Environment Bill

Tim Loughton Excerpts

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

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

I speak in favour of amendment 2, which was tabled by the Chair of the EFRA Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), and would put into law the World Health Organisation air quality limits.

I speak as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on air pollution. I introduced my own clean air Bill four years ago, in 2017, at which time the Royal College of Physicians had already reported that 40,000 people in Britain were dying prematurely every year, at a cost of £20 billion. The figure is now thought to be 64,000 people. Air pollution affects people’s brains, hearts and lungs. The mental and physical health of unborn children is affected, as is young children’s concentration. It can also affect people in terms of depression, anxiety and dementia—so the list goes on. In fact, the number of covid deaths is up 8% for each microgram of PM_2.5.

DEFRA claims that overall pollution has come down in the past 10 years, but the reason for that is that we have closed down our coal-fired power stations and exported our manufacturing. In urban environments, the deaths and the pollution are going up, and that is why we need these limits to be imposed universally. It is the poorest and most diverse neighbourhoods that are suffering most from the pollution and hence from the greatest levels of covid deaths. It is no good the Government saying that they will have average concentrations, where they average the amounts of concentration in a rural environment with those in a toxic urban environment. Those limits would not have saved the life of Ella Kissi- Debrah, who tragically died. The coroner’s inquest heard that the cause of death was the levels of air pollution that caused her asthma, which caused her to go into hospital 28 times in just three years before her tragic death. We want World Health Organisation universal limits applied so that thousands of children can be saved and protected.

It is everyone’s right to have clean air, and it is the Government’s duty to deliver that right. We therefore need amendment 2, which is a guiding light around which other targets can coalesce. It requires PM_2.5 to be 10 micrograms per cubic metre by 2030. We need all Government Departments and public bodies to work together to achieve this, as set out in new clause 6. Unfortunately, the Government are just saying that they will have targets in 2022. Those targets will not be legally enforceable and they will be able to be changed. That simply is not good enough. For Ella’s sake, for the sake of thousands of children up and down Britain, and for all of us, we need World Health Organisation standards in legislation, and I hope that that will be agreed today.

Finally, I turn to new clause 11, tabled by the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder). I sponsored a plastics Bill in 2018. The fact is that there will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050. UK supermarkets alone produce 114 billion pieces a year. We need the producers and the polluters to pay a tax on virgin plastic. I would certainly support that, because millions of birds and animals are dying. We are ingesting the microplastics that get into fish and inhaling plastic that is in our clothes and washing machines. In a nutshell, as we approach COP26 we should be showing leadership to the world in stopping our oceans choking, stopping our children choking, protecting our air, protecting our oceans and protecting our environment.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

This is a ground-breaking Bill. There is much of merit in it, although you would not believe it to listen to some of the contributions from the Opposition Benches. There are many good amendments, and I would single out new clauses 14 and 15 from my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) about linking housing targets and planning permissions.

In the limited time available, I want to talk about my amendment 5 on interim targets. Setting targets is easy. Governments like to set headline-grabbing targets, but too often the small print belies the ambition of the target, and the target date is in the dim and distant future. That can instil complacency and lethargy, because there is plenty of time to hit the mark and there is therefore no need to panic. When it comes to climate change, however, there is every need, if not to panic, at least to put our foot on the gas, metaphorically, and to act with urgency and immediacy.

The 2050 net zero target is almost 30 years away, and it should be a “last possible date by which”. It should be subject to a constant audit as to how quickly and by how far we can constantly bring that end date forward. It must also be an end date for a clearly set out progression to reducing harmful emissions and creating a net carbon environmentally benefiting economy. We need things to show a marked improvement from today, and so it should be with the natural environmental improvement targets in this Bill. My amendment is simple. It adds just four words in an additional subsection to clause 4, making it the duty of the Secretary of State to ensure that “interim targets are met.” That amendment would guarantee continuous incremental improvements in the natural environment, helping to keep all things environmental high up the Government’s list of priorities. It would bring the Environment Bill target framework into line with the approach of the Climate Change Act 2008, where there are five-yearly legally binding targets as milestones to the long-term legally binding target of net zero by 2050.

At the moment, the only recourse for the Office for Environmental Protection, if the Government miss an interim target, will be to criticise them in its annual report. That could of course be ignored by Ministers and Governments until the long-term target was missed, when enforcement action would actually kick in. Frankly, the power of policing this has to have more teeth than the ability of the environmental policemen to shout, “Stop, or I’ll shout ‘stop’ again!” Friends of the Earth has said:

“If these targets are not binding upon the Secretary of State it would be a huge missed opportunity to ensure the EIP system drives sustained, tangible environmental improvement—and would undermine the rationale for setting such goals in the first instance.”

[Steve Brine]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Tim Loughton]

I do not think so, but my hon. Friend is very kind. It is only because Madam Deputy Speaker is looking daggers at me.

Five-yearly interim targets also need to be set in the environmental improvement plans. However, the environmental improvement plans are not legally binding—they are simply policy documents—and all the plans need to be reviewed and potentially updated every five years and reported on every year. This is not the same as legal accountability.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

Obviously, we are keen for tree planting to expand everywhere, including Scotland. Scotland already does a lot of tree planting, because the nature of its landscape is somewhat different from ours. We have a raft of measures, and our officials will be speaking to officials in Northern Ireland. It is very important that we keep all that contact and do this as a joint thing. Trees work on the atmosphere: they hold the carbon dioxide, and that goes everywhere, so we need to be doing this jointly.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

It is absolutely right that we vastly ramp up tree planting to help with carbon capture, but may I ask the Minister not to overlook kelp? It absorbs more than six times the amount of carbon as trees. We have vast tracts of seabed available, not least off Sussex. It helps with marine conservation, and it is also a food source. Please could we look at that more closely, and at how we can promote it, as we want to do, in Sussex?

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend raises an incredibly interesting point. It is something I am personally very interested in. As we speak, there is a project under way to plant kelp and to look at how its carbon capture is going. Mudflats are similarly really important, as are salt marshes. There could be a big future for this on our new horizon of dealing with the land and the landscape. All this carbon capture is a new feature in relation to climate change, and I think kelp will definitely be part of it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

May I suggest that one form of marriage support the Church of England might like to get on with is enacting clause 1 of my Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Act 2019, which became law a year ago now and will overhaul marriage registration and allow mothers’ names to go on marriage certificates for the first time since 1832? Can he give us a progress report on whether this is at last going to happen?

Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

Tim Loughton Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Theresa Villiers]

My hon. Friend is correct to say that taking over domestic responsibility for the payments means that the currency fluctuation, which has had such a significant impact in past years, is not likely to affect payment levels in the same way. None the less, we have yet to decide the exact levels of basic payments, although the Chancellor has set out the overall spending envelope with which to fund such payments.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

As we move towards the transition period—more will be appearing in the Agriculture Bill—we obviously welcome the environmental sustainability measures. One thing that is not mentioned here is the fact that many farmers look after places of archaeological interests—scheduled monuments that have access for the public and need to be maintained. Does the Secretary of State envisage that the payment system will recognise that farmers are not just there to enhance agriculture and produce food; they are also stewards of historical and archaeological monuments, for which they need to be compensated?

[Theresa Villiers]

My hon. Friend will be pleased to hear that clause 1 of the Agriculture Bill, which Parliament will have the chance to consider very soon, does recognise the importance of access to the countryside, and to our culture and heritage, by listing that as one of the public goods that we can potentially support through our new farm support scheme. He makes an important point.

I am pleased to say that the Chancellor confirmed on 30 December that overall levels of funding available for direct payments for 2020 will be the same as those for 2019, so the Government will provide £2.852 billion of support, topping up remaining EU funding. That announcement from the Chancellor, combined with this Bill, provides reassurance to the devolved Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that they will be able to issue basic payments to their farmers in 2020. All four Administrations have said that these payments will be made, and that is in addition to the £216.6 million of further funding secured in the summer for farmers in Scotland and Wales.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Theresa Villiers]

The Government are absolutely determined to crack down on any unlawful waste exports and to ensure that waste that is exported is dealt with appropriately. I wish to emphasise that this Government are doing more or less more than any other Government in the world on this, including by making real progress in ensuring that we protect 4 million sq km of the world’s oceans by the end of next year.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

5. What recent steps her Department has taken to improve air quality.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

Our clean air strategy sets out an ambitious programme of action to reduce air pollutant emissions from a wide range of sources. The World Health Organisation has recognised the strategy as an example for the rest of the world to follow. We have also put in place a £3.5 billion plan to tackle roadside nitrogen dioxide concentrations, and our Environment Bill makes a clear commitment to set a legally binding target to reduce fine particulate matter.

[Tim Loughton]

May I echo the tributes being made to your chairmanship, Mr Speaker, although I did not get the memo about sending a bottle to your office as part of it?

I very much welcome the inclusion of air quality provisions in the Environment Bill. May I urge the Minister to look at some of the technological solutions, including one from a company in my constituency which is producing paints and coverings that neutralise nitrogen oxide emissions, not just absorb them? May I also ask her to look at the issue of air quality monitoring, because it turns out that several bits of air quality monitoring equipment in my constituency have not been working for some time? Although we have obligations on local authorities to reduce air pollution, we do not appear to have similar requirements on them to make sure they are monitoring it properly and accurately, and that needs to be looked at.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising these important points. Officials would be pleased to hear about any technologies, because the use of innovation and tech is absolutely the way we are going to solve lots of these problems. So I would be grateful if he would like to feed them in so that I can pass them on. Monitoring is also key, and it is all about science and data, which are very important. Our landmark Environment Bill requires us to set legally binding targets on this fine particulate matter, which is what authorities are mostly monitoring, as well as nitrogen dioxide, and to have separate long-term air quality targets to improve air quality nationwide. So we are moving in the right direction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

As I mentioned earlier, the Anglican communion covers a very large number of nations and a very large number of people whose cultural norms differ from our own, but aid agencies often handle the issue of child marriage very effectively through their health and education programmes. I particularly commend the work of the Mothers Union in this respect. Its members are active in, for instance, southern Sudan with finance and literacy programmes to ensure that families do not rely on dowry payments as a way to sustain themselves. Dioceses in Kenya work with the community to prevent child marriage, and there are similar arrangements in Ghana. The Mothers Union also has initiatives to tackle child marriage in the United States of America, because in 13 states there is no minimum age for marriage.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

May I, too, pay my tribute to my right hon. Friend? She and I entered the House on the same day in 1997, as did you, Mr Speaker. We have shared many worthwhile causes, and she will be greatly missed. One of those causes was, of course, marriage certificates, whether for marriages between 16 and 17-year-olds or for any other marriages. As a result of my Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Act 2019, mothers’ names will at last be added to those certificates.

Will my right hon. Friend update us on the progress that is being made ahead of the digital registration that is to be introduced? Is it the case that in certain churches, the Church of England has given its agreement to the manual writing of hard-copy certificates until the necessary technology is available? That, I am sure, would be a welcome common-sense measure.

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. We did indeed enter Parliament together, and in those early weeks when we did not really have an office, and we were adjusting to the long-hours culture, and we missed our children—I was pining for mine—he was kind enough to make me hot cocoa late at night. I have not forgotten those early times.

Let me update the House. My hon. Friend was the Member of Parliament who landed the prize of securing a change in the law of 1837 that did not allow mothers the same right as fathers in terms of marriage registration, but progress is slow on the accompanying regulation. My hon. Friend may wish to join me in putting some pressure on the future Government to complete that process, because there are practical steps that can be taken in the short term. The Church has offered to allow existing registration books to be used, and where it says “father”, the name of the mother can be added in brackets. If it is to take a while to take marriage registration into the digital age, many mums who are hoping to have that new right can achieve it in the short term by means of a simple practical solution.

Improving Air Quality

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) on setting the scene for us all as he so often does, and it is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury). We have a clear difference of opinion on Heathrow, but that is by the way; I appreciate her comments, and I appreciate the efforts of all the Members who have made valuable contributions so far and those who will do so later.

As a country sports enthusiast, conservation is a core principle that I adhere to, as do all country sports enthusiasts. How to improve our environment and preserve what we have is a key theme. Some 3 million people per year die due to air pollution worldwide and 40,000 people die early deaths as a result of pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide in the UK every year, with the nitrogen dioxide limit values having been unlawfully breached since 2010, as has been said.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s “Tenth Special Report” lists many effects of exposure to air pollution, ranging from cardiovascular diseases to premature birth. It also states that it is children and older people who suffer the most, as exposure to air pollution can result in stunted growth or affect the normal growth of lungs or lead to a child being born prematurely and facing the risk of death during the first year of life as a result of respiratory illness. For older people, there can be accelerated decline in lung function and an increased risk of lung cancer. That means that pollution is becoming more dangerous for the population of the UK as we are an ageing society with about 23% of the population aged 60 and above. If there needs to be a reason for doing something and for this report being followed up by Government today, that is it.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I had hoped to be present earlier to contribute to the debate, but may I, in agreeing with the hon. Gentleman, ask if he will acknowledge that many of us face planning applications for large-scale housing and other developments in our constituencies—in my case, there is an application involving 600 houses and a new branch of Ikea which would lead to 2 million customer journeys a year on the busiest road in Sussex—yet air quality factors seem to feature very low in consideration of such planning applications? Does he agree that, for all the reasons he mentioned, these factors should receive a much higher priority in our assessment of whether applications are sustainable for the local population?

[Jim Shannon]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. There is a major development application in my constituency at Comber town for 800 houses. Infrastructure is an important consideration: how the roads will work and whether they can take the increased number of journeys, and whether the schools and hospitals can take it. They are all critical factors, and air quality should be considered in looking at these big questions.

Given the vulnerability of older people to pollution, it is important to improve air quality so that we can reduce the number of deaths and address the issue. There should be Government support for renewable energy, which would limit the use of fossil fuels so that harmful substances such as nitrous oxide, sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide would not be produced in large amounts and air quality would be improved. That is the very issue that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) referred to his intervention. I was supportive of the SeaGen initiative in Strangford Lough in my constituency, which would provide clean energy. It was a really good project, and the pilots were successful but unfortunately the funding to take it further did not happen.

The formation of a thriving public transport system is a major way of improving air quality. I hail from a rural constituency in Strangford, where there are no trains or tubes. There are only buses, and they are infrequent owing to the low population in the area. That means that there is a lot of work to be done there. For some of my constituents, taking a five-minute phone call at the end of the day could mean that they return home an hour late. The bus service is obviously not as frequent as it is here in London and elsewhere. There must be greater ring-fenced funding for public transport in rural areas. This would allow public transport to run at a loss for a longer period, to enable people to understand that the public transport system could merge with their working day and work-life balance needs. This is about striking a balance in the rural community. Public transport needs to be financially viable but it also needs to provide a service.

I completely concur with the recommendation that the Government give priority funding to infrastructure that would help us to meet air quality objectives. Examples include the cycling and walking investment strategy, the Transforming Cities fund and the initiatives to support the uptake of ultra-low emission vehicles. The Bus Services Act 2017 includes a range of measures to improve bus services through franchising and better partnership working. It is also great news that £48 million has been supplied for the new ultra-low emission bus scheme to enable local authorities and bus operators to purchase ultra-low emission buses and support infrastructure. I give credit to the Committee and its report, and also to the Government for the initiatives that they have set in place. That is not enough, however.

Infrastructure that aids in improving these programmes would help by reducing idling and journeys, with low-emission buses aiding the fulfilment of the programme and allowing for superior air quality throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This would improve the quality of life for those who may be vulnerable, and those who are vulnerable, to pollution, but there needs to be a focus on rural areas. With respect to those who have spoken so far in the debate, the majority have talked about urban areas. I am not saying that they should not do so, because that is where the problems are, but we need to look at the bigger picture and see how these problems affect rural areas as well. Comber town, which I mentioned earlier, is a small rural town, and the impact of 800 houses will be quite large. I am not saying that that should not happen; I am saying that we need to prepare for it. In the large metropolitan areas of the UK, the amount of road pollution is substantial. The initiative to introduce low-emission buses will not resolve that issue, but it will lessen its severity.

I agree with the response that indicates that there will be air quality monitoring in key areas of local communities such as schools, care homes and hospitals. In fact, this is already in place in Northern Ireland, where air quality monitoring is carried out by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, along with district councils. Two monitoring stations, at Lombard Street in Belfast and Brooke Park in Londonderry, are the only stations that measure multiple pollutants, but many other places carry out monitoring, making information widely available for all who need it.

I welcome the £3.5 billion investment that has been provided for the clean air strategy, which aims to cut all forms of air pollution, with recommendations from the World Health Organisation, and introduces primary legislation to grant local government the ability to take decisive action to solve any issues. We cannot ignore what is happening elsewhere in the world. The report focuses on what is happening in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but there are other partners and countries across the world that need to play their part as well. If we are playing our part here, they need to play their part as well.

The biggest causes of pollution in Northern Ireland are road traffic and domestic emissions. These can be curbed, and many attempts are being made to do that. Less reliance on fossil fuels and more on renewable resources will allow Northern Ireland to decrease the amount of pollution emitted as a result of domestic life. If Northern Ireland adopted a clean bus programme, as I believe it should, and tried to convince as many people as possible to take public transport, the pollution resulting from road traffic would be curbed as well, which would improve the overall air quality of the country.

Furthermore, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs here has recommended the establishment of a new environmental protection agency which would be tasked with holding the Government to account once the UK has left the EU. When that is done, will there be direct contact with regional Governments, Assemblies and Parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? It has also been recommended that provisions for the agency should be written into legislation, with powers, standards and enforcement mechanisms equivalent to those of such enforcement agencies in the EU.

Given the standstill in the Northern Ireland Assembly, the environment is also losing out. The introduction of renewable energy schemes would help resolve the issue, as less reliance on and usage of fossil fuels will lessen pollution. The money spent on initiatives such as the beautiful Comber Greenway in my constituency, which allows people to ride their bikes safely from Comber into Belfast off the main roads, helps not only the environment but people’s health. That Sustrans project has been immensely successful. The newly improved, widened and lengthened Comber Greenway can now be enjoyed not only in Strangford but in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson)—seven miles of walking, cycling and running.

Recent improvements have widened Comber Greenway to 4 metres along key parts of the route, helping encourage more people to engage in active and sustainable travel—a key aspect of the draft programme for government framework and a result of the recently published “Outcomes Delivery Plan”.

Comber Greenway is a highly used, traffic-free route for many cyclists, walkers and runners, connecting east Belfast with Comber. The investment of almost £600,000 should encourage many more people to consider active travel. There are hopes to further extend Comber Greenway towards Newtownards to allow more people in that commuter town to choose a healthier and more stress-free way of getting to work, so that they help the environment and themselves.

These schemes are funded by infrastructure budgets as well as communities. They are a wonderful way of improving air quality and health. I look forward to the Minister’s response. It is important that we do something to improve air quality not only in towns, but in rural communities.

Fur Trade

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner]

I find myself in much agreement today—

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is very generous. I, too, was around as a Member of Parliament when the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Act 2000 was passed. Eighteen years later, it is inconceivable that other European countries, in particular, did not follow suit. Does the hon. Gentleman agree, on the day when we debate the Ivory Bill, by which we will end that abhorrent trade, we can find ways to end the abhorrent trade in fur in this country, and to make exemptions where they are needed for historically and culturally valuable objects? Clearly, that can happen, and frankly it must, sooner rather than later.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Once again, I am in agreement. I am still trying to go back 20 years in my speech. I shall advance slowly.

Transport Emissions: Urban Areas

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for trying to present the issue in the way she did. The truth is that I cannot think of anyone in this House, apart from possibly my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings, who is cleaner—keener, rather—on investment. [Laughter.] He is very clean. Cleanliness is next to godliness. I do not think there is anyone in this House who is keener on moving towards ultra low emission vehicles than the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As Transport Secretary and in his current role, he has led efforts across the Government to make sure we are moving in the right direction. I do not think it is at all fair to criticise him or the Treasury in that regard.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I declare an interest as the owner of two very efficient renewable fuel-burning wood stoves. On traffic emissions, it was recently discovered that the monitoring equipment in Shoreham high street had been broken for several years, which might explain the fact that Shoreham’s air quality is always deemed to be good. Volunteers have now had to carry out those tests. If we are to be serious about the quality of the air, may we put a duty on local authorities to properly maintain accurate and reliable equipment?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I will investigate what we can do.

Livestock Worrying: Sussex

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I do agree. I shall be dealing with some questions and points that the National Farmers Union and my local farmers have raised with me, which I know have also been raised with a number of other Members.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. He is being very generous, and, as a Member who represents a largely urban constituency, he is also very brave. None of us has suggested that it is the residents of Brighton who are worrying the livestock in the Sussex area.

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman supports the Take the Lead campaign, in which many of us became involved recently. Given that some 600 animals have been killed by dogs in Sussex in the last four years or so, the default position must be that dog owners put their dogs on leads when they are around livestock. They need to be educated about that, but if they do not comply, measures must be taken.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Again, I entirely agree. We need to educate, and we need to be able to enforce the requirement for dogs to be on leashes when livestock are in fields. When people do not abide by that requirement, there needs to be punishment to deter others from doing the same.

Overall, farming contributes more than £140 million to Sussex’s economy and employs 8,500 people permanently, as well as thousands of seasonal workers. Of course we want to preserve Sussex’s natural beauty, but its proximity to the tourism hubs in London and Brighton provides easy access for dog walkers as well as others who are enjoying our countryside. Farmers look after more than 62% of the Sussex countryside, and manage public footpaths that go through their land. It is vital for us to introduce measures to ensure that both livestock and dogs are safe. The end result of an attack can be the shooting of a dog if it is found in mid-attack, and we want to protect dogs in those circumstances. Owners have a responsibility to ensure that their dogs are kept safe, which is why this debate should cover dog-owners as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

6. What recent discussions the Church of England has had with the Government on enabling mothers to be registered on an equal basis with fathers on marriage certificates.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Dame Caroline Spelman)]

I have had many recent discussions with Departments, particularly the Home Office, not least because of my Registration of Marriage (No. 2) Bill, which is in train. There is an identical Bill before the House of Lords that would achieve the same purpose of allowing mothers to sign marriage certificates. I am not precious about which Bill gets to the finishing line first—we just need to do it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

Yes, I reassure my hon. Friend that the registers will remain in the vestry for that all-important photo. Under the proposed new system, on which the Church has consulted, vicars will download a marriage certificate, which will be signed by the couple, as is currently the case, and the vicar will complete the form by filling in the parents’ names, which explicitly gives the possibility of mothers being on the certificate in the future.

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s comprehensive answer, which leaves me little more to add, other than to ask whether she and the Church of England will support my Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill, which is due for Second Reading on 2 February 2018 and includes those exact requirements. Will the Church of England also agree to back equal civil partnerships, through their extension to opposite-sex partnerships, as set out by the Bill?

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

The Church has no fixed view on equal civil partnerships but, in general, if they are for stable, committed and long-lasting relationships, they are likely to be beneficial, especially when children are involved. Personally I support that, and for that reason I have rolled my Bill beyond the date for the consideration of my hon. Friend’s Bill to give him an opportunity to make progress.

Domestic Ivory Market

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell]

If my hon. Friend will hold on for now, I will move on with my speech. I will pick up those issues. The problem is, as we argue and debate in here, the gangsters out there are laughing at us, as they are still making their millions on the back of dead elephants. To be seen to take leadership on this issue and to control the agenda, it is so important that we now move forward and see that total ban. We know that the Government promised that in their manifesto, and I have made it clear that Labour would also bring in a total ivory ban, so let us move forward on this today.

The clock continues to tick. We keep debating this issue, and I dare say that if movement is not made in the Minister’s contribution today, we will be back here again and again, and at question times, continually saying, “Let’s move forward, because there is a majority view of how we take this forward.” We cannot go back to the CITES conference or to Hanoi in 2016, or look back to what China has said. We are in 2017 and we have now got our opportunity to make our mark. I therefore urge the Minister to do that, because in 2018 I do not want the UK to be on the world stage as apologists. I want to ensure that we are proud of what we have achieved to save the elephant.

I want to pick up the point that this is not just about a total ban; there has to be a wider strategy built around that. That is right, and that goes to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris). We have to make sure that we move forward. We have heard about the work that the Ministry of Defence is doing: the 1st Division is out there, training up people in the parks to ensure they have better security. That is part of the strategy and, as we have heard, education from the NGOs is absolutely vital, so that this generation and the next understand what is at stake.

We also need to think about what is happening with antiques, as we have heard debated today. I want to pick up the point strongly argued by the hon. Members for South Antrim (Danny Kinahan) and for Kensington (Victoria Borwick). I will take issue once again with calling them beautiful works of art. I am sorry, they are not. The reality is that animals have died for their production. We need to be honest about what we are dealing with. The problem is, every time these objects are glorified, value is added on to them and on to ivory. We want to see the value taken out of ivory. We do not want these items displayed as glorious parts of our heritage. It is a shameful part of our history, and we should name it as that and realise what we did in leading the world in those trades. We need to move on in the way in which we look at these pieces and name them for what they are.

Why have them on display? The Minister made an important point in the previous debate when she said that perhaps we could take them off the shelves of our museums. Perhaps that is the right way forward. I thought that was a progressive point, because that is a way of taking the value out of these items. That would be a first step in saying that they do not hold the value we have placed on them, and that would be a step forward.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I apologise for not being able to attend the debate from the beginning, Mrs Main. I entirely endorse all that the hon. Lady says about the need to clamp down on the criminals who are now killing a precious species, but what she is saying is fundamentally wrong. The value in the ivory products that came from the tomb of Tutankhamun or the royal graves at Ur, or exquisite pieces of Louis XVI furniture, is not in the ivory but in the workmanship and historic context in which they were produced. Given what she says, why, by the same token, does she not call for a ban in the trade in jewels produced from blood diamond activity—the result of the deaths of thousands of human beings, and not just elephants? How is it that we would save a single elephant by not having the 1947 cut-off?

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. Can hon. Members keep interventions brief? We are nearing the end of the debate.