glasses, which are absolutely environmentally friendly.
Alex Sobel
We certainly do not want to see boatloads of dirty waste, so I completely agree with my hon. Friend. We also need a complete audit of our PERN system and should look at reform. If we are to export plastic, which I do not actually agree with, we need to know that it will be recycled when it arrives at its destination.
Although the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) is not in his place, I want to thank him. I have a copy of his letter, which I read carefully this morning. The recommendations of the Administration Committee are not only recommendations for this House; they are recommendations that the Government should consider and which present a holistic approach to tackling the use of plastic. The letter mentions ending sales of plastic water bottles. It also includes the latte levy, which we will not have outside this place, but we will have here. The Committee proposes that we incentivise the use of reusable cups through loyalty rewards and that we get rid of condiment sachets. I was amazed to read how much sauce we eat in this place. We consume 334,800 sachets of sauce a year; we are a saucy lot in this House. I thank the Administration Committee and hope that the Government take on some of its saucy suggestions.
Alex Sobel
Absolutely.
I feel a lot of personal responsibility in this area. I recently visited I Am Döner, my local kebab shop in Headingley, where I ordered my normal falafel wrap. Its staff told me that they have gone completely plastic-free. They provide water in cans and all their packaging is non-plastic. That shop is an exemplar to us all. I thank Paul at I Am Döner for introducing those measures. He has inspired me to have a week in which I do not buy any single-use plastic, so I will be bombarding hon. Members from my social media accounts regarding my difficulties in avoiding any single-use plastics. I hope that the Administration Committee can hurry up with implementing its proposals so that I can eat here without having to use any single-use plastic. We all need to make a personal commitment, as well as pressing for change from the Government.
Flood Risk (North-East England)
Stephen Pound Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Tom Blenkinsop
I would have to differ from my hon. Friend about that.
Saltburn was badly affected by the combination of high tides and swollen rivers. Saltburn Gill expanded, almost filling the entire valley floor, covering car parks, ruining much of the town’s Valley gardens and harming tourist attractions and businesses. Thankfully, the council has now repaired the damage along the sea front and, with the exception of the amusement arcade on the pier, the majority of businesses are trading again in time for the busy summer season.
Elsewhere in East Cleveland, the former mining village of North Skelton was hit, with water cascading down from higher farmland to the south and finding its new course by inundating homes in the terraced streets and the nearby A174 main road. The tragedy there was that many of the families affected were private renters, and relied for building insurance on their landlords’ ability to repair the structural damage. For them, it was not easy to get redress, which has led to casework that I am still pursuing.
Thankfully, for flood prevention in North Skelton the local council and principal landowner are working together on schemes that will involve breaking up the current prairie-like fields with new tree and hedge planting—an effective way of reducing and controlling flash floods and run-off. Such work takes time, however, and over the coming year I feel that affected North Skelton residents will still worry in periods of long and heavy downpours. One consolation would be to put in place effective measures to ensure that private landlords have sound and reliable building insurance—something that would benefit everyone in the long term. Such things cannot be left to the discretion of the market because we are talking about people’s homes where they raise their families.
Redcar and Cleveland council has spent more than £24,000 on council tax relief for people affected by the September 2013 floods, in addition to money spent via social fund grants and loans. After the Prime Minister’s “money is no object” claim I wrote to the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), regarding the Government’s highly publicised council tax relief for flood victims, only to be told that my constituents would not qualify as it covered only
“severe weather in December, January and February 2014.”
That seems wholly unfair to me, to local councillors of all parties, and to local residents. The Government are refusing to support local residents by providing centrally funded council tax relief for the sole reason that—in their eyes—those people were flooded three months too early. Such cases prove that the north-east is still at risk from flooding.
Although flooding is a threat in much of England, research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in a 2011 paper, “Climate change, justice and vulnerability”, demonstrates that there is a clear north-south divide in terms of socio-spatial flood disadvantage, and that the north-west, north-east, and Yorkshire and the Humber have neighbourhood social flood vulnerabilities that on average are above the English mean. That risk has not been met by Government investment in the north-east. As of January 2014, Government funding for flood defences was forecast to be lower in both nominal and real terms during the current spending period than during the previous spending period, and the Committee on Climate Change has calculated that that represents a real terms cut of around 20%. Although the Government have brought forward money that was already set aside to improve sea defences in Skinningrove, there has been little investment in other more rural areas of the north-east.
Since climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events in the UK, we must have a joined-up, nationwide strategy on flood prevention. The effects of flooding last long after the water has subsided, and as many of my constituents know, the effects can last almost indefinitely causing lasting financial and emotional damage. The Government must act to protect all households from the damaging effects of flooding, not just in urban areas or where there is a high media presence. I urge them to extend the support and emphasis that they gave to areas hit by flooding last winter to places such as East Cleveland that were hit earlier in the year.
Finally, I thank the hard-working and dedicated emergency services, in particular the firefighters of Cleveland fire brigade who responded to around 300 calls in three hours when flooding occurred last September. That included a call from me, as the flat where my wife and I live was flooded. Without the assistance of Cleveland fire brigade we would have been in a fairly sticky situation, given that at midnight that evening I was in my shorts trying to bale out my neighbours in their living room.
Wild Animals (Circuses)
Stephen Pound Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Paice
I am coming to that exact point.
If the House were to approve the motion, the Government would have to respect that, but as a Minister I am duty bound to lay before it the possible consequences—I stress the word “possible”—of that decision not only for the Government, but for the House, taxpayers and possibly the animals that we are concerned about.
Mr Paice
No I will not; the hon. Gentleman was not here for much of the debate.
The legal advice we have received on section 12 of the 2006 Act is that although it could be used as the basis for a total ban, it is highly likely that we would be challenged on the basis that an outright ban was a disproportionate measure for improving welfare in circuses. That is exactly the same advice as the previous Government received in the Radford report, which they commissioned after the discussions in 2006. The report makes it absolutely clear that there was insufficient evidence to ensure that the animals’ welfare could be improved only by a ban and not by other means. That was the Radford report’s advice, and it remains the legal advice.
Sustainable Livestock Bill
Stephen Pound Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Chope
My hon. Friend, as so often, puts his finger on a really good point, and it highlights the Bill’s inherent contradictions. On the one hand, the Minister will be asked to have regard to food security through compliance with clause 1; on the other, one of the main measures that the promoter intends to introduce would undermine and damage food security. I do not think that that is intentional on the part of the promoter, but when one looks at the Bill in detail one finds that it, like many good intentions that are brought before the House and converted into draft legislation, will achieve quite the reverse of what its promoter thought.
Replacing all that soya with those alternative crops is the wrong thing to do. Lupins, sunflowers and, arguably, linseed can look quite attractive in the countryside at particular times of year, but I am not sure whether many people would say that field upon field and hectare upon hectare of such crops, which are not native to the United Kingdom, would enhance our landscape.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
On Fridays the tradition is that, when a speaker lacks the confidence to test their argument in the Lobby, they start reading out lists of the Latin names of hermaphrodite invertebrates, or gleanings from the libertarian internet. Does the hon. Gentleman have sufficient confidence in the force of his argument to see it tested, now, in the Lobby?
Mr Chope
The hon. Gentleman is usurping the position that should be occupied by his hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South. I hope that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South will have a chance to respond to the debate and to explain to Members who are interested in the subject whether the Minister’s offer is a good one, and whether, on the basis of it, he wishes to seek leave to withdraw the Bill.
I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman if he wishes to tell me that he wants to withdraw the Bill, because we can then move on to the next business, but I cannot force him to intervene. I am giving him the opportunity to do so, but he is declining. The hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) knows very well the procedures of the House and exactly what the Bill’s promoter and sponsors can and, perhaps, will do between now and half-past 2 if they do not want to accept the Minister’s offer.
Considering that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North spoke for an hour and a quarter, I am just getting into the beginnings of my contribution. I thought that it would be helpful not to make a speech de novo, but to make a speech that built on what my hon. Friend the Minister said. We are meant to be having a debate rather than a dialogue of the deaf, and it is a pity that at the moment there is no indication that any more Opposition Members want to engage in it.
My hon. Friend the Minister went on to say that he was keen to ensure that the Government introduce mandatory standards for the public procurement of food, but I am not sure that I am. I can understand the desire in relation to Departments, but not in relation to going further and trying to impose such a demand on the whole public sector.
Dangerous Dogs
Stephen Pound Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray) on securing this Adjournment debate about a subject that is of increasing importance not just to those of us in the suburbs, but to people throughout the country.
Last Sunday afternoon I was delighted to be present at the Framfield allotment association, and I met a brindle Staff that had been rescued from a dog-fighting ring. That dog had been saved, and it revealed a gentle sweetness of character, but, had it remained with those who tortured it to torture other people, it would have become the slathering beast that they wished it to be. Dogs can be rescued, but importantly, we are faced with a problem that revolves around three areas.
First, dogs are used in the commission of crime. They can be used to force someone to hand over their possessions. People are threatened with the dog, which is a weapon in that criminal activity, and they are also used in many cases to guard drug dealers or drug stashes.
Secondly, there is dog fighting, but the Metropolitan police force has been very proactive, and the hon. Lady tangentially referred to Inspector Jenkins of Ealing police station, who has been closely involved in dealing with that.
Thirdly, there are the dogs that are simply brought up in chaos. One can walk into a small flat on the sixth or seventh floor of a tower block and see eight or nine dogs running wild, and that is cruel to the dogs, vicious for the children who live in the flat and destructive to the community.
The problem is evident; the solution is one that we have to address. I have always admired the Minister, but I have some sympathy for him in this case. We are asking DEFRA to be the lead Ministry, but the subject moves into the Home Office’s jurisdiction and a number of others. It is a truism that we in this House enter into legislation involving dogs with considerable trepidation, because our track record is not brilliant, but we are at the stage where we need a lead Minister, a lead agency and a lead Ministry to pull together those various strands. We need a solution to the problem of the ordinary family enjoying an al fresco afternoon and meal while quietly picnicking in, say, Pitshanger park, a piece of land that abuts both our constituencies, when suddenly a dog comes bursting through to the delight of the people who are supposed to be responsible for it. That is threatening, bullying, vicious and dangerous, and it destroys young children’s trust in open spaces and the open air.
We need to have a solution to the problem at the time. The hon. Lady is absolutely right; we have the police, the safer neighbourhoods teams, the dog wardens, the RSPCA and so many other agencies. We need to draw up an established protocol, hopefully Government led, which can pull together those agencies and link up with the other issues. I mentioned the Home Office, but the Department for Communities and Local Government is also relevant. Most council property and registered social landlord tenancies contain the clause that the tenancy will be nullified if its terms and conditions are not kept to. Although not all of them specifically exclude dogs other than companion animals and guide dogs, all—almost without exception—will have a clause saying that the tenant or their agents are enjoined not to cause annoyance or nuisance to neighbours. The dogs that we are discussing are demonstrably that.
We have laid the problem before the Minister, and we look to him with confidence to provide the solution. The extent and scale of the problem is exemplified by this meeting across the Chamber; just as the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton and I meet in Pitshanger park, we meet across the Chamber today. The problem being debated is increasingly serious and, sadly, we are at the stage where a child could be seriously hurt. A whole community is being threatened. We look with confidence to the Minister for a solution.