Alberto Costa MP: speeches

Speeches

• 17 Jun 2026 · Steel Tariffs · Hansard source

  More

  We have talked about large and small businesses being affected, but my constituent Joe, who is a sales director in an SME likely to be affected, is deeply concerned about his livelihood. I have a very simple question for the Minister: if he is taking on board industry feedback, will he publish detailed information on safeguard quota allocations and anticipated utilisation rates before those measures come into place on 1 July?

• 16 Dec 2025 · Quarries: Planning Policy · Hansard source

  More

  I absolutely agree, and I sympathise entirely with the hon. Lady. I would go further. I made the point earlier about finding suitable experts who are able to apply their technical expertise to help campaign groups or MPs to rebut planning applications on a technical basis. They are simply not there, for fear of a conflict of interest given their commercial interests with large-scale developers. The hon. Lady makes an important point and has put it on the record. The UK has committed, through regulation 4 of the Environmental Targets (Fine Particulate Matter) (England) Regulations 2023, to achieving an annual mean concentration of 10 micrograms of PM 2.5 per cubic metre by 2040, with an interim target for 2028. That is a legally binding obligation, and rightly so, but we will not meet it if the standards we use to assess air quality for quarries are not up to date with the latest scientific evidence. If we keep relying on outdated guidance, we will keep underestimating the risks to public health, particularly for children, older people and those with respiratory conditions who live near quarry sites. Furthermore, when key guidance is issued by professional bodies rather than statutory authorities, it is far harder for us as lawmakers, and for the public, to scrutinise and challenge their work. That can lead to accountability issues. At the same time, the reliance on organisations such as the IAQM places a significant burden on them, and they may lack the resources or mandate to keep up with changing scientific and legal requirements. Accordingly, I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm, either today or by follow-up letter, whether she believes it is right for professional bodies like the IAQM to set air-quality guidance for quarries, as opposed to the relevant statutory public bodies, given the possibility of a conflict of interest between public health goals and financial gain. Does the Minister agree that we need to ensure that the guidance that underpins air-quality assessments is independently reviewed, regularly updated and aligned with statutory obligations on air quality and public health? In addition, the regulatory framework for quarry safety could be strengthened. The Quarries Regulations 1999 focused primarily on workplace safety, but do not require the same structured pre-emptive risk management that is now standard in other high-risk sectors. Would it not make sense for quarry operations to be brought under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, for which the Minister has ministerial responsibility? She knows that the CDM regulations are not just best practice but required under the 2015 statutory instrument, which requires comprehensive risk assessments, formal hazard identification and clearly defined duties of care for all parties involved. Those measures are now standard practice across the construction industry. Quarries present many of the same hazards as large construction sites, including airborne dust, heavy plant machinery, vehicle movements and complex site operations, but under the current framework there is no consistent requirement for structured design or risk assessments, no formalised application of the “as low as reasonably practicable” principle, and no robust mechanism for protecting the public from involuntary risk. Incorporating operations into the CDM framework could deliver more rigorous and consistent risk assessments, clearly documented mitigation strategies, legal accountability for duty holders and, crucially, better protection both for workers and for the surrounding public. Does the Minister agree that environmental protection, worker safety and public health will benefit if we treat quarrying operations as the major industrial undertakings that they are? Finally, I hope the Minister will agree that targeted reforms, the clarifying of interim assessment standards and the modernising of safety regulations will deliver better outcomes for the industry, for workers and, most importantly, for all our constituents, wherever they may be.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Quarries: Planning Policy · Hansard source

  More

  As the hon. Lady will hear in the remaining parts of my speech, I entirely concur with her comments. Given that the proposed quarry site is not allocated in Leicestershire county council’s minerals plan, which runs until 2031, we can understand why a group such as the concerned residents present today would try to seek the advice of a professional minerals planner to review the proposals, consider the data and write a report that the residents group could use as the basis for their representations to Leicestershire county council, as the appropriate local planning authority, on Tarmac’s proposal. What surprised me, as their Member of Parliament, was that it was nearly impossible to help them find someone in the industry willing to produce a report that the residents association could use. Why? Because virtually every qualified planner we approached—and there were a great deal—cited potential conflicts of interest with Tarmac. In fact, Tarmac is such a big beast of industry that it took nearly a year to find a planner willing to produce and put their name to an impartial report reviewing Tarmac’s Misterton quarry application. I am concerned that ordinary groups of residents who want to hire a specialist barely stand a chance because of Tarmac’s influence on the industry. Does the Minister share my concern that local communities often struggle to access independent, impartial technical advice, particularly where the applicant is a large and influential company in the industry? If the Minister is unable to answer any of the questions I put to her today, I would be grateful if she would answer in writing, not least because the residents association would be most grateful. On air quality, I have a specific concern about the regulation 25 notice issued by Leicestershire county council to Tarmac. Forgive me, Dr Murrison, for the highly technical nature of some of my speech. That relies on the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs 2021 background model, which produces artificially low PM 2.5 figures that no longer reflect the current conditions on the ground. We now have local post-pandemic monitoring data from Harborough district council, showing that background PM 2.5 levels in rural areas close to Misterton are already at or above the Government’s future legal target. Even Tarmac’s own consultants—Vibrock—reported significantly higher background levels than those quoted by the county council. Does the Minister agree that, to ensure evidence-led decision making, it is imperative that baseline data should be up to date and, if more recent local data exists, it should be used? Does she consider that, where a proposed major industrial development has the potential to increase community exposure to PM 2.5 , a mandatory period of local monitoring should be undertaken to establish a reliable baseline before permission is considered? The main guidance that developers and local authorities rely on comes from the Institute of Air Quality Management. Although the IAQM is a respected professional body that works closely with regulators, it is important to recognise that it is a membership organisation and, therefore, potentially vulnerable. For example, its members may also have commercial interests in consultancy firms that deliver air quality services to clients seeking planning consent, such as Tarmac. The most relevant document used as guidance for developers and local authorities is the IAQM’s 2016 “Guidance on the assessment of mineral dust impacts for planning”. It is fundamentally used as the de facto industry standard by all who work in the industry, including developers, consultants and local authorities, but that guidance is now nearly a decade old. The document sets the industry standard for how dust, particulates and emissions must be modelled or evaluated when a quarry is proposed. Last year, I wrote to the IAQM, raising concerns shared by my constituents, such as whether the IAQM guidance adequately distinguishes between nuisance dust and finer, more harmful PM 10 and PM 2.5 particles; whether the 250-metre screening criterion remains appropriate for fine particulates, given the emerging evidence showing that those dangerous particles can travel considerably further; and how well it aligns with forthcoming legal PM 2.5 targets, with which the Minister will no doubt be familiar. The IAQM has since contacted me and put a note on its website to say that the guidance on assessment of mineral dust for planning is now under review. That note says: “The 2016 IAQM Guidance on the Assessment of Mineral Dust Impacts for Planning is now nine years old and as such there are some elements of the document that are dated”. I repeat: “there are some elements of the document that are dated”— this is the document being used— “and the focus of assessment is changing. A full review is being carried out by an IAQM Working Group established specifically with regards to this guidance.” Is the Minister’s Department liaising with the IAQM to ascertain when the review will be completed and a report published? With the guidance now formally under review, developers and planning authorities need clarity on the interim approach, such as the one faced by the residents in my constituency. The Government’s own interim planning guidance on PM 2.5 , published by DEFRA in October 2024, already encourages local authorities to take the 2028 interim and 2040 targets—10 micrograms per cubic metre annual mean—into account in planning decisions. Dr Murrison, I promised you that this speech would be full of technical details, and I hope that I am not letting you down. Given the legally binding obligations under the Environment Act 2021 and Environmental Targets (Fine Particulate Matter) (England) Regulations (2023), can the Minister confirm, either today or by follow-up letter, how planning authorities should apply the most up-to-date scientific evidence and statutory air quality objectives when assessing quarry applications, especially given that the relevant IAQM guidance is under review, as I have just outlined? The IAQM guidance to which I am referring is used by developers and planning authorities to assess air quality impacts, particularly in relation to fine particulate matter such as PM 10 and PM 2.5 . I welcome the fact that it is under review, but I wonder: had the residents group not informed my team, and had my team and I not written to the IAQM to raise the concerns of South Leicestershire residents, would the review be under way now? The 2016 primary guidance documents from the IAQM, which are now under review, are used by the industry, and I understand that overall it is very good guidance, but in key areas it is behind current scientific understanding of the risks of respirable dust particle behaviour and the Government’s own commitments under the 2021 Act and the clean air strategy 2019. The guidance is also far too subjective, offering scope for varied interpretations and approaches. We now know that PM 2.5 particles—those fine particulates that penetrate deep into the lungs—can travel much farther than previously assumed. The use of a 250-metre screening threshold, still applied in the current guidance, significantly underestimates risks, because it treats those dangerous particles as behaving in the same way as nuisance dust. Evidence from recent legal cases, including the Corby litigation, which was depicted in the Netflix hit series “Toxic Town”—I encourage listeners and viewers to watch that—has shown that those particulates can travel well beyond 250 metres, exposing far more people to harm than our assessments currently acknowledge.

• 29 Oct 2025 · Privileges · Hansard source

  More

  I support the motion proposed by the Leader of the House and thank him for his kind words about me and other Members involved in this matter. The motion is, of course, about the report drafted by the Committee of Privileges. The task the House gave the Committee was, in essence, a simple one: to consider whether to release a document to the Omagh bombing inquiry. Throughout our work, the Committee has had in mind that the Omagh bombing was one of the greatest atrocities committed in Northern Ireland during the period known as the troubles and afterwards. In Omagh, on 15 August 1998—a summer Saturday in the centre of a busy town where people were going about their everyday business—a 500 lb car bomb exploded, taking the lives of 29 people and two unborn children and injuring hundreds more people, with repercussions for thousands of relatives, friends and people across Northern Ireland. In short, we felt from the beginning that there was an overwhelming public interest in our helping the Omagh bombing inquiry in any way we could. The inquiry is charged with considering an allegation made by a former senior police officer that police investigators did not have access to intelligence materials that might reasonably have enabled them to disrupt the activities of dissident republican terrorists before the Omagh bombing. That allegation was made to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on 11 November 2009. I thank the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), who chairs that Committee today, and commend the words she has said previously about this matter and the work she has done. I also put on the record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), who moved the original motion on behalf of the hon. Member for Gower, as the former Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. Part of the evidence taken by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee was not reported to the House, and so has never been published. We were asked to make a recommendation on the desirability of releasing that evidence to the inquiry. There were procedural and, perhaps, constitutional difficulties in that. The terms of reference drawn up by the then Government enabled the inquiry to consider the allegation made by the now retired police officer. The unreported transcript of his evidence was not, however, the property of that or any Government; it belongs to the House of Commons. As it is unreported, it has not been seen by current Members of the House, other than those who sit on the Committee of Privileges; nor will this motion make it available to the House of Commons. In short, in proposing that we provide the transcript to the inquiry, we are giving control of the transcript to that inquiry. This, so far as we are aware, is an unprecedented procedural step. However, I praise the inquiry for its careful, helpful and co-operative approach to the matters of parliamentary privilege raised by this step. I also thank the inquiry for the assurances it has given my Committee about how it will handle the material, and in particular what steps it will take to ensure that any national security concerns have been fully discussed with the security services before it shares the document or relies on it for its own conclusions. Those assurances may be found in the appendix to our report. Thus, given the assurances received from the inquiry and in the light of the overwhelming public interest in providing aid to an inquiry into the murder of so many people, I trust that the House will feel confident that my Committee has recommended an appropriate course of action. We have added to our report a recommendation that the Government remind Ministers and officials, when drawing up terms of reference for future similar inquiries or for public bodies, that more care might be taken when it comes to intruding on matters that fall within the exclusive cognisance of Parliament. That is not in any way intended to be a partisan point; the terms of reference for this inquiry were drawn up by the previous Government. We would wish all Governments to take more care in future to recognise the rights of the House of Commons. I hope that the Minister can provide some reassurance on that point. I also place on record my thanks not only to fellow members of the Privileges Committee—I see one or two in their place this evening—but to the Clerks of the Committee and the advisers who helped us to navigate what is a challenging constitutional point. To conclude, the Committee believes that the House should do all it can to help the Omagh bombing inquiry in its work. We wish the inquiry well as it continues to seek the truth behind the terrible events of 15 August 1998. We should always remember that truly dreadful human tragedies lie behind what we are doing this evening. I commend the motion to the House.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

  More

  Following on from that question, Reform-led Leicestershire county council and Harborough district council have made a series of highly controversial decisions impacting on the people of Lutterworth and the surrounding villages. Does the Leader of the House agree that Freedom of Information Act requests that are made by constituents to public bodies should be answered, and will she help organise a meeting between me and the relevant Minister to discuss the lack of answers from those public bodies?

• 16 Jul 2025 · Standards · Hansard source

  More

  I, too, thank the Leader of the House for so quickly coming forward with a proposal to enact the sole recommendation of my Committee’s third report of this Session. The Committee agreed its report on 12 June, and here we are, barely a month later, seeking to put its recommendation into practice. The change we propose is straightforward and quite confined, but none the less it is a real pleasure to see our proposal make such quick progress. As today’s motion makes clear, the Register of Interests of Members’ Staff—those whom we as MPs employ to help us in our work—has been in its present form since 1993. At that time, it was considered that Members’ staff had privileged access to the parliamentary estate and its facilities because they held a pass allowing them physical access. It was therefore those staff, and those staff only, who were required to register any relevant interest. Times have changed, as times are wont to do. The arrival in the intervening 32 years of such minor innovations as the internet and mobile telephony have enabled remote access to the estate in a way that was not envisaged when the register was first created. There has also been a substantial growth in the practice of working from home, and it is now entirely possible—in a way it was not then—for our constituency-based staff to have access to parliamentary information and facilities without ever setting foot within the precincts of the Palace of Westminster. In a sense, we are acting quickly to catch up slowly on the way that work and working practices have altered. At the time of our report a month ago, around 2,000 passes had been issued to our staff, but around 4,200 members of staff had parliamentary network access. The change the Committee proposes simply means that all those who have such access will be required to register any interest arising from the list set out in the motion. It will be a small, but important, reinforcement of the transparency that the House properly seeks in how the parliamentary community does its vital work. The change, as the Leader of the House suggested, will not happen instantly if the House agrees to the motion. The Committee has sought to include a transitional provision in the motion to enable the Standards Committee to press “Go” once the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests has satisfied us that the IT solutions required, of which we have seen examples, are robust and ready to go. I thank the shadow Leader of the House for his comments and the concerns that he noted in respect of the motion. The Committee is aware of the concern, raised via Unite the union and by some staff, that a new requirement to register interests will place their names on a public register, and the Committee and I have offered to meet staff representatives during the transition period to hear those concerns and also, if necessary, to consider whether ameliorations may be required, and I will report to the Leader of the House if that proves to be the case. I am grateful to Unite for raising those concerns with the Committee, and I am also grateful to it for saying that it approves of the principles behind the change. With that caveat in mind, the Committee hopes that the new arrangements will be in place in the autumn, and, in conjunction with the Registrar, we will seek to publicise the change to ensure that all Members are able to encourage their staff to register as required. Let me again thank the Leader of the House for responding so promptly, and I thank the shadow Leader of the House for noting the concerns that have been raised by some. I trust that the House will feel able to approve these new arrangements.