Steve Barclay MP: speeches

Speeches

• 4 Jun 2025 · Environment Agency: East of England · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman raises an extremely important point, and he is correct. It seems that the Environment Agency is very happy to go after what it may perceive to be easier and more law-abiding targets, but as the most serious environmental harm is caused by serious criminal gangs, there is often a reluctance to take on those organisations in the way that it does an individual farmer. That is why this also points to a need for a much more fundamental reform of the Department’s relationship with its arm’s length bodies, as well as its accountability to Ministers, regardless of which Government is in office. This debate is focused specifically on the east of England, and I want to give three examples of where that operational performance really illustrates concerns across the boards with environmental damage being caused. Before doing so, given that I have been the Secretary of State, I thought it relevant to touch on a national example to show that this is not simply a constituency or local issue. With that in mind, let me inform the House about Hoad’s wood, which is a site of special scientific interest and an area of outstanding natural beauty that has been covered—as you probably know, Sir Roger—in more than 35,000 tonnes of illegal waste. We might have thought that a SSSI would be a priority case for the Environment Agency, and one where it would be most certain to take action. However, so concerned was I as a Minister that I had to take the very unusual step of issuing a ministerial direction. No ministerial direction had been issued in the Department in the preceding seven years before I arrived as Secretary of State, so this was an unusual but necessary step to compel the EA to take action on a SSSI. Again, I think that speaks to some of the issues. Even so, the situation has dragged on, with contractors not appointed until November last year, work not beginning until March and completion not expected until at least 2026. That points to some of the issues with the most valuable sites, never mind more routine sites.

• 4 Jun 2025 · Environment Agency: East of England · Hansard source

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  It does need fundamental reform. I became Secretary of State very close to the general election, but one of my first acts was to issue an instruction to take more rigorous enforcement action more generally on water pollution. I know that current Ministers want to see a more robust set of actions. I come to my final point. Not least given the Government’s majority and where we are in the parliamentary cycle, there is an opportunity to look at the Department’s relationship with its arm’s length bodies. The Department of Health and Social Care is going through that exact process with NHS England. I encourage the ministerial team to reflect on that, not least for when in some years’ time they are explaining how, if there is lack of action, that sits with some of their priorities. Irrespective of that, as we heard in interventions from across the House, the EA’s lack of transparency and accountability on its operational performance needs to be addressed. I encourage the Minister to focus some time in her busy schedule on doing that.

• 4 Jun 2025 · Environment Agency: East of England · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the performance of the Environment Agency in the East of England. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I have secured this debate to highlight concerns about the operational performance of the Environment Agency in the east of England. This reflects both my time as the Secretary of State overseeing the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the run-up to the general election and numerous interactions with it in my capacity as a constituency MP. As we are meeting the week before a comprehensive spending review, it is perhaps prudent to start with the usual excuse given by organisations for poor operational performance: a lack of people or funding. According to the Environment Agency’s own annual outcomes, its full-time equivalent staff increased in the last Parliament by 21% from 10,791 in 2019-2020, at the start of the Parliament, to more than 13,000 in 2023-24. Over the same period, its expenditure has gone up from £1.4 billion to £2.2 billion, so it has significantly more people and funding, while at the same time showing a remarkable lack of transparency or accountability to Ministers or Members of Parliament, and a remarkable lack of willingness to take enforcement action against those causing the worst levels of environmental damage.

• 4 Jun 2025 · Environment Agency: East of England · Hansard source

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  I do share them. Just for the Minister’s benefit, the hon. Gentleman’s constituency will be materially affected by the Wisbech incinerator in terms of transport; when the developers doubled its size in order to take it out of the local planning process, they created a different problem of how to get sufficient waste to run it. Therefore, it has to take in waste from further and further afield. As Wisbech is a market town, accessed by single carriageway roads—the A47 is single carriageway into Wisbech—bringing waste through my neighbour’s constituency will cause huge traffic there, as it will in many other constituencies across the eastern region. A BBC report highlights the severe environmental damage that would be caused by the proposed incinerator, but the hon. Gentleman also highlights a wider point about lack of transparency. As in the King’s dyke fishing example, as a constituency MP one chases on behalf of constituents to get them some answers, yet organisations feel they are unaccountable. That brings me to my final point. It will not surprise the Minister that, as a member of the last Government, I quite frequently raised my constituency concerns—before I was in the Department—with relevant Secretaries of State, and I know that they raised those with the EA; yet, as we see with Saxon Pit, it still failed to take prosecution action over seven years while saying to people locally, “It is a priority case.” As Secretary of State myself, I found the organisation so unresponsive that I had to take the unusual step of issuing a ministerial direction. In fact, I issued two in my six months in the Department, where none had been issued in the seven years before. I fear that Ministers now need to look at the accountability to democratic control of not just the Environment Agency, but Natural England—not least given the three interventions we have heard from colleagues across the House.

• 4 Jun 2025 · Environment Agency: East of England · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member absolutely catches the point raised earlier about the lack of accountability and transparency, and the highlights fact that, although the EA has had more money and resource, it is not targeting priority cases or long-standing issues, while often telling Members of Parliament that they are priorities. I will come on to that, because there is a wider issue of which the Minister needs to be aware: the slowness to act and lack of accountability. Turning to the east of England, and my own constituency in particular, let me give three examples that cover a range of scenarios. The first is the dumping of more than 122,000 tonnes of waste at Saxon Pit in Whittlesey between October 2017 and February 2018. The EA’s initial response was to say that it was totally unaware of 122,000 tonnes of waste being dumped—but, regardless of whether the EA had been asleep at the wheel, we would expect it to then act. In its initial response, the EA said that the operator must dispose of all the non-conforming waste by 10 October 2018; yet seven years on the waste remains in situ. The EA also promised prosecutions, because this was such a serious case. I will quote just one of many letters that I exchanged with the EA over this period. In 2021, the then-chief executive Sir James Bevan promised that “Saxon Pit is being treated as a priority”. The EA’s investigation took a further 14 months to complete, but in June 2022 it said that a “final set of interviews…will take place shortly”. In October 2022, the chief executive asked me to, “be assured that my teams are prioritising this work over other competing criminal inquiries”. Three years ago, the EA said it was prioritising this serious case, with more 122,000 tonnes of waste, over other cases. It was a priority case. Yet three years on, and seven years on from the incident, we still have no prosecutions. To go back to what the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said a moment ago, what cases is the EA prosecuting with its additional resource, if it is not prosecuting at Saxon Pit? I thought that the Minister might reflect, “Perhaps that was simply an issue of the past Government. Perhaps things have changed—the Environment Agency has perhaps changed its approach.” I therefore thought it would be helpful to give a second example, from the last year: a very serious pollution incident at King’s dyke, in Whittlesey, the same town as Saxon Pit. I have seen internal papers from the Environment Agency that show that it described the problem, and reported it to the Department, as a category 1 pollution incident. For those not familiar with the term, a category 1 pollution incident is the most severe level, involving a “serious, persistent…or extensive impact…on the environment, people…or property”. The BBC reported that an estimated 900 fish were killed in close vicinity to an Anglian Water overflow pipe, and that the pipe had discharged for 23 hours due to a suspected pump failure. When I spoke to Anglian Water and the Environment Agency, no other credible reason was given for the serious incident. I was then told that water samples had been taken and would be quick to establish whether the overflow pipe was the cause of the category 1 incident. I was told on 10 October 2024 that the lab tests were under way, that it would take a week for them to determine the cause, and that an internal decision would be taken on enforcement in November. November then became December. December became January. We kept chasing, and we were told, “No, it’s no longer January; it’s May.” We chased again in May, and were told September. This is an issue that Ministers say—and I do not doubt for a minute their sincerity—is an absolute priority for the Government. We have the most serious level of pollution incident, a category 1, which happened in September, yet the Environment Agency says it will not tell the public of Whittlesey the cause of it for at least a year—even though I suspect that, internally and within the Department, it is already known whether Anglian Water was the cause and whether, therefore, a criminal investigation should follow. I do not believe that is a sufficient level of transparency or accountability. Let me give a third example. As a former Minister, I thought I would try to pitch these examples in a way that is constructive across the House. One debate that the Minister may recall was led by one of her parliamentary colleagues, the hon. Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker). In it, he raised cross-party concerns—indeed, there were a number of the Minister’s colleagues present, though it was one of her colleagues on the Front Bench—around the environmental damage of incinerators. That is something that many charities usually more closely aligned with the left of politics, such as Friends of the Earth, have raised concerns about, but it is also an issue that many on the Government Benches have highlighted, and one that I have consistently raised myself. We now know that DEFRA’s own analysis suggests that there is enough national capacity for incineration. As more waste is recycled, the requirements for incineration come down. A BBC report highlighted the serious damage caused by these incinerators and by waste being burned because of anaerobic digesters. Most of that is now plastic, and it is the dirtiest way to generate power. No one would have thought a Government committed to the environment would want to see more incinerators being built. Incineration is on a par with coal as the dirtiest form of energy generation, yet we still do not have clarity from the Government on whether environmental permits will remain in force for incinerators that have not yet been built. One of those is in Wisbech. To put this incinerator in context, it is so big that one half its size in the neighbouring constituency was turned down—so they doubled it in size to make it a national scheme and take it outside local planning. It is sited 700 metres from the largest school in the district, accessed solely by single carriageway roads, with a chimney bigger than Ely cathedral in the flat landscape of the fens. The Environment Agency, in issuing a permit, says it does not consider any of the environmental harm of transporting waste from six different counties to this small market town, because the permit only applies to the curtilage of the site itself. I simply ask, given the cross-party support on this issue, whether that decision by the Environment Agency is fit for purpose. I will add one further point. Is it not very odd that the decision to grant an environmental permit was made during the general election purdah period, a time when organisations are not supposed to take controversial decisions? I hope the Minister will follow up on that, because I know that many of her own Government colleagues are concerned. Where incinerators have not yet been built, we should not be embedding the environmental damage that so many charities and environmental groups, and so many of our own colleagues have expressed concern about.

• 15 May 2025 · Solar Farms · Hansard source

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  Indeed, the Government are creating an incentive to do the exact opposite of own manifesto pledge, which is why I started with that point. Let me come on to the second place where we can see Labour’s approach—in the Cabinet. Of course, we cannot witness the Cabinet in action at first hand, but it is very clear—certainly to someone who has had the good fortune to sit in Cabinet—how marginalised the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has become. We see the Prime Minister announce things such as the compulsory purchase of farmland in order to support infrastructure schemes; we see the former Labour leader, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, make a whole raft of decisions in his first few weeks of office on massive solar farms, overriding DEFRA; we see the Deputy Prime Minister riding roughshod over the DEFRA Secretary of State on housing schemes; and we see the Chancellor phoning officials at DEFRA the night before to say that the sustainable farming incentive had been reduced so quickly that the Government have now had to concede in a legal case that their approach was wrong and allow a further 3,000 farm applications to proceed—and that is without any clear commitments in this area. When I warned at the election about Labour’s farm tax, the now DEFRA Secretary of State said that it was complete nonsense. Well, we have seen the Government introduce that tax and watched while the Treasury rode roughshod over the Department. We have a Department that is completely sidelined in the Government and failing to speak up not just for food security and farming, but for the very commitments that were made in the Labour manifesto. We see a theme running across a whole range of policy announcements that shows the instinct, the values and the priorities of this Government, who always believe that top-down knows best. They do not believe in localism. The implication for solar farms can be seen in how the delivery of the policy is happening on the ground. We are seeing clusters in the east of England, as my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) would point out, in areas of the best food production. We are seeing a gaming of the system, where the developers bring in consultants to grade the land in ways that sit at odds with historic knowledge of the value of that land.

• 15 May 2025 · Solar Farms · Hansard source

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  To understand this Government’s approach to solar farms, one should start by re-reading the Labour manifesto —page 59 of the Labour manifesto to be more precise. I know that it was only a year ago, but in its solemn promise to the British people, it said: “Labour recognises that food security is national security. That is why we will champion British farming”. That may now seem a long time ago, because a succession of announcements from this Government have made it clear that there is no commitment to farming or to food security. Indeed, that applies to many of their other commitments—smash the gangs, council tax bills will not go up, or energy bills will come down. On food security and its importance to national security it is clear that it was a fake promise. Indeed, there is an irony here, because we still have the ongoing covid inquiry. I was Chief Secretary to the Treasury at the time of covid, and it was clear to me that at a time of national crisis, value for money changes; there is competing demand across nations for scarce resources. I assure Members that, at such a crisis point, food security becomes an issue of national security, which is why the carelessness of the current Government on their manifesto commitment matters so much.

• 15 May 2025 · Solar Farms · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is completely right; the issue is hiding in plain sight. When I was in the Government and sought to strengthen the protections for farmland, changes to the guidance were made, including bringing forward independent certification for agricultural land classification in soil surveys. We know at a constituency level that malpractice is going on and is not being challenged. The point is that that is not by accident. This is not an error of delivery. This is by design, and we can see that design in the raft of decisions made by the Energy Secretary in his very first weeks in office. Indeed, close to our constituencies, just near to Cambridge, there was an important announcement on a mega farm, which was made by the new Secretary of State against official advice. This matters because it is related to wider trust in our politics. A clear commitment was given to rural communities by Labour in its manifesto that is being broken. I will close, conscious that many colleagues want to participate in this debate, with this comment for Labour Back Benchers. It may be that Nos. 10 and 11 have simply decided that, with their majority, they can afford to sacrifice a number of their rural MPs who had not been expected to win the election, and it may by that they decided that those MPs were not essential, but it is baffling that there is so much silence. These MPs are voting for measures that are having such a harmful effect in rural constituencies, and those measures are so short term that they are putting our food security, which does indeed matter to our national security, at risk.

• 3 Apr 2025 · Waste Incinerators · Hansard source

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  Just to follow the logic of the Minister’s point, if more recycling is being promoted by the Government, which is what she has set out, self-evidently both the composition of waste and the existing capacity for incineration will be sufficient. In their December paper, the Government said: “While there are a number of waste incineration facilities that are consented, but not yet under construction, it is highly unlikely that these will be brought forward.” If that is the Government’s expectation, and if the Minister is increasing recycling and the capacity is sufficient, why not give clarity to the public and her own Back Benchers by saying, “No more incinerators”?

• 3 Apr 2025 · Waste Incinerators · Hansard source

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  That is a fair point, which is addressed in DEFRA’s December paper. But as my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) highlighted, there are two at Huntingdon, another at Peterborough and two at Boston. There is already a concentration, so I do not accept the point about the east of England in that paper. My point is that we need to see analysis from DEFRA around the bridging issue for the next few years as the Government meet their legal target to reduce the amount of waste by 50% between 2019 and 2042. The amount of residual waste is coming down and we already have sufficient capacity, but there is a bridging issue. There will be short-term options around landfill refuse-derived fuel exports. We need to look at the respective merits of building huge incinerators and the damage that they will do compared with the short-term bridging options. The second point is that the waste mix has changed. That was a feature of the BBC report that the hon. Member for Derby South highlighted. Burning food waste produces less CO 2 than putting it in landfill, but burning plastics produces 175 times more carbon dioxide than burying it. The reason that that matters—to my first point about bridging—is that the mix going into incineration has fundamentally changed from when the planning rules were initially put in place. What we have seen, and what the BBC highlighted, is an increase in food waste being dealt with through anaerobic digestion. As the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) pointed out, the predominant waste now going to incineration is plastics. It is the burning of plastics that drives the environmental damage, and that is why the hon. Member for Derby South correctly pointed out that it is the dirtiest way that the UK generates power. My second question is whether the Minister will commit to publishing a composition analysis study of the residual waste treated at energy recovery facilities, as I asked for in a written question on 16 October. DEFRA has confirmed that it is undertaking a composition analysis study, but it was not published with the December analysis. Will the Minister commit to publishing that, so that we can see where the waste is going? Again, that fundamentally changes the environmental case around incineration.

• 3 Apr 2025 · Waste Incinerators · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I welcome the debate called by the hon. Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker); it highlights the cross-party consensus in opposing further incinerators. In terms of the Wisbech incinerator, it is remarkable that an application to build an incinerator half the size was rejected in the local authority next door, so the response of developers was to double the size in order to make it a nationally significant infrastructure project, to get out of the local planning rules; to put it next to the biggest school in the district—only 700 metres away; to take waste from six different counties, all on small roads in a rural market town; and to have a chimney bigger than Ely cathedral in the flat landscape of the Fens. One can understand why so many people share my concern with the proposal. I do not want to repeat the very good points that colleagues have made. I want to highlight two new points that the debate has not highlighted so far, which I hope will help Opposition and Government Members and support my own case in empowering the Minister. First, I will cite the Government’s own figures. On 30 December —quite recently—the Government’s own analysis showed that as of 2024 there was already 20.6 megatonnes of residual waste infrastructure capacity in England, of which 14.3 megatonnes was incineration. To put that in plain language, we already have enough incinerator capacity today to deal with the amount of waste that was projected in 2023 to arise by 2035—19.4 megatonnes of residual municipal waste. In other words, our existing capacity, at over 20 megatonnes, is more than we will need in just nine years’ time. My first question to the Minister is whether DEFRA will commit to publishing analysis assessing the environmental damage of building incinerators, such as the huge incinerator at Wisbech, against the fact that they will be surplus to requirements in as little as nine years’ time. In other words, it will three years to build the incinerator, and after six years of operation it will be additional capacity to what we will need. We therefore need to assess how those two things compare.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Draft Agriculture (Delinked Payments) (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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• 26 Mar 2025 · Draft Agriculture (Delinked Payments) (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is, as ever, making an excellent speech. One of the uncertainties is that there is no sense of when the scheme will open and what the budget will be. Briefings from Government insiders—particularly in the Treasury—say that non-protected Departments will be subject to significant cuts in the forthcoming spending review. Does he share my concern that it is very difficult for farmers to plan when the Government’s approach gives them 30 minutes’ notice and no clear information on these issues?

• 26 Mar 2025 · Draft Agriculture (Delinked Payments) (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  The Minister said a moment ago that all the money will stay in the sector. I assume he means the farming sector, but is that correct if some of the money goes to nature schemes or well-respected nature charities, which by nature are not part of the farming sector? Will he confirm that he is assuring the Committee that all that money will remain within the farming sector?

• 26 Mar 2025 · Draft Agriculture (Delinked Payments) (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  It sounds like in one week my hon. Friend has seen more farms than the Secretary of State has since the general election. I draw his attention to the story in the Farmers Guardian that suggests the Secretary of State has been to only four farms since the general election. On a more serious point, that story also draws attention to the 84% of farmers who feel that their mental health has been affected by the autumn Budget. My hon. Friend is correctly setting out the financial implications of the changes, but does he share my concern about the mental health issues as well?

• 24 Mar 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  To pick up the comments made by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes North (Chris Curtis) on reservoirs, I also have a reservoir proposed for my constituency. I noted that the Secretary of State refused to be drawn on specific schemes, including when challenged by her own Front Bench. Perhaps the Minister can tell us in winding up how much more quickly a typical reservoir will be constructed as a result of this Bill and what the percentage of savings will be from that. That sort of detail is currently lacking from claims such as those made by the hon. Member. [ Interruption. ] I note the Minister’s wry smile. Let me start by picking up what the Government said last week and what they are saying this week. Last week, they said that they were scrapping a big quango, NHS England, because they wanted to ensure more democratic oversight, yet this week they are giving huge new powers to another quango, Natural England, so that they can seize land at below market value with little democratic oversight. Indeed, the hon. Member just mentioned the bat tunnel. It is a strange paradox to criticise that while supporting giving Natural England more powers to make similar decisions. There is not just a lack of consistency, but a lack of co-ordination across Government. The Government are currently consulting on the land use framework—the consultation is open and does not close until 25 April—but Ministers seem to be ignoring that. The Secretary of State talked in her opening remarks about the Bill unlocking land for nature and energy schemes, so we have one part of the Government consulting on the land use strategy while another part is legislating to seize land that is in the scope of that ongoing consultation to use for its schemes. It would be helpful if the Minister told us why he is ignoring the consultation that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is conducting. Perhaps we will just have a slew of Government amendments. If the new powers for Natural England are indeed necessary, that suggests that a significant amount of land will be taken for nature restoration schemes. We know from the land use strategy that about 12,000 farms will be lost over a generation. Either the power is needed—in that case, what is the impact of clause 72 on farmland and farm security?—or not much land will be taken as a result, in which case why do we need this power now? In the shadow Secretary of State’s opening remarks, he pointed to the number of Cabinet Ministers who have objected to development schemes in their own constituencies. That is a challenge that we all face, as Members of Parliament, when constituents raise concerns. Certainly, my experience of dealing with Natural England —not least as Secretary of State for DEFRA—was that once things were in primary legislation, it would often take a gold-plated interpretation. It may just be that Ministers are being bold, but it would be helpful to understand why they think that granting further powers to seize land will not weaken democratic control. When the Secretary of State was challenged on that, she said that the democratic controls were being maintained but streamlined. I do not think that is how Natural England will interpret it. Let me give the House a practical example. In the David Fursdon review of Dartmoor, there was conflict in interpretation regarding sites of special scientific interest between Natural England and farmers who had farmed the common for many years. There was huge tension, which David Fursdon skilfully managed to resolve, but that will not happen if the powers in the Bill are enacted. Finally, there is a paradox. The people we need on side to support nature restoration are the farmers, who are the ones who care most about nature. The Bill is a missed opportunity on things like incinerators, as it will make it easier to get planning permission to burn plastic, which is damaging for the environment and damaging for nature. And yet the farmers, who are the people we need on side, will have their land confiscated by an undemocratic quango that is being given more control, and there is nothing in the Bill to address that. Given the shortage of time, it would be helpful if, in closing, the Minister could clarify some of those points.

• 10 Feb 2025 · Inheritance Tax Relief: Farms · Hansard source

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  With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I am confused by his argument. He is talking about the crux of the issue: what is the scope of this tax? He voted in favour of it. He was quoted in the Eastern Daily Press as saying that it would not hit “proper farming families”. Is it his position that this tax does not hit proper farming families, or should the scope of the tax be changed? That is the crux of the issue, and with respect to the argument he has set out, I do not know what his position is, other than that he voted not to change the scope.

• 9 Dec 2024 · Waste and Recycling · Hansard source

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  I do not want to intervene too much, but as a point of clarification, Madam Deputy Speaker, I was recused as the Minister, so I certainly did not make that decision. I am making the argument against incineration; I would have thought that the Minister would support that, because she wants more recycling. Over 30 environmental charities say that incineration is the dirtiest way to produce energy—that it is as dirty as coal. Five years of analysis by the BBC found it was the dirtiest. I am highlighting the contradiction between the Government saying that they are for the environment and clean energy, and there being a risk of over-capacity in incineration, which burns plastics and is harmful to the environment. I am highlighting that contradiction and saying that that is the reason why the Government should publish an impact assessment.

• 9 Dec 2024 · Waste and Recycling · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend raises the issue of plastic. With the growth of anaerobic digesters dealing with more food waste, energy-from-waste incinerators are now burning more plastic. BBC analysis of five years of real data shows that incinerators are now the dirtiest way to produce power. Does he agree that in dealing with recycling and its growth, we should not be building more incinerators—and in particular not building the Wisbech incinerator?

• 9 Dec 2024 · Waste and Recycling · Hansard source

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  I am glad that the Minister has described this as a priority. She has a statutory target to halve residual waste, but what she has not mentioned is the impact that will have on mega-incinerators that are being built essentially to burn plastic. Does she accept that more than 30 environmental charities—charities usually linked to her party and the left—are strongly opposed to those incinerators, and will she commit herself to publishing an impact assessment on the effect of reducing residual waste on the need for incinerators?

• 9 Dec 2024 · Waste and Recycling · Hansard source

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  In a classic example of joined-up government, many of these incinerators, including the Wisbech incinerator, are classed as nationally significant infrastructure, so decisions on them are made by the Government, not devolved locally. I welcome the Minister saying that she does not support over-capacity of incineration, just as I welcome her ambition to increase recycling, but given that she wants increased recycling, there will be over-capacity of incineration. We need to see the impact assessment so that we can see the trajectory, and can see the increasing rate at which waste will be recycled. We can then avoid the over-capacity. When will we see that impact assessment, so that we do not have too much capacity in incineration?

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

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• 8 Oct 2024 · Farming and Food Security · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House recognises the real and immediate challenges faced by British farmers as a result of wet weather and rising costs; notes the importance of food security as an essential component of national security in an increasingly uncertain world; regrets that the £50 million extension of the Farming Recovery Fund is yet to be paid out; is concerned that reports suggest the farming budget is to be cut by £100 million; calls on the Government to confirm that the full £50 million of additional Farming Recovery Fund support for those flooded, £75 million for Internal Drainage Boards to protect agricultural land from floods and storms, and £220 million allocated to technology and productivity schemes announced earlier this year will be used in full and without delay, that no reduction to the farming budget will be made and that any underspends will be rolled forward as in previous years, and to keep farming and food production high on the agenda by committing to continue to host the annual Farm to Fork Summit in Downing Street, continuing to publish the annual food security index, and appointing a Tenant Farming Commissioner; and further calls on the Government to secure the long-term future of domestic food production by ensuring the best agricultural land is protected from inappropriate development, including large solar developments, by tackling rural crime, and by ensuring that the next generation can get into farming by protecting Agricultural Property Relief. Given the increasing uncertainty in the world, with covid, Ukraine and now the middle east, food security is more important than ever and should be seen as a key part of our national security. Britain’s farmers face real and immediate challenges, which means that the Government must take action now. That is why we have called this debate. Between October 2022 and March 2024, England experienced the most rain in any 18-month period since records began in 1836. In particular, Storm Babet and Storm Henk caused significant damage, leaving thousands of acres under water, and land saturated for prolonged periods. This has prevented many farmers from getting crops into the ground, and where they have been able to do so, their crops have been compromised. Of course, farmers have done their best to respond, but recent research from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit and the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board has suggested that England is heading for one of its worst harvests on record. The wheat harvest in England alone is estimated to be down more than 2.2 million tonnes, which represents an 18% reduction since last year, and the total harvest for the five key crops—wheat, winter barley, spring barley, oats and oilseed rape—is set to be down by over 13%, or 3 million tonnes, on the five-year average. We risk being increasingly reliant on imports, and unfortunately there seems to be no relief in sight; 10 English counties experienced the wettest September on record, and input costs remain high. If we do not support our farmers now, many farm businesses say that they are unlikely to survive. As Secretary of State, I prioritised food production. At the Oxford farming conference, I announced more money, choice and trust for farmers. I increased rates paid under the sustainable farming incentive, and I announced in January that I was introducing new options to better reflect the range of farms.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Farming and Food Security · Hansard source

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  As we came out of the European Union, new schemes were set up, including the SFI, to support nature and farming. They represented a shift from the EU scheme, under which 50% of the money went to 10% of landowners. We were able to design new schemes. We listened to farmers, and that is why I announced at the farming conference an average increase of 10% in payments, and 50 more choices to better reflect the variety of farms, including upland farms. We responded, but the point is that underspends all remained within the DEFRA budget. The key question, which I am sure the Secretary of State will come to, is whether he will give a similar commitment to the House that any underspends will remain in DEFRA, given that we have just faced the wettest winter in 150 years, and given that in September, 10 counties had the worst rain on record.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Farming and Food Security · Hansard source

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  I will, and then I will make some progress.