Alec Shelbrooke MP: speeches

Speeches

• 5 Jun 2025 · Battery Energy Storage Sites: Safety Regulations · Hansard source

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  There is a phenomenon called dendrite, which is a form of crystallisation—especially from lithium—with a tree-like structure. We do not fully understand where it comes from. Does that play into what the hon. Gentleman is saying about trying to understand the stability of battery storage?

• 5 Jun 2025 · Battery Energy Storage Sites: Safety Regulations · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) not just on securing this debate, but on giving it such a wide-ranging and thoroughly comprehensive introduction. I am sure that many Members would have mentioned many of the areas he discussed in their own way. Madam Deputy Speaker, you and I are very good friends, and I know that you have been concerned about battery storage plants near the River Test and potential runaway fires that may lead to pollutants going into the river. As you are in your place, you cannot comment on that, so I thought it important to get that on the record. The hon. Member for Normanton and Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) was focusing on some of the planning issues, and that is where I want to go, too. When we look at this debate overall, what we are talking about is a lack of statutory guidance. I want to get on the record immediately that this is not a debate of “Forget net zero and forget about renewables.” That is not the debate, and we are not deniers along that road, but there are serious concerns. The leader of my party has raised those concerns and immediately been accused of being anti net zero. We have to take the concerns seriously, because, as the hon. Member for Horsham outlined, there are changes, slowly but surely, in the materials being used. Nickel manganese, for example, has a vaporisation point of 900ºC. These fires can burn easily over 1,000ºC. I want to focus my attention on the fallout. I had a meeting with some soil scientists, among others, from the University of Leeds at a research facility in my constituency. They are involved in all aspects of farming. I asked about research into potential contamination and fallout and what it could mean for soils if there was a fire. They said no such research had really been done, and I think they had a couple of PhD ideas appear from that. It showed that that work has not been done. Where have we got to on thermal runaway? As has been outlined, such fires need a huge quantity of water. It is not just about trying to do whatever we can to stop the fire spreading. I read in the International Fire and Safety Journal about using high-pressure water mist at the starting point, monitoring the potential for thermal runaway and trying to cool the batteries before they get to that stage. Equally, if that mist is high pressure enough, it can contain the contaminants around the fire. Again, the science around this issue has to be closely managed. As the hon. Member for Normanton and Hemsworth has outlined, acids and other things can be created. We have to be careful about the chemistry, but we do not have any statutory guidance for planning authorities. We keep speaking about what we need to do with water, so surely it should be a condition of the planning process that there is a mains water supply to where such incidents are happening. In my constituency, planning applications for solar farms and battery storage are pouring in. They are being approved and pushed on, but there is no demand for water supply. These applications are for developments in the middle of a rural area, on farmland. Farmers are being offered a golden egg and told, “Sell us your land, and we will develop solar farms and battery storage.” Let me give the example of a planning application for Wetherby services. There were not really any objections or concerns about batteries, but Leeds city council then approved the development of hundreds of houses 600 to 700 metres away. As has been outlined, no one knows how far contamination goes. There must be a lot more statutory undertaking for planning authorities. I recommend a pause on approving planning applications until we fully understand what mitigation could be put in place for disasters, which unfortunately do happen.

• 5 Jun 2025 · Battery Energy Storage Sites: Safety Regulations · Hansard source

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  When the Government do the research on mitigation that the Minister talks about, I gently suggest that they lay down in statute the minimum mitigation facilities that will be expected to be satisfied in planning applications. At the moment, there is no statutory outline for what mitigation must be put in place. Inspections are great, but we are not actually inspecting anything from a statutory point of view. I encourage her to ensure that the result of the research is that applicants have it laid out for them what mitigation needs to be in place.

• 5 Jun 2025 · Battery Energy Storage Sites: Safety Regulations · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the issues is that there is no statutory requirement on prevention methods that may stop us from getting to that disastrous situation in the first place?

• 3 Jun 2025 · Dementia Care · Hansard source

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  It is a genuine pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash), who has hit the nail on the head when it comes to how terrible this disease is. Forty years ago this August, my paternal grandfather was dying of lung cancer. My father went to the hospital with him. The day went on and on, and eventually, my grandfather said to my father, “Go and give your mother a call—let her know where we are at.” She answered the phone, and my dad said, “Just to let you know, mum, we’re delayed at the hospital. Dad and I are going to be late.” She said, “Oh, I’ve not seen your father in three weeks.” At that point, he said, his blood ran cold. Tragically, my grandfather died just two weeks later. The funeral came, and the funeral went. My grandmother constantly asked, “Where have all these flowers come from?” Within four years, my grandmother had to go into a nursing home. Making the right decisions during those four years put a huge strain on my father. “Do we sell the house? How are we going to pay for the care?” My grandmother was walking the streets at 3 am. She was leaving the gas on. Neighbours were saying, “The whole street is going to be destroyed. Derek, you have got to do something.” Then she was put into the home. What I have found during my work on dementia is that that is often the pattern. The spouse, or the partner, protects his or her spouse or partner. They pick up the slack—and this is such a ratcheting disease, which comes so slowly, that they do not realise that they are under more and more pressure and taking on more and more work. Tragically again, in 2019, my father-in-law died suddenly, and it soon became apparent that he had been hiding my mother-in-law’s dementia. My mother-in-law is doing very well: she has a carer, and on some days she is still pretty sparky. She was a formidable woman in her time. She is 87 years old now. She still remembers me, and there is an important point there: I will be the person she forgets next, because I was the last in. I say to my wife, “For as long as she remembers me, we are still in a roughly good place.” That is quite a sad statement, is it not? It is sad that we are moving down that road. However, I was inspired by something I saw shortly after I was elected, in 2010 or 2011, at a dementia café down in Rothwell. I went there when it first opened, and I quickly became aware of the support that it was giving people, and of how much they appreciated it. That brings me back to what the hon. Member for Hartlepool said about how cruel this disease is. Because people are gradually supporting their loved ones more and more, they reach a point at which there is enormous pressure. They are not going to take a step back, go on to Google or try to get on to the local Facebook to try and work out what is going on locally. People do not know what is going on out there, and that was even more true 10 or so years ago. A huge number of voluntary organisations take clients. Let me name just two in my constituency: Wetherby in Support of the Elderly—WISE—and the Easingwold Hub Club. They provide a huge amount of support for people with dementia, but dozens of other voluntary organisations supply an incredible service that helps to take the pressure off carers, who are also able to take their loved ones out, which in itself can be stimulating. That gave me an idea, and I created the Dementia Directory and one of the first dementia-friendly constituencies. The directory breaks up the constituency up into parts, and lists all the events that are going on. We are working on the new one now. It is a complex process; it is a bit of a spider’s web, because we find one event and then another is off, and then another is off. We try not to miss any, but inevitably we do. It is because the last directory had such a huge and positive impact that we are preparing this one for the new constituency, following the boundary change. All that we need now is the sponsorship that will enable it to be printed and posted. It will make a difference, because, as the hon. Member for Hartlepool said, this is a terribly cruel disease. There is a statement that upsets and annoys me greatly: “It is not such a bad disease, because the person who has it does not know they have it.” That is an awful thing to say. I can never hold back a tear when I see the advertisement in which a chap sitting on the end of the bed says to his wife, “I want to go home.” How many of us, as children, became homesick? I was homesick when I went to university. It is a terrifying thought that as you get older you will not know your partner, and you will be constantly homesick. For Members who may not know this, I have a tip, because I have done dementia training. When I went to a care home, there was an elderly lady of about 90, who said, “I don’t like it here. They never let me see my parents. I just wish they’d let me see my father.” I had been told to get into a memory of the person and mention somewhere their relative may be, so I said, “Well, your father’s down at the allotment.” She said, “Oh, yes, that’s right,” and she calmed down. Do not argue with those people, because that will just make them more upset, but try to take them back to a memory. As well the directory being used to notice events, it highlights things that may help, such as hydration. One of the things that happens with elderly people is that they do not want to keep going to the toilet and they get worried about doing so, so they are often quite sparky in the morning when they have had a cup of tea, but by 3 o’clock they are getting memory lapses because they have not drunk enough. That is also something we have to tell people. How many Members in this Chamber, when they said they were going to speak in this debate—they do not have to put their hands up—had somebody say, “Oh, don’t forget to go there”? Everybody seems to know what dementia is, but nobody really knows what it is. It is a real paradox. Everybody makes that comment, “Don’t forget,” but do they really understand the depth and impact of this disease? Dementia includes Alzheimer’s disease. I recently read a book about Ronald Reagan, which at the end said that he did not open his eyes for the last four years of his life. Just think about that, and what this terrible disease does to people and all the impact it has. This debate is about dementia care, and several contributions have been made about things the Government can do. I raised this issue back in 2012-13, and the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, did put funding into research for dementia. The trouble is that we have learned how to preserve all the organs of our body with medical research and medical advances, but we have never bothered with the brain. The blunt truth is that, before this disease had the prevalence it now has, most people were dead before they got it. However, there is something we can do all do as Members of Parliament in our constituencies, and that is to draw together all the voluntary organisations that give such relief to families and help to stimulate the sufferer along the way.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Market Towns: Cultural Heritage · Hansard source

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  I know the Minister’s Yorkshire constituency very well. There are many great old buildings, but one problem will be getting their energy performance certificates to band C. It is all very well investing the capital so that they can be reused, but if they are not meeting band C, they cannot be used. Will she take back to the Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism the point that this area needs to be reviewed, because I think the policy of the last Government was a mistake?

• 4 Mar 2025 · Market Towns: Cultural Heritage · Hansard source

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  Thank you for calling me, Sir Jeremy. The points I want to make will probably cover all the market towns with important heritage in my constituency of Wetherby and Easingwold. I will give just a couple of examples, but what I say will be relevant to them all. Let me begin with Boroughbridge, a traditional market town. There is an ecosystem to market towns, which are the subject of the debate; I congratulate the hon. Member for Southend East and Rochford (Mr Alaba) on securing it. In the countryside, farmers’ markets and the whole ecosystem of the trade that takes place is reliant on farming communities, which the towns often grew from. The blunt truth is that there is growing concern about the effect on small family farms, which contribute directly to market towns. A lot of the produce on sale in them comes from an ecosystem that covers the entire rural economy. There is a real concern that goes beyond what we have been talking about. Food supply and the farm inheritance tax can directly impact those areas. The hon. Member for Southend East and Rochford outlined the investment that is needed in market towns, and there are things that we can do. Wetherby in my constituency has a lot of important cultural buildings. Such towns are full of buildings that have been there for centuries. There is no way that they will reach the C grade on an energy performance certificate. That policy, brought in by the last Government, needs to be reviewed because when businesses leave, their premises will not be re-rented unless they meet performance C. That is a real problem because it is almost impossible to get that performance certificate. A range of policies, whether it is taxation on farms, which contribute directly to the ecosystem of local communities, or net zero contributions that make premises impossible to rehire, will have the effect of hollowing out vital parts of the community. All those issues need to be addressed.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Energy Infrastructure: Chinese Companies · Hansard source

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  The Minister speaks about being reliant on the petrochemical states and dictatorships that supplied the fuel needed for our energy system, and yet the vast majority of the processed materials needed—whether we construct things here or not—come from China. We recognise that some of those countries are dictatorships, but will the Minister confirm at the Dispatch Box that a country that uses slave labour, has carried out the most horrendous crimes against the Uyghur population and has sanctioned our own parliamentarians is as much a dictatorship as the countries that she says we want to no longer be reliant on?

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  The Minister has several times mentioned energy security, and has said that the drive to net zero will make us more energy-secure, but now that Europe has learned the lesson of taking fossil fuels from Russia, we will take our renewable resources from China, which manufactures and processes the vast of majority of the materials needed. What contingency plans has the Minister made in case China decides to get into a trade war with the UK on renewables, or to cut off supply? The threats that could come from China are exactly the same as those that came from Russia about fossil fuels.

• 16 Dec 2024 · United Front Work Department · Hansard source

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  The west certainly learned a lesson about energy supplies and where they come from when Russia invaded. To build on what my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) said, I want to press the Minister on solar and renewables. The Government have an agenda to push this country quickly towards renewable energy, yet China manufactures and processes a lot of the materials that we need for it. Before we accelerate towards that goal, will the Minister undertake an assessment of the risk to our energy supply? That is a crucial piece of our national security.

• 4 Dec 2024 · Farming and Inheritance Tax · Hansard source

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  Does my right hon. Friend agree that what is quite frightening about this policy is that perhaps the Government know exactly what they are doing, and that, a bit like “Animal Farm”, they think everything should be collectivised?

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rural Affairs · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to take part in the debate. I congratulate all hon. Members who have made their maiden speech today; they have all been genuinely fascinating and worth listening to. I want to touch on the flooding issues that really cause concern in rural areas. Even in towns such as Tadcaster, which has the River Wharfe running through it, flooding is caused not just by water from the river, but by run-off in the town. The town depends on serviceable drainage, which can often get blocked, and drainage flaps. We are trying to get flood defences built, and are moving forward with money put in place by the last Conservative Government. Tadcaster’s flood alleviation scheme is crucial to the economic regeneration of the town, because people in such towns cannot have faith in the local economy if they are flooded all the time. I say with this with great disappointment. I have had several meetings on these issues with the Environment Agency, Yorkshire Water and Councillor Kirsty Poskitt—she is an independent councillor, but we are working well together—and Yorkshire Water promised us that the flap valve in Tadcaster that drains the water from the high street would be serviced once a month. That was a lie, and it has now said that it will do so every six months. That is not good enough. We are trying to do what we can for our communities, but we see the people in charge—the people whose responsibility this is—lie to our faces. We will have further meetings about that, because communities need certainty, and so do businesses. There are also issues when housing developments are built in places with existing flood concerns. When we really get out into the countryside, communities can be cut off completely. They are struggling to cope with the watercourses as they are now, and we know that the weather and climate are changing—there is more water. I have had had several meetings in one village, Bishop Monkton, since I became the Member of Parliament. I have spoken to local people, the parish council, local councillor Nick Brown and the flood groups. Again, promises were made, but we are not getting anywhere. Bishop Monkton has been let down by Yorkshire Water and the EA for too long. There is a new planning application for 60 new homes, and they say that the water system can cope with it. It cannot—that is blatantly obvious. When these big developments go in, Yorkshire Water and the Environment Agency should make them do water alleviation work through soakaways and slowing the flow, rather than just saying, “Well, according to our models, it can cope.” Sewage flows down the street in that small, picturesque, beautiful Yorkshire village in my constituency, yet it is claimed that there is nothing wrong. The hon. Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher), who is a sound man, being a West Ham fan, said that nobody knows land better than those who manage it. He is absolutely right. That is why we should be concerned about this inheritance tax raid on farming, which will get rid of tenant farmers—those who have worked the land for generations and understand best the watercourses and what happens there. In the villages where I talk to people, who knows better than anybody else the hydrology of the land? It is the farmers and the people who live there. If all that goes to corporates who have no contact with the local communities, we will lose the knowledge and memory of the people who have worked that land for centuries.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rural Affairs · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is hitting the nail on the head. In my speech, I mentioned that Tadcaster is unable to get rid of the surface water. That affects a few businesses, but the whole town is destroyed by those businesses not being able to reopen and having insurance problems, despite the fact that there are not enough houses under the Environment Agency’s plan. The point that the Environment Agency has to take notice of is, where does the economy build from?

• 29 Oct 2024 · Zero Emission Vans · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I congratulate the hon. Member for Tamworth (Sarah Edwards) on securing the debate and on her thoughtful and well laid-out speech, covering a range of really important issues. The way she has brought this debate is a credit to her. In that spirit, I hope the Minister and I can have a positive interaction and try to get some answers. I know we can all agree that vans play an integral role in our economy, and if the UK is to decarbonise successfully, vans will need to play a central part. Any measures in service of this welcome transition must offer a pragmatic and reasonable way forward, which the hon. Lady outlined so well. It is key to remember that too speedy a transition to electric vehicles can present challenges that we may not yet be ready to address. It is probably no surprise that I want to draw attention, first, to the measures taken by the last Conservative Government and the manner in which they did so. They spent over £2 billion to transition the UK to zero emission vehicle use, and as of November 2023, the plug-in van grant alone had supported over 40,000 electric vans and HGVs across the UK. The previous Government also acknowledged the challenges presented by battery warranty requirements and amended battery warranty capacities, which was a welcome move. In 2023, the Department for Transport took the welcome step of announcing that the additional five-hour training requirement for drivers would be removed, and that it would make changes to towing allowances for electric vans weighing up to 4.25 tonnes. Again, the hon. Lady touched on some of the very important issues facing the industry. I urge today’s Government to continue this work and to listen to the sector. Specifically, I ask the Minister whether the Government intend to retain the changes that I mentioned and whether she will commit to the renewal of the plug-in van grant, which is set to expire at the end of March 2025. It is critical that this Government continue on the route established by the previous Government and that they do not get too tied-up in any longer-term reviews that may hold things up. I know that the Minister is widely experienced in transport from her previous role and that she will be across these important issues. The industry and drivers would appreciate more certainty about what measures the Government intend to retain and what action they intend to undertake. I hope that the Minister will offer some specificity. I also hope that the Government will commit to engaging with the industry on a range of issues, including MOT testing and drivers’ hours to further understand how the Government can pragmatically remove barriers to aid decarbonisation for fleets. As the hon. Member for Tamworth rightly mentioned, infrastructure is crucial. As of May 2024, the Government, in collaboration with the industry, supported the installation of over 61,000 publicly available charging devices. That included more than 10,000 rapid-charge points. The hon. Lady spoke about being able to charge the vehicles, and the infrastructure involved. That is very important, but we also need to be able to generate the electricity if the infrastructure is in place. Does the Minister intend to have a wider conversation with the Energy Secretary about how quickly the building of new turbine-run power stations will be up and running so that we can try to meet the current demand, as well that of the infrastructure that needs to be put in place? To reach 300,000 chargers by 2030, the number of public charge points installed annually must continue to grow by around 30%. Will the Minister confirm whether the Government have plans to maintain that growth year on year? Finally—but of central importance—given that the Government have confirmed it that they are moving the date for new petrol and diesel vehicles back to 2030, can the Minister provide clarity on the timeline for vans? Changes must be pragmatic. I think the hon. Member for Tamworth will not be aware that I sat on the Bill Committee for the Energy Act 2023 in the last Parliament, and that I made the point then that we need a pragmatic approach that takes the public with us. In that spirit, I ask the Minister to reflect on how that can be achieved, communicated and properly undertaken. I ask her to consider how the concerns about the potential costs that might be put on businesses will be addressed through new employment laws, and whether that is one of the unseen consequentials after the Budget that may stop some of the investment. I am requesting that she looks holistically at all the different aspects relating to where small businesses, in particular, may look to invest in this area. I hope that the Minister will be able to provide some clarity on the questions I posed, and I again congratulate the hon. Member for Tamworth on a very well thought-out speech.

• 18 Jul 2024 · Foreign Affairs and Defence · Hansard source

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  It is a real pleasure to follow the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher). It is also a great pleasure to have another Yorkshire Hammer in the House, but let me give him some friendly advice: he might not want to have my neighbour, the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), sitting behind him next time. If the hon. Gentleman does give him any trouble, he should just ask to compare their teams’ European cabinets. As the current leader of the UK delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, I want to say something about defence in an ever-changing world. I hope there is not too much of a pause in the defence reviews that have already taken place, and there has been some debate about that. I understand why a new defence review is taking place under a new Government, but I think it worth noting that we have moved to a 360° view of NATO and the threats that it faces. We may well see a change of Administration in the United States, and with any change of Administration it takes time to work out the direction that the new Administration want to take. I do not feel as fearful as some about President Trump returning to the White House, because during his last tenure he invested heavily in NATO and did not undermine it. We know that while his habit is to create great upset and make big statements, the reality turns out to be somewhat different, and he works towards building on that. Nevertheless, this is something that will have to be considered. What Trump did succeed in doing was getting European allies to build their defence strategies and budgets, and we cannot escape the fact that the demands on the defence of Europe are growing and growing, not just on land but at sea. We know that Russia has mapped the bed of the North sea. It has mapped the fuel pipelines and the data cables, and obviously the surface platforms are at risk. We know that the Royal Navy and our allies spend a great deal of time counteracting that, and I am proud that the Conservative Government established a huge shipbuilding programme the likes of which had not been seen for very many years. It provides long-term contracts that allow the shipyards and the companies to invest, and, crucially, allow the Royal Navy to be the capable force that it needs to be. That must be key not just to the maintaining of a maritime nation, but to where the maritime interests lie in the world. Climate change has already been mentioned today. An undeniable fact in that connection is the opening up of the High North and the north-east passage. Another undeniable fact is that the Russians have been rebuilding and revamping bases along their northern shoreline, and yet another undeniable fact is that the Ukraine war that Vladimir Putin illegally started, thinking he would be able to walk in and dominate that country in a very short space of time, has decimated his economy in the long run. Going to war will always decimate an economy, but this war has decimated Russia’s military, costing it a huge number of military personnel, and has made Putin reliant on other countries, such as China. It is notable that before the Ukraine war Chinese vessels never really went into the High North, but they do now because Russia lets them in. Tension will build in the High North, and we have to be ready for it. I think we are ready for it—we have taken part in vital exercises in the area—but that just goes to show how vital the Royal Navy is. It is, of course, also vital that we have a functioning air force, and that we continue with the procurement of F-35s. Russian jets try to violate our airspace—certainly NATO airspace—on, I think, a daily basis, and they need to be met with confrontation. NATO is a deterrent rather than an aggressive force, but deterrence can only happen if those concerned feel the consequences of the balance of power. I believe that NATO is strong enough at the moment. No other combined maritime force in the world constantly has at least 36 ships patrolling the sea; that is what NATO is able to bring together. However, it is vital that when we carry out the strategic defence review, we analyse not just what we need in maritime terms today, but what will come in the future; not just how we patrol the airspace today, but what will come in the future. We must also address the position of the Army, which has been under discussion for decades. It is all very well to talk about hollowing out the armed forces and going for the lowest number of personnel. This was, in many ways, the post-cold war dividend, and that dividend has gone, as a number of us warned that it would before the conflict in Ukraine, and it will not come back. That leads to some tough choices. There has to be honesty in the conversation about how much of our GDP we should be spending, because it will add up to 100%, and that means that the budget must be cut somewhere else. I am proud that we have the track to get to 2.5%, but, as I was trying to ask in my intervention on the Secretary of State, if this review adds up to more than 2.5%—if it says, “This is what we need to be able to defend a changing arena”—will the Government spend that money? We cannot on one the hand say that we aim to get to 2.5%, rather than giving a specific date, and on the other hand say, “We are going to have a strategic defence review, but what if it costs 3%?” Will this actually be achieved? That is an important question.