Emma Reynolds MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 18 Dec 2025 · Animal Welfare Standards · Hansard source

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  I can confirm that further details on this issue will be set out in the animal welfare strategy, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising it. He is right that we need to have a closer eye on enforcement and work more closely with councils to ensure that there is better enforcement.

• 18 Dec 2025 · Animal Welfare Standards · Hansard source

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  Our animal health and welfare pathway scheme provides funding to farmers to improve the health and welfare of their livestock. It also supports veterinary visits to discuss health and welfare, and it provides capital grants for equipment and infrastructure to improve animal welfare. I am pleased that 7,000 farmers have already signed up to receive funding.

• 18 Dec 2025 · Farming Profitability · Hansard source

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  I am proud that this Government commissioned Baroness Batters to do the review into farm profitability, which is a lot more than the Conservatives managed to do in 14 long years. We will be taking forward a number of her recommendations, but, as I said, we will reply in full in the new year. We commissioned her because she has great experience and expertise. There are many ways in which we are unlocking profitability, not least the planning reforms that myself and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government are introducing to make it easier for farmers to build on-farm reservoirs, polytunnels and various other things that will diversify their farms. We are bringing down the barriers, which is something that they long called for, but they saw none of that action under the previous Government.

• 18 Dec 2025 · Farming Profitability · Hansard source

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  As this House knows, Baroness Batters is a long-standing champion of British farming. Today, the Government have published her independent farming profitability review 2025, which we commissioned earlier this year. We will set out a more detailed response in the new year, but I can confirm today that, following her recommendations, we are establishing a farming and food partnership board to give farmers a stronger voice in Government. We will take forward sector plans to build profitability in sectors with great potential, and we will seek to boost private finance into farming.

• 18 Dec 2025 · Farming Profitability · Hansard source

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  I am proud that this Government, unlike the previous Government, are protecting and promoting British farming in our trade deals, including with India and the USA. [ Interruption. ] Opposition Members may chunter from a sedentary position, but they sold them out on their trade deals with Australia and New Zealand. We are also making progress with the EU on a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement, which will make agrifood trade with our biggest market cheaper and easier, and our global network of agrifood attachés has already brought down 46 trade barriers this year, worth £127 million.

• 18 Dec 2025 · Farming Profitability · Hansard source

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  I echo my hon. Friend’s thanks to farmers working hard over the festive season. Upland communities face unique challenges. I or the Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs will be delighted to meet his delegation. We are reforming the sustainable farming incentive to make it simpler and easier for farmers to apply to. We want more farmers to benefit from these schemes, and under this Government we already have a record number of farmers in these schemes.

• 18 Dec 2025 · Farming Profitability · Hansard source

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  As the right hon. Gentleman will know, we have already introduced fair dealing regulations for pig and dairy farmers, but I agree with him that we need to look to go further.

• 18 Dec 2025 · Farming Profitability · Hansard source

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  I am very determined that we leverage in more private finance into farming. I visited a landscape recovery project in north Buckinghamshire a couple of weeks ago. It is really fantastic to see the innovative practices in these schemes that are levering in private finance in part of the compliance market, and part of the thriving and nascent nature credits market.

• 18 Dec 2025 · Farming Profitability · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member asked a number of good questions. I have said that the new iteration of the SFI will be out in the first half of next year. My hon. Friend the Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs and I are looking very carefully at how we get this right, and I can reassure the hon. Member that we are looking at the distributional analysis on who is getting these schemes at the moment. We do want to make it easier for smaller farms to gain access to the schemes—I can reassure him on that.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Water Sector Reform · Hansard source

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  I share the public’s frustration with what has happened in recent years, but I reassure her that we will take decisive action. We have already passed the Water (Special Measures) Act, but we will also be issuing a White Paper later this year and will legislate to ensure that we have better regulation, a better regulator and a better water system for her constituents and those around the country.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Water Sector Reform · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for his question, and I look forward to working with him on this issue. We will look at pre-pipe solutions in the forthcoming White Paper, which I look forward to discussing with him when we publish it.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Water Sector Reform · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her campaigning on this issue. We recognise the scale of the challenge facing our water system and are taking decisive action to reset the sector. We will create a single powerful water regulator, abolishing Ofwat and ending the fragmentation that led to the abuses of the past. As my hon. Friend refers to, we have already banned polluting water bosses from taking bonuses, which we did early in our time in government with the passing of the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Water Sector Reform · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Under this Labour Government, there is nowhere to hide for polluting water companies. We have overseen record fines on water companies and are introducing automatic penalties—like speeding tickets—to ensure that those companies are held to account for every level of offence.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Water Sector Reform · Hansard source

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  The Government will publish a White Paper later this year outlining our vision for the future of the water sector, making the most fundamental reform of our water system in a generation. We are determined to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas to deliver better outcomes for consumers and the environment.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Water Company Executives: Accountability · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his doughty campaigning on this issue. We are already taking forward secondary legislation to ban plastic wet wipes, which are a major source of pollution in our waterways. As I have said previously, this Government are taking decisive action to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas. We will publish a White Paper later this year, putting forward proposals for fundamental reform of our water system, so that it delivers better outcomes for consumers and the environment.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Water Company Executives: Accountability · Hansard source

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  Under the previous Government, water bosses awarded themselves over £112 million in bonuses. Thanks to this Government’s Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, water company bosses who pollute our waterways have been blocked from receiving millions of pounds in unfair bonuses for the past financial year.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Access to Nature · Hansard source

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  I am a keen cyclist myself, so I might visit the hon. Lady as well. As we set out in our manifesto, the Government are committed to improving access to nature, and I look forward to working with her to do so.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Access to Nature · Hansard source

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  I am delighted to be at these questions for the first time, but I must say that the Conservatives have some brass neck. Under their Government, they could not even be bothered to spend the farming budget. We have got more Government money into the hands of farmers than ever before, and a record number of farmers are involved in environmental land management schemes. We have a proud record of supporting our farmers; the Conservatives sold them down the river on trade deals.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Access to Nature · Hansard source

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  I am a Buckinghamshire Member, Mr Speaker, but there we go. The Government are delivering our manifesto commitments to improve access to nature and deliver three national forests. We recently announced that the second national forest will be in the Oxford-Cambridge corridor. Milton Keynes is the beating economic heart of that corridor, and we will deliver economic opportunities and even better access to nature side by side in my hon. Friend’s great city.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Access to Nature · Hansard source

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  I commend my hon. Friend for championing the Wetland Arc project in his constituency. Wetlands enhance water quality and biodiversity, and provide effective natural flood defences. As he suggests, we will continue to support initiatives such as these, and I would be delighted to visit his constituency, should he so wish, because it is very near mine.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  This is a highly sensitive issue. The reasons for somebody taking their life are often very complex, and my heart goes out to every family devastated by these events. I am not willing to make political points on this issue.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for campaigning on these issues. We have already banned bonuses in six water companies, including Anglian Water, as she will know, for not meeting our high standards. That is a powerful incentive for companies to deliver immediate improvements and rebuild public trust. Together, I hope that we can rebuild public trust in our water system for generations to come.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I am delighted to lead the first all-woman ministerial team in a UK Department of State. My focus as the new Secretary of State is delivering the Government’s No. 1 mission of economic growth, while restoring our natural environment. I have four big priorities: cleaning up our rivers, lakes and seas; backing British farmers and our food industry; restoring nature; and delivering a sanitary and phytosanitary deal with the EU.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I live in a rural area, represent a semi-rural seat, and have 89 farms in my constituency. I understand the pressures that farmers are under, but the catastrophic mistake made by the previous Government was that they could not even be bothered to spend the farming budget. We have put more Government money in the hands of more farmers than ever before, and we have put a record number of farmers in the environmental land management schemes. We will soon publish the Batters review on farm profitability. We are not keeping that review under wraps, by the way; the House will soon hear more about it. The Conservatives did nothing on the issue when they were in power. We have appointed the nation’s first tenant farming commissioner, and we will set out a 25-year road map for farming next year.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Like the hon. Member, I am appalled by this plastic pollution incident, which affects his constituency, nearby constituencies and Camber Sands. We are holding Southern Water to account. There needs to be a thorough investigation of what happened, and as has been said by the Minister with responsibility for water and flooding, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy) —she has been in touch with both the water company and the Environment Agency—the immediate priority is to address the damage caused, but we need to ask questions about why this was not uncovered earlier. The water Minister or I would be happy to meet him.