Mary Creagh MP: speeches

Speeches

• 1 Jul 2026 · Packaging Manufacturers: Extended Producer Responsibility · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and this is something that I have been insistent with officials on. This is a complex scheme, and the more complexity we add into it, the more time it will take. There is a trade-off here, and a set of difficulties, because we can do carve-outs for x and y sector, but that creates more complexity in the recycling assessment methodology calculations for other parts of the packaging industry. We have to beware of making perfection the enemy of the good. I can also let my hon. Friend know that the chief executive officer of PackUK, Jeremy Blake, met the WoolCool CEO yesterday. I thought that had happened, but I am glad to have got the note telling me it is true. Beyond this, we are supporting the glass businesses with their electricity costs through the British industry supercharger. Glass businesses now receive 90% compensation for electricity network charges. This brings their total reduction in electricity bills to an average of between £65 and £87 per megawatt-hour. We are also supporting the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors with lower tax rates for their properties. On the issue around cheaper imports coming from overseas, the Trade Remedies Authority’s independent anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations into cheaper glass imports from China and Turkey are ongoing. That is dealt with by another Government Department. We are working closely with industry to address the challenge of dual use—packaging disposed of in either business or household waste streams. We know how important this issue is to stakeholders across different sectors, including pubs, hospitality and medical packaging businesses, and construction. Indeed, I met a representative of the paint industry at a B&Q in my Coventry East constituency. Paint will always come in a tin or plastic container with a coating inside it, so it will never attract “green” fees, but we want to get that paint recycled, reused or repurposed. B&Q is doing some excellent work with the charity Neighbourly to ensure that paint has a second life. People do not know what to do with unused paint. Builders finish using a pot, then down into the drain the rest goes, adding to the diffuse water pollution that we are experiencing across our sewer network. This is a tricky issue, but we need a system that can be effectively monitored and enforced. It is no good just saying, “Oh, everyone decides that all their stuff goes to the pubs” and then suddenly we are left with a massive shortfall in the fees, so it has to be verifiable. We are testing solutions, including for hospitality, and building on international best practice, looking in particular at the Austrian model. I held a roundtable with industry last year to look at solutions for the dual-use challenge. It is difficult, but I hope for a solution on this issue soon that does not add undue complexity to the scheme or make it impossible for the regulator to verify.

• 1 Jul 2026 · Packaging Manufacturers: Extended Producer Responsibility · Hansard source

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  Obviously, I do not sit there and do the maths with people. These suggestions and potential solutions have to be modelled and worked through. We are working at pace to assess whether any targeted short-term measures could be introduced through the forthcoming PEPR amending statutory instrument to partially address the dual-use packaging issue. So we are working on a short-term solution, but we are also working on a longer-term solution, which is the Austrian model that I mentioned. Again, the hon. Gentleman may have been distracted by the whistle when I mentioned that. Councils across the country are rebranding and upgrading their glass recycling points to make it easier for households to use glass recycling facilities and to reduce the contamination that we know is so important to avoid in glassmaking. We have made a £5.3 million investment in that over a couple of years, and those changes are happening on the ground. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham said, reuse is not a short-term fix. It was once the norm when a lot of us—perhaps not all hon. Members present in the Chamber—were growing up, and it can be again. In some ways the future looks like the past—let us hope that is not the case for the England game. PEPR creates a powerful financial incentive for glass producers to move to reuse. Running reuse schemes means producers avoid most PEPR fee obligations, and glass, as we have heard, is a durable, tried and tested technology. While it requires up-front investment and system change, it shifts costs away from single-use production and disposal, it improves supply chain resilience and reduces costs over time. Reuse is already operating at scale internationally, particularly for glass. Reusing a glass bottle just five times can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by more than a third. The more times they are reused, the greater the benefits will be. As we have heard today, the issue is not just about the environment; it is also about jobs, communities and the long-term health of British industry. The industry estimates that these reforms will create 25,000 jobs and underpin £10 billion of investment in new sorting and processing facilities. The reforms will drive that improvement in our recycling rate and, crucially, they will reduce our carbon emissions. In conclusion, glass matters, industry matters and glassworkers matter. This Government back businesses and workers, and we back the transition to a circular economy that makes the country stronger, cleaner and more resilient. Change is coming to EPR and I reassure all hon. Members that we want to have a predictable, well set out framework within which business can confidently operate and householders can confidently know that what they put in their recycling streams is going to have a second, and hopefully third and fourth, life. Question put and agreed to.

• 1 Jul 2026 · Packaging Manufacturers: Extended Producer Responsibility · Hansard source

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  I want to make a little bit of progress, if I may, because it is four minutes to kick-off.

• 1 Jul 2026 · Packaging Manufacturers: Extended Producer Responsibility · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to speak on this issue today. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for securing this debate, and I thank all hon. Members who have spoken. We have heard from powerful advocates for the glass industry, the fibre-based composites industry, the ceramics industry, the wine industry in Cornwall and, of course, the beer and pub industry, which we are all hoping to go and enjoy shortly. Let me begin by also declaring my interest as a member of the GMB trade union. I recognise the challenging context in which the glass industry operates; that is a result of a range of global pressures, including the international increases in energy costs, volatile commodity prices, growing international competition, and substantial investment in decarbonising energy-intensive manufacturing processes. I also recognise and acknowledge the industry’s concerns about packaging extended producer responsibility, or PEPR, which is an internationally recognised model used in more than 30 countries to transform recycling services. The model shifts the cost of managing packaging waste from taxpayers—that is us—to the producers who put it on the market. It is the “polluter pays” principle in action. Its introduction in this country is the biggest change to recycling policy in 25 years. The policy was formulated under the previous Conservative Government. The right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) is no longer in his place, but it was his Government who first began developing it back in 2018-19. There was a debate on it on the Floor of the House, in which he did not register his objections, and he did not vote against it. Perhaps he was absent, or chatting to his new friends in a different party. Since PEPR has been brought in, the money raised from packaging producers and retailers has gone directly to councils to fund the introduction of simpler recycling—the new recycling collections that we have. That does not include the food waste collections, although they are part of simpler recycling. Last year, PEPR raised over £1.4 billion for local authorities to deliver better recycling services for people in every nation of the UK. Our goal is to get from 45% recycled—that is where we have stagnated over the last decade—to 65% recycled by 2035. That is an important goal. The food waste collections—they are not paid for through PEPR—are part of the simpler recycling reforms and a really important part of taking the methane out of our bins. Let me come to glass fees. Last year, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham rightly said, year 1 PEPR fees took account only of the weight and volume of materials. That reflected the cost to local authorities of collecting and disposing of the materials. Following her excellent Westminster Hall debate last year, we have worked at pace, and I am pleased to tell hon. Members that from this year—year 2—we are bringing in lower fees for more recyclable packaging. Our latest data shows that more than 93% of glass will receive a “green” discount for being recyclable. This means that producers of harder-to-recycle “red” materials, such as crisp packets, will pay a premium. The system is designed to reward the right choices. The incentive to make the right choices will increase, because in years 3 and 4, producers of “red” materials—the more complex forms of packaging—will pay even higher fee rates than those do who use more recyclable, “green” materials, like glass. The forecasts that I have seen expect the glass sector to pay a decreasing share of PEPR costs in years 2 and 3. In year 4, that will fall even further, as the penalty for “red” packaging will reach double the basic “green” rate.

• 1 Jul 2026 · Packaging Manufacturers: Extended Producer Responsibility · Hansard source

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  I want to make some progress, and my hon. Friend may find that I answer her questions. PackUK has today published improved guidance on how recyclability will be assessed and rewarded. The glass section was developed in close collaboration with the glass industry and we have already received positive feedback. I hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) said about wool. When I see wool used as a coolant, it tends to come in plastic packaging, for hygiene reasons. That packaging can certainly be open up, and the wool can then be composted, but there is usually a film around it, and under the recyclability assessment methodology, that would incur higher fees. All this is meant to incentivise design for recyclability. I was due to meet a wool insulation provider this week. Sadly, I was not able to, but she was on her way down, and I believe that she met officials. I will check that later. I am keen to do work on this issue, because it is particularly important for the British wool industry, with wool at such rock-bottom prices. We are planning to launch a call for evidence this year to gather industry views, which will inform how we continue to reward the right choices. On the post-implementation review, it will be conducted and published in the normal way, three years after the regulations came in. That is slated for December 2028.

• 1 Jul 2026 · Packaging Manufacturers: Extended Producer Responsibility · Hansard source

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  Again, we have a complex system. I would very much like to give my hon. Friend the amounts per tonne, but that is not possible, much though I would like to give her comfort, until all packaging producers have reported their data in the autumn. We will then issue the invoices. I can say that the proportion that the glass sector will pay will fall year on year. We have been listening very carefully to the glass industry on that issue. PackUK, the scheme administrator, and officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs meet the glass sector and British Glass regularly, and PackUK ran a workshop just this week, which included British Glass, on how we can drive the use of more recyclable materials. Everything that PackUK does is subject to four-nation agreement. We had a meeting this morning with the devolved Governments, at which we talked through some of the issues. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland face very different challenges, and the challenges of collecting in inner-city London are not comparable to those of collecting waste in the Outer Hebrides. The model is therefore complex from the recycling and collections point of view as well. Returning to glass, PackUK and DEFRA officials will visit Ardagh Glass later this month. The visit was due to take place in June, but it was rescheduled at Ardagh’s request. PackUK also visited Encirc in Northern Ireland last month. I have spoken to the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin) about the issue around the reduction in energy fees, but those do not apply in Northern Ireland. That is another—well, we could talk about Brexit, but perhaps we will not intrude on that private pain. May I also say that since we debated glass fees last year, DEFRA officials have visited five of the six major glass manufacturers in the UK to hear from them directly, and that includes Beatson Clark? We are acting on their concerns. Also, we have investment in the glass industry in this country; we have a new electric glass factory at Verallia in Leeds.

• 1 Jul 2026 · Packaging Manufacturers: Extended Producer Responsibility · Hansard source

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  I am looking to my officials in the Box, and I think it is probably safest if I write to my hon. Friend on that issue. Let me tell the House about the year 1 shortfall in fees. There was a shortfall in the fees this year as we allowed packaging producers to submit their tonnages and then their tonnages reduced because, obviously, they looked at their figures and reduced them. We listened to industry on that. Despite the regulations saying that actually industry should make up any shortfall, my Department took pressure off businesses by funding on an exceptional basis to hold fees down. We are taking steps this year to ensure that we do not have a repeat of that. On early successes, we are hearing about PEPR bringing about change. Councils all over the UK are using this funding from the packaging industry to improve services to local people. In Tameside, the metropolitan council is investing £1.6 million in new vehicles and improved technology to deliver a more reliable service for taxpayers. Councils are investing to improve glass collection directly, which should benefit the industry in terms of the supply of high-quality cullet. For example, Aberdeenshire council is investing £5 million over 2 years to purchase a new three-compartment glass collection vehicle—I hope that is “vehicles”, but it says “vehicle” here—upgrading glass recycling points to reduce contamination, and improving the quality of glass recyclate, which we know really matters to the glass industry.

• 1 Jul 2026 · Packaging Manufacturers: Extended Producer Responsibility · Hansard source

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  A try!

• 1 Jul 2026 · Packaging Manufacturers: Extended Producer Responsibility · Hansard source

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  I cannot speak for what happened under the previous Administration, but I can tell my hon. Friend that the scheme was announced in 2018, and a consultation happened in 2019. There was another consultation, but I cannot find the exact part of my pack on that. There was a full impact assessment of PEPR published in October 2020, setting out the expected overall costs to businesses. At that stage, it was not possible to assess the impact on specific sectors or regions, as fees and modulation had not been finalised. This has been a huge infrastructure project change, and a huge system change. The Environment Agency, acting as the regulator, holds the database of everyone who is a packaging producer. Elsewhere in the waste and packaging sector, we see large issues around avoidance, free riding and other issues, so we had to go through a massive piece of work with our regulator to ensure that everyone who is putting packaging on is meeting their obligations. There were public consultations in 2019 and 202,1 and a consultation on draft regulations in 2023. There was a consultation with British Glass on the decision to use volume in the apportionment of kerbside recycling collection costs in July 2024, prior to the release of the initial set of illustrative base fees. I think that there was perhaps a misunderstanding, given that this had all been thought about and discussed for five or six years, that it was never going to happen. To be fair to the smaller companies, perhaps they were unaware of their obligations, or perhaps they were not obligated at that time, but have since grown and been brought over the de minimis threshold. Let me talk a little bit more about what the Government are doing more widely to support glass businesses with their electricity costs.

• 23 Jun 2026 · Fly-tipping: Residential Areas · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) for securing this very well attended debate. Let me also thank hon. Members from across the House who have made valuable points. It is great to hear from the Opposition Front-Bench spokespeople about everything that this Government need to do, but it was under the coalition Government and their cuts that the beginnings of this public squalor occurred. In the so-called big society of David Cameron, we did not realise we were all going to have to become litter-picking Womble troops, set up our own food banks to feed our communities and end up being lollipop crossing wardens as well, because of the severe cuts that happened to local government on the coalition Government’s watch. It is fitting that we are having this debate at the beginning of London Climate Action Week. Everybody’s environment starts at their front door—it is not something out there in the oceans and forests; it is about stuff that is literally in the streets where we live. As my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) said, this is a matter of social justice. It is about environmental justice, but also about the poorest people bearing the consequences of environmental crime. It is an epidemic that proliferated under the coalition and it became a pandemic from 2015. The failure to implement any new policy and the starvation of local government that saw local tips close led to this criminal activity and this waste crime epidemic. Fly-tipping scars our streets and parks and takes pride away but it also robs us, as taxpayers. In the 2024-25 financial year alone, waste criminals—they are not cowboys; they are criminals—evaded at least £1 billion of landfill tax. Every fridge and bit of kitchen equipment dumped as a result of a refurb has not been disposed of correctly in either landfill or incineration; that is unacceptable. We are determined to take back control of our streets, parks and countryside from those criminals. The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Dr Hudson) talked about setting up the Joint Unit for Waste Crime. Since coming into office, we have boosted the Environment Agency’s enforcement budget for the current financial year by 50%, from £10 million to over £15 million. Over the next three years, we will give the Environment Agency an additional £45 million, so that budget is going up from £10 million to £15 million this year and then up to £30 million—we have trebled it. We are not producing action plans, but putting our money where our mouth is. That will mean more boots on the ground and more drones in the air. We have pursued major regulatory reforms and boosted the Joint Unit for Waste Crime. Since the Government came to power, the EA has stopped illegal waste activity at over 1,500 sites and has achieved 125 prosecutions, with 10 people going to prison. Crimestoppers has launched a national campaign encouraging the public to play their part by calling 0800 555 111 to anonymously report suspicious activity. I encourage all hon. Members to amplify that campaign, which is running on social media at the moment. Our waste crime action plan is the next step and it is a scale-up. First, we are preventing illegal activity before it starts; secondly, we are strengthening enforcement so that offenders are caught and punished; and thirdly, we are cleaning up the most harmful sites. Let me take each of those points in turn. First there is prevention. Stopping waste crime means putting legislation through Parliament that will replace the outdated paper systems, an issue neglected under the previous Government, with mandatory digital waste tracking: a single UK-wide platform that will monitor waste movements in real time. Regulators will be able to spot diversion away from legitimate pathways and spot fraud, such as misdescription of waste, at a much earlier stage in the chain. We have laid secondary legislation that will overhaul the regulation of the waste carriers, brokers and dealers system so that there will be no more Beau Vines registered as waste dealers. We are moving from a light-touch system to full environmental permitting. We are removing widely abused waste permit exemptions on tyres, end-of-life vehicles and scrap metal, and tightening up seven other waste permit exemptions. We are also going after the tax avoiders. HMRC is expanding tax check rules to the waste sector, so if someone’s tax record is questionable, we will ask them questions before renewing their licence.

• 23 Jun 2026 · Fly-tipping: Residential Areas · Hansard source

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  No, I will finish my point. The Joint Unit for Waste Crime is strengthening its hand. It is bringing together environmental watchdogs, police forces and the National Crime Agency to dismantle the serious organised crime networks that blight our communities. The penalties for waste crime must match the harm it causes. The carriers, brokers and dealers reform will increase penalties for offenders to up to five years in prison. We know that sometimes those offenders will not be prosecuted for environmental crime but potentially for money laundering because they are not just criminals in one area; they have an entire criminal enterprise of which waste crime is just one branch. On the clean-up, we are going after the criminals to make sure that they pay. We have worked with other Departments to publish criteria for cleaning up those sites where intervention is most needed. We are currently funding clean-up for Bolton House Road in Wigan, Alan Ramsbottom Way in Hyndburn and Worthing Road in Sheffield. We will go much further to prevent land owners picking up the bill in the future and work with the insurance industry to explore new models to shield farmers, business and land owners from bearing the cost of waste in their areas. We recognise the role that councils have and the different challenges that they face. Thanks to this Labour Government, they have more powers at their disposal than ever before: issuing fixed penalty notices, prosecuting offenders and launching investigations. Ealing council, for example, has issued 1,993 fixed penalty notices for fly-tipping in 2024-25. When councils say that they do not have the money, it is often that they do not have the will or the skills. They can also seize the vehicles of suspected fly-tippers and crush them—or, for those interested in reuse, as I am, sell them. We have published best practice guidance and case studies on vehicle seizure to give councils the confidence to use those powers. The National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group, chaired by DEFRA officials, has that guidance and Members may wish to bring it to the attention of their local councils. We have secured powers in the Crime and Policing Act 2026 for courts to impose up to nine penalty points on driving licences for fly-tipping offences. That is a strong deterrent and will make people think twice before they do such a job for their mates on the weekend. We are also consulting on a proposal to give local authorities powers to issue conditional cautions to suspected fly-tippers. Those are a range of pre-court community-based sanctions. We all want to see these guys—it is mostly guys—going to prison, but this Government inherited a court backlog along with prisons full to bursting. However, these cautions could see offenders cleaning our streets or parks in an unpaid capacity, and being required to pay back the cost of cleaning up the waste that they have dumped. It gives local authorities another tool in the box. I pay tribute to all the volunteers who have worked in this area, not least in my own city of Coventry, including at Destination Ball Hill and the Reverend Matthew Bull at St John the Divine, where I spent a very sweaty two hours cleaning up Willenhall last Friday.

• 23 Jun 2026 · Fly-tipping: Residential Areas · Hansard source

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  I will make some progress. We are matching prevention with tougher enforcement and pursuing the criminals with every tool in the box. We are increasing the Environment Agency’s budget, as I mentioned, and giving it new police-style powers to intervene earlier, disrupt the criminals and bring them to justice before their illegal operations become established. We have to nip this in the bud when it happens; that is what we know works.

• 23 Jun 2026 · Fly-tipping: Residential Areas · Hansard source

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  I will not. I went back on Saturday and already someone had littered their Burger King wrapper out of a car. The issue is about people and it is very annoying. As a cyclist, I remember posting a cigarette box back through the window of a motorist who had just littered it right in front of my bike; that was one of my more fruity exchanges. We need to follow Coventry city council’s lead and have a wall of shame and CCTV, as there is in areas such as Clements Street in my constituency. Regarding the situation in Hexham, there is Waste and Resources Action Programme guidance on the accessibility of household waste and recycling centres. I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) to bring that guidance to the attention of his council. It is also important that we have more tidy Fridays. Assistant Commissioner Louisa Rolfe has been seconded from the Metropolitan police to the National Police Chief’s Council to co-ordinate this work between police forces across the country. I am disappointed to hear about the Lib Dems in Portsmouth. It is really important for us to work with National Highways and crowd everybody into this space.

• 18 Jun 2026 · River Otter: Sewage Pollution · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to respond to this afternoon’s debate on behalf of my colleague the Water Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy), who is sadly unable to be with us because she is attending an international conference on the marine environment. I thank the hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) for raising this important issue. This Government are absolutely determined to fix our broken water system. As the hon. Gentleman has rightly set out, the situation we inherited was one where pollution warnings and sewage discharges were commonplace; where regulation was stripped back; where water companies were allowed to mark their own homework; and where there were simply no penalties for failure, with incompetence and pollution rewarded. That stopped with this Labour Government. Not only have we taken action over the past two years; we have seen action this week, with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs sending a letter to the regulator about the investment plans for Thames Water. That action is ongoing. The River Otter reflects the previous failure. It is poor in the upper reaches, has moderate water quality in the middle and is poor again downstream, with excessive nutrient levels across the catchment. South West Water has not met the standards that people rightly expect. At Honiton, the sewage treatment works has exceeded its permitted flow limits and its performance has fallen short. That is not acceptable, because rivers like the Otter are not lines on maps; they are places where families walk, children explore, and where our nature and wildlife thrive. They are part of our shared national inheritance, and they deserve better. We recognise that nutrient levels in the River Otter are too high. That leads to excessive algal growth that harms local wildlife, and the Environment Agency has, under this Government, stepped in, challenging South West Water, increasing oversight and requiring improvements. South West Water has had to fix failures in how it monitors and manages its network. Spill levels, as the hon. Member has set out, have been unacceptably high at some sites. Regulators have made it clear that that must improve. We are seeing early improvements, but there is still much more to be done, and we will hold South West Water to account until it delivers. The Environment Agency is expanding monitoring of the river, and it welcomes the support of local groups, including the Otter Valley Association and Otter River Catchment Action, ORCA. I echo the hon. Member’s tributes to Bruce McGlashan. After 32 years working for the Environment Agency, he retired and had to carry on doing what he was doing as an Environment Agency officer. I send my condolences to his family. I pay tribute to Peter Williams, too—I thank them both for their incredible efforts. I watched the “Dirty Business” documentary about the water industry, and was absolutely furious, seeing the scale of deregulation under the previous Government. Of course, the water companies could do their data dumps, but without a PhD in mathematics, no one could reverse-engineer the maths to see what was really happening. There are arguments about the data and the sources, which I will come to, but I first put on record my thanks to those people for their work collecting data, raising concerns and building the evidence needed to drive positive change. I pay tribute to similar groups up and down the country who are helping us to hold polluters to account. We will secure a fair deal for customers, we will rebuild public trust, and we will protect the environment to support health, nature and our economy. The Environment Agency has identified agriculture as the largest source of pollution in the Otter, and we are taking action to tackle it. We are creating a single, clear set of rules for farmers. We are doubling farm inspections, enabling at least 6,000 inspections a year by 2029, while working with farmers to raise their standards. That is an increase from around 700 inspections in 2021. We are increasing funding for environmental land management schemes from £800 million in 2023-24 to £2 billion by 2028-29. That funding targets crucial issues, such as improving water quality. We are also taking decisive action on sewage pollution, strengthening enforcement and holding water companies to account. We have £104 billion of private investment from water companies to upgrade our ageing, creaking, leaking water infrastructure. That includes more than £10 billion to improve around 2,500 storm overflows in England by 2030 and £4.5 billion to reduce nutrient pollution over the same period, including upgrades to nutrient removal at Feniton treatment works. We have set a target in our environmental improvement plan to reduce phosphorus from waste water by 55% by 2030, putting us on track for an 80% reduction by 2038. We are well on our way to delivering that, and phosphorus removal improvements were completed at Churchinford treatment works in 2024. We are requiring water companies to ringfence investment so that it is spent on infrastructure upgrades and not diverted elsewhere, and we have, as the hon. Member notes, introduced the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 to raise standards and enforce accountability. As of 1 April 2026, water companies must publish annual pollution incident reduction plans. Under the previous Government, reduction plans were voluntary. Now they are mandatory and public, so that everyone can see what the water companies have set out to do. The Act introduced a requirement for spill monitoring at all emergency overflows, matching the pre-existing requirement to monitor discharges from storm overflows—those are two separate things. It has also given regulators powers to ban bonuses for executives at failing water companies and pursue criminal charges against bosses where needed. We have already stopped more than £4 million in bonuses for the bosses of polluting water companies. This month, we fined South West Water more than £1.8 million after the Brixham water supply incident, which involved cryptosporidium from agricultural run-off. That is a record penalty for a drinking water offence, reflecting the seriousness of the company’s failure. Where water companies fail, this Government act. I am concerned to learn that South West Water has made statements to local communities that did not accurately reflect the full position. In relation to Honiton, the company told a local group that it had sought a tighter permit limit. That was incorrect. The Environment Agency challenged that directly. The company has since acknowledged that its statement was not a true reflection of events, apologised and committed to issuing a formal retraction. This is what accountability looks like, and we will continue to enforce it. I hope that the hon. Gentleman can reassure Marc Astley and the 50,000 petitioners that we are taking action to tackle bonuses given through back-door retention payments. Companies must comply with the spirit as well as the letter of the law. I am also concerned to hear from the hon. Gentleman that the gorgeous beach at Budleigh Salterton has lost its blue flag status, given that it is a designated bathing water site. We have designated more sites in order to force water companies to up their game, but this is not how it is supposed to happen; beaches are not supposed to lose their blue flags. We will look into that issue. Unlike the previous Government, we are committed to stopping pollution before it starts. If we take rainwater out of our sewers, we reduce pressure on the system and cut storm overflow spills. Capturing rainwater where it falls reduces the amount of water entering the network. It is estimated that the average household roof collects 85,000 litres of rainwater each year—equivalent to around 4 trillion litres, or 1.6 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, annually across the UK. Of course, that all runs off and is lost, and then we enter summer, there are heatwaves and drought ensues. Managing that water better can reduce discharges into rivers, like the Otter. In the clean water Bill, which will be introduced in this Session, we will commit to ensuring that regulatory mechanisms and funding support the delivery of solutions. We want to maximise the opportunities offered by better managing rain where it lands. That approach will benefit communities and the environment, prevent flooding and help with urban development, ensuring that policies and services work better to deliver. We recognise that the water sector does need reform. The clean water Bill will deliver on commitments in the White Paper, driving reforms to transform the water system for good and secure a sustainable system for future generations. It will establish an enhanced regional planning function to help identify lower cost, higher impact solutions across whole catchment areas—looking at the entire river from source to sea, instead of at individual works—and considering opportunities across sectors. That will improve water quality and supply. It will also enable a greater uptake in preventive interventions and nature-based solutions to reduce long-term costs and improve resilience. The Government are committed to improving the regulation of private sewerage to reduce pollution from those systems, which I am sure the hon. Member is aware of. We recognise that the current sewer adoption arrangements need review and will consider how to enact that change. On the Otter, the Environment Agency’s team carried out over 900 inspections in Devon and Cornwall in 2025-26, including unannounced visits, prioritising the most environmentally sensitive sites, some of which will have been in the Otter catchment. The Environment Agency is currently investigating potential offences at Ottery St Mary’s sewage attenuation tank. It is in the process of agreeing an enforcement undertaking with South West Water and investigating event duration monitoring data from the site. I am sure that will be of interest to the hon. Member, to the campaigners and to everybody who cares about this precious river. Our water system has not worked as it should, but the Government are taking strong, robust action to fix it. We are acting to clean up rivers and to hold the water companies to account for their pollution, their neglect and their negligence, and we are stopping them from marking their own homework. We are securing record investment to rebuild infrastructure, tackling pollution at its source and restoring trust in this damaged industry. We are delivering a cleaner, healthier River Otter for future generations to enjoy. Question put and agreed to.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Draft Digital Waste Tracking (England) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. I also pay tribute to his council in Oldham, which wrote to me about a very thought-provoking motion that the council passed. The leader of the council—I am sorry; his name escapes me—said that environmental justice goes hand in hand with social justice. These environmental crimes are predominantly perpetrated against poorer communities. There is a kind of social injustice there that we must not lose sight of. There are certain parts of Coventry that are spotless and have no litter or fly-tipping, and other areas, like Foleshill, the ward where my office is, where fly-tipping is absolutely endemic. I will conclude by talking about our manifesto commitment to forcing fly-tippers and vandals to clean up their mess. We will soon consult on giving local councils the powers to issue fly-tippers with conditional cautions, one of a range of pre-court community-based sanctions that could see offenders completing up to 20 hours of unpaid work cleaning up streets and parks and paying back the cost of cleaning up the waste that they have dumped on public land. If an offender admits to the crime, agrees to the caution and complies with those conditions, they will not face prosecution. Anyone who spends a couple of hours cleaning up litter and sweating in the hot sun, as I did on Friday in Willenhall, will be very keen not to repeat the experience. Nationwide waste tracking does not exist, so the costs are uncertain at the moment because we do not have a baseline to go from. However, we have used HMRC’s Making Tax Digital as an assumption as it is a similar digital delivery policy. We have put in a 400% optimism bias to account for underestimation because we do not know what we do not know—the unknown unknowns. There are more firms in scope for Making Tax Digital compared with digital waste tracking—obviously, because not everyone is doing waste. Therefore, economies of scale will differ. With that, I thank the Committee for its attention, good humour and positive comments this afternoon. I commend the fact that the legislation is widely supported by stakeholders for whom it could not come soon enough and who have been begging for it since the previous Government’s waste and litter strategy was published back in 2019. The hon. Member for Epping Forest asked about the circular economy growth plan. That is going through the normal Government channels and processes. I am sure he will be very excited when it is eventually produced, because that is our whole economy plan: to be a resilient, clean and highly efficient materials nation. The legislation has been highly anticipated by our stakeholders. I am delighted that it is supported by Members on both sides of the House and am thrilled to have been able to present it here today. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That the Committee has considered the draft Digital Waste Tracking (England) Regulations 2026.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Draft Digital Waste Tracking (England) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Digital Waste Tracking (England) Regulations 2026. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I begin by wishing my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North a happy significant birthday, and I look forward to celebrating with her later and at various points throughout the week ahead. The draft regulations were laid before the House on 23 April this year. More than 200 million tonnes of waste are produced in the UK each year, and there is currently no comprehensive way of tracking it. Legislation relating to the transport, management and description of waste has been introduced in a piecemeal fashion over the last 30 years. Large amounts of waste movement data recorded through the current system are either not collected or are required to be submitted only each quarter and, of course, they are collected on a paper-based system. As a result, at a national level, it is difficult to determine where waste is from and what happens to it. At a local level, it is difficult for waste producers to check that their waste has been handled appropriately. The system’s lack of transparency gives waste criminals opportunities to undercut legitimate waste businesses and to cause harm to our environment and communities. This crime costs the UK economy an estimated £1 billion each year, due to activities such as fly-tipping, deliberate misclassification of waste to avoid paying landfill taxes, illegal waste exports and the operation of illegal waste sites. For investigations, regulators usually need to request individual waste records by serving legal notices, which is time-consuming and prone to document falsification. Replacing the outdated paper-based system will give the Environment Agency much-needed compliance oversight and help to close the loopholes that rogue operators exploit. The regulations will support those who do the right thing, not those who undercut them and think that “muck” is an accurate waste description or that providing a partial postcode for the source of waste is acceptable. By requiring near real-time information about waste movements to be recorded on a centralised system, the regulations will enable officers to identify unusual patterns, pinpoint high-risk operators, intervene earlier and shape targeted initiatives. We are shifting from reactive investigation to proactive prevention. The regulations are the crucial first step in transforming the waste industry so that regulators—the Environment Agency—have timely data on waste movements from production right through to disposal. The previous Government consulted on these reforms way back in 2022. They responded to the consultation the following year, but critically, they did not introduce these changes. This Government are acting. The first set of regulations will mandate that waste receivers operating under an environmental permit make a digital record of waste that comes into their facilities and submit that information to the digital waste tracking system within two working days of the waste being received. A second statutory instrument will be laid before the House next year to extend requirements to capture the full end-to-end waste journey information. Before I turn to the detail of the legislation, I acknowledge the work of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Its report highlighted a point of interest on how digital waste tracking will interact with the new packaging extended producer responsibility scheme, or pEPR. Of course, once it is fully implemented next year, the data submitted to the digital waste tracking system will help to reduce fraud in the pEPR system as well. I turn to the detail of the legislation, which provides a new statutory framework to tackle the problem of waste tracking. It designates the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to establish, maintain and operate the digital system. It requires that permitted waste receivers make digital records of specified information, as set out in schedule 1, before submitting it on to the system. There is a requirement for operators to pay an annual fee of £26, which will be used to recoup the costs of establishing, operating and maintaining the system. Although there will also be transition costs to businesses of just over £1.5 million over four years between 2026 and 2029, and costs to obtain software estimated at under £39 million over 15 years, those costs are significantly outweighed by the future benefits of businesses no longer having to submit quarterly waste returns and, of course, the reduction in waste crime, which gives legitimate operators more waste to legitimately dispose of. Together, those savings are estimated at nearly £600 million over the 15-year appraisal period. As the illegal businesses—the criminals—leave the industry, there will be reduced unfair competition, more waste for the compliant operators and increased revenue. The draft regulations introduce a new offence of failing to comply with the legislation and make provision for criminal penalties and civil sanctions, with unlimited fines available to punish offenders. Those who try to commit fraud by entering false information on to the system can also be prosecuted under section 44 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and receive up to two years in prison. The introduction of digital waste tracking is a cornerstone of the Government’s waste crime action plan, the toughest ever crackdown on illegal waste activity. Through the action plan, we are strengthening regulations; pursuing the criminals responsible with more boots on the ground, more drones in the air, advanced technologies and stronger punishments; and accelerating the clean-up effort. We are doubling the Environment Agency’s enforcement budget with an additional £45 million over the next three financial years, on top of the £5.6 million increase we had already announced for this financial year—£50 million in total over three years. That will bring waste crime enforcement funding to more than £30 million a year, compared with a miserly £10 million a year in 2023-24. We believe in regulation for the environment, whether that is in the water sector, as we heard today with the Secretary of State’s statement to the House, or in the waste system. We are also introducing the waste carriers, brokers and dealers reform, tightening the waste exemption system and giving courts the powers to put up to nine points on the licences of fly-tippers. My message to the waste criminals is clear: we are coming for you, we will track you down and there is no longer anywhere to hide.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Draft Digital Waste Tracking (England) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to respond to that short but pithy and valuable debate. I am grateful to the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Epping Forest, for his comments. He is beginning to remind me a bit of St Augustine, who was famous for his prayer of, “Grant me chastity, Oh Lord, but not yet”, because, as he said, he laid the foundations for some of this work while in government. That includes the EPR system, which he voted for in 2024 along with all his Conservative colleagues. He now stands loudly lamenting EPR, but I just remind him that it is something that his party developed in government and voted for less than two years ago. I share the hon. Gentleman’s frustration about NOx canisters. I am still mystified as to why they are on sale in the UK. I know they are useful for whipping cream, but we see when we go on Amazon, as I did a couple of years ago, that people who bought NOx canisters also bought little canisters to sell it for £1, £2, or whatever it is they do to create further litter. It is absolutely clear that there is not a sudden, massive interest in whipping cream across the festivals and parklands of this great nation. In fact, nitrous oxide is a highly regulated substance and a fluorinated gas that we need for some medical emergencies. I remember the glory days of British dentistry, where any time someone went for a filling they got the happy gas so that they did not really mind what was happening to their teeth. Those of us who are old enough will remember that— [ Interruption. ] I can see nods of recognition. There were various bans of nitrous oxide, but it is still used for women in childbirth. If we have a quota for fluorinated gas, under various UN conventions, we should keep that quota but reduce it and save it for absolutely medically necessary issues, and not allow a huge black market to proliferate in this thing that is allegedly used for whipping cream. Last Friday, I was out picking up litter and a variety of other things, including a wendy house, that had been fly-tipped in Willenhall in Coventry, and I picked up three nitrous oxide canisters. The day before that I had been to an incinerator, an energy-from-waste plant, where they had shown me how these canisters can burn at incredibly high temperatures. They told me that the canisters should never be put into any sort of incineration, because that presents a danger to workers both on the journey towards incineration and at the incinerator—even though they can come out of the incinerator safely because they are tested to such a high engineering capacity. I thought, “Right, I will not just leave these canisters for the council to pick up; I will take them to a metals recycling facility.” I took them to European Metals Recycling, which is close to my office in Coventry, where I was told, “We don’t take these.” I am not clear where these canisters are meant to be safely disposed of, and if I am the waste Minister and I do not know, I am not clear what everyone else is supposed to be doing. I will start my little battle on NOS—watch this space. Let me talk to some of the other points that were raised. First, charities and local authorities will have to pay the fees. With this waste system, we have essentially mirrored what His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has done through Making Tax Digital. We have done something that is legible and readable through the back end and that can be used by proprietary software providers, rather than building our own proprietary software and making it clunky and rubbish, which is what Government software schemes are famous for doing. We thought, “How can we turn this on its head and do something that can be used and is fungible and readable across other databases?” We watched what had happened with HMRC and fundamentally designed that in. The system is in beta testing because I believe in making haste slowly. I do not believe in big-bang changes. I believe in working with a coalition of the willing to test, refine and improve. The fee is set at £26. That includes charities, local authorities—anyone operating permitted waste facilities where commercial waste activities are carried out. The fee recovers the cost of establishing, operating and maintaining the services. It includes costs for things like the digital system build, the ongoing hosting cost and the operation of the helpdesk for users, which is run through the Environment Agency. The total costs were estimated over a 10-year period and averaged over the total number of operators expected to be using the service once it has been fully delivered, ensuring that those in the first phase will not pay more, so people are not penalised for being one of the good guys. That approach has been agreed by Treasury. We intend to review the service charge once the system is fully operational and we have more accurate data about the number of users on the system. Of course, one of the issues is that lots of people are not on the system, and we do not know where they are, so we will amend the service charge through legislation as needed. The service fee is paid annually to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs by users as part of their account registration. One of the main aims of introducing digital waste tracking is to reduce waste crime. Regulators need to distinguish between someone who is digitally excluded and someone who is deliberately not complying with the regulations. There are provisions in the statutory instrument for the digitally excluded—although in this day and age, if someone is running a company without any sort of computer, we do have to wonder. By not having a criminal sanction for failing to apply for a digitally excluded number or recording that number on written records, it may give the impression that this is less important than digital users applying. It may lead to digitally excluded operators choosing not to comply and there would be gaps in waste movement records, which would undermine the whole system, so we have included that. On packaging extended producer responsibility, one of the questions that has been around for at least the last decade—it is not a new one; the hon. Member for Epping Forest will have heard it, as I have—is about the need to reduce fraud in the producer responsibility note and the producer export responsibility note system. We have already introduced a number of measures to address that fraud. All reprocessors and exporters who handle any packaging waste will now have to register, collect and report data on packaging waste received, processed, rejected and exported. The pERP regulation will place requirements on accredited reprocessors and exporters, including monthly reporting of packaging waste reprocessed or exported and monthly data on packaging recovery notes/packaging export recycling note prices by material. Exporters will need to provide proof of receipt at the final overseas destination site to issue a PERN and retain records of the recycling of the packaging waste. Critically, there will also be a new fit and proper person test for operators as part of the accreditation process. In addition, DEFRA has recently consulted on further proposals to enhance the PRN system, target fraud and ensure that packaging waste is managed in an environmentally sustainable way. The results of that consultation will be published shortly. Digital waste tracking is being introduced in phases, but we intend to mandate the recoding of information about exports of green list waste, also known as article 18 waste, in the system from 2027. So it will come here in April next year and we will look to introduce it from October 2027. The increased visibility of export data will also help to combat fraud in the system. On litter, local authorities already have powers to take enforcement action. We have been encouraging them to make good use of those powers, because under the previous Government they did not have the cash to pursue prosecutions and actions against offenders. We have published new statutory litter enforcement guidance: “Litter enforcement powers—when and how to use them”. Local authorities now have a legal duty to have regard to that guidance, which will lead to a more consistent approach to tackling litterers across the country. We have also published a refreshed code of practice on litter and refuse, which sets out the standards expected of local authorities and other duty bodies with regard to keeping land clear of litter and refuse. I pay tribute to the many Wombles and clean-up squads across the country that are doing such great work, but we want to get to a stage where there is no littering and people understand and respect the areas around them. I will add a final thought on fly-tipping: councils already have powers to seize and search the vehicles of suspected fly-tippers. Again, to support them making better use of that power, we have published best practice guidance and case studies on the website of the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group. We have also secured powers in the Crime and Policing Act 2026 to provide statutory fly-tipping enforcement guidance on using their powers and powers for the courts to award between three and nine penalty points on the driving licences of those found guilty of fly-tipping. Often, we find that fly-tippers are doing a little job for their mates on the weekend. They might be drivers in the week, and this is a little weekend side-hustle. The penalty points would make it harder for offenders to continue dumping illegally if they are disqualified from driving and send a clear warning: fly-tipping is not to be tolerated.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Draft Marine Licensing (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment etc.) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Sir John. This is a once in a generation step forward in ocean governance, which ensures areas beyond national jurisdiction are managed sustainably, transparently and equitably as part of that biodiversity sharing agreement that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. In the absence of this legislation, we would not have the tools to assess and manage activities and their potential impacts.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Draft Marine Licensing (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment etc.) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  Absolutely. I recognise that there are concerns about specified cable activity remaining exempt from regulation, but that is based on evidence provided in our consultation responses and discussions with other Government Departments, including the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. I reassure hon. Members that, as a result of that evidence and those discussions, we consider cable-related activity in areas beyond national jurisdiction to be of sufficiently low impact as to fall below the threshold, which is why we are maintaining the current cabling exemption. However, science and industry are evolving in this area, so we are working on it. In the consultation, which we held jointly with the Scottish Government and which was open for four weeks in November 2025, we had only 22 responses from industry research organisations, environmental non-government organisations, consultants and consultancies, public bodies and DEFRA arms-length bodies, which shows that this is quite a niche area. Eighty-nine other states have now ratified the BBNJ treaty and 145 states have signed it, so there is huge international support. We have only one ocean; although we may call it different things in different places, it is the mantle that wraps around the globe. As the hon. Member for Epping Forest says, we are often blind to the treasures that it holds in its deeps, whether that is the glorious seaweed baths on the Atlantic coast, or the next cure for an ailment or disease. Our ocean is vital to so many of our industries and provides proteins for billions of people, so it is important that we protect it for the future. I commend the order to the Committee. Question put and agreed to.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Draft Marine Licensing (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment etc.) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  I am sure that it is expensive. Does the right hon. Member want to tell the Committee what it is?

• 9 Jun 2026 · Draft Marine Licensing (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment etc.) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  I do not have that figure to hand, but I am sure that the magic of the officials’ box will enable me to give the right hon. Member the figure by the end of the sitting—or perhaps he knows and can enlighten the Committee.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Draft Marine Licensing (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment etc.) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  The difference is that we are actually now saying where the money is coming from, how we are going to meet that target, and how we are going to aggregate the land and seas. An undertaking to do something, without having a plan to deliver it, it is not worth the paper it is written on. Hon. Members will appreciate that future industry activity is difficult to predict in areas beyond national jurisdiction. Our consultation and previous engagement with stakeholders identified some likely activities in such areas, including telecommunications cable activity, marine scientific research, space flight activity, and deep sea mining, but not all such activities will be in the scope of marine licensing. The right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire asked about licence applications and the costs. There have been only two licences granted for an activity in areas beyond national jurisdiction. One was for the Virgin Orbit launch in 2022—I am not sure if he was the Secretary of State at the time; there were so many in those two years that I cannot be expected to remember who was where at that time. It was before his time, was it?

• 9 Jun 2026 · Draft Marine Licensing (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment etc.) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  I will correct the record. The magic of the officials’ box has informed me that the maximum penalty is an unlimited fine, not a £50,000 fine, and/or a term of imprisonment of up to two years. That is significant, so it certainly would be worth a company’s while undertaking an assessment, depending on the activity that it is trying to do. If it were deep sea mining and things like that, it might be financially worth it, but it is certainly worth the company thinking about it. Of course, we do not need physical vessels to do enforcement, because we have eyes in the sky via satellite, and we can map these things. The right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire knows that we have satellites, because he contracted with Earth system satellites, which can map down to 100 or 200 metres. We do not need ships there; we can send ships where they are needed and take enforcement action. Before the right hon. Gentleman’s question, I was talking about the activities that will not need a marine licence and about reducing the burdens on regulators. An exemption will be introduced for the removal of specified subsea cables carried out in areas beyond national jurisdiction. The removal of these cables has a low environmental impact and is considered to fall consistently below the BBNJ screening threshold. Alongside today’s statutory instrument, I would like to highlight the Marine Licensing (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Order 2026, which makes corresponding provision for activities within Scottish competence—activities regulated by the Scottish Government under devolved powers. The Scottish instrument adds new licensable activities to the licensing regime under the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 and makes other changes to that regime. That will ensure that the Scottish licensing framework aligns with the United Kingdom’s obligations under the BBNJ agreement. The Scottish order was made in March 2026 and will come into force on the same day that the BBNJ agreement enters into force for the United Kingdom. To avoid dual regulation, so that a marine licence is not required under both our licensing regime and the Scottish Government’s marine licensing regime for the same activity, this statutory instrument provides for an exemption in relation to certain activities that are regulated under part 4 of the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010. It also makes consequential amendments to ensure that existing exemptions and registration provisions can apply appropriately to activities in areas beyond national jurisdiction. The statutory instrument implements the necessary changes to marine licensing to enable the ratification of the BBNJ agreement. We are confident that its provisions will improve environmental protections in areas beyond national jurisdiction while avoiding unnecessary regulatory burden. The Marine Management Organisation’s enforcement strategy includes a range of tools, from advisory letters to formal enforcement action, applied proportionately, based on risk and available evidence. Conditions can be placed on licences, requiring licence holders to keep records and make returns or to provide information to the MMO. It will develop intelligence gateways in areas beyond national jurisdiction to assess where there may be non-licensed activity taking place and how to address it. As it is intelligence-based, we would not be expected to say what those methods would be. Having just talked about satellites, I am sure that the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire will know that that may be one of the routes.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Draft Marine Licensing (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment etc.) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  Having been Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the right hon. Member knows the what is involved in monitoring activity in areas beyond our national jurisdiction. What we know is that this regulation will apply to British vessels, British persons and activities that are licensed and under our control. As I said, only two of these licences have been issued in the last 15 years. We want the areas beyond national jurisdiction to be protected. Those are often areas of deep ocean, where we do not understand and have not mapped the seabed. During my extended sabbatical I went to see some of the marine science work, including marine mapping, going on at the University of Southampton. We want the high seas to be open and accessible to all. These controls are about making sure that, under this new convention, British vessels are not in breach of international agreements. With the right hon. Gentleman’s permission—

• 9 Jun 2026 · Draft Marine Licensing (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment etc.) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  The other was for a dye tracer study in 2015. I am not sure what that means, but perhaps they were putting in chemicals to trace something—currents, for example. We might think, “Well, that’s a bit weird,” but if it is about finding where the currents and tides go, and where the winds are blowing, it all feeds into the brilliant science and weather forecasting we are able to do here in this country. We do not anticipate many activities being covered—I know the right hon. Gentleman is concerned about the volume of activities—although the lack of past case studies makes it difficult to determine the volume of activities that might take place in the future. The hon. Member for Epping Forest is right to raise the issue of the incredibly important marine environment around the Chagos Islands. It is home to 220 coral species—corals are on the frontline of the climate crisis and we are doing some great work, particularly in Cayman Islands, around tackling stony coral disease—855 fish species and 355 mollusc species, so it is incredibly important. However, I am sorry to say that decisions on what is or is not going to happen with the Chagos Islands are not a matter for Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs Ministers, and he is tempting me to stray beyond my brief. So with your permission, Sir John, I will leave it there, and agree it is an important protected area.