Tim Farron MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 8 Apr 2025 · Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  Is now not the right time to start trying to make our own luck? In that light, would it not also be the right time for the Chancellor to give the green light to the upgrade of the A66 between Penrith and Scotch Corner? Some 25% of traffic on that A road is freight, which is twice the average for A roads across the country, and it is outrageous that so much of the road is single carriageway. Would it not be great for the economy, as well as save lives, if the Chancellor gave the upgrade the green light today?

• 2 Apr 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q3. The Prime Minister has spoken very movingly, and with genuine sincerity and affection, about his time as a young man in the Langdale valley in the Lake district in my constituency and how that helped to shape him. I wonder whether he is aware that the hill farmers who maintain those stunning landscapes in the lakes and elsewhere will be earning on average significantly less than or barely half of the national minimum wage due to cuts in their income, despite the fact that they provide the backdrop to the remarkably important tourism economy. Will he agree to meet me and upland farmers in the lakes and the dales so that we can design a scheme together to end this poverty and equip our hill farmers to produce food and protect our epic landscapes for generations to come?

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

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  It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your guidance, Mr Twigg. For what it is worth, had we gone for a closure motion I would have voted with my Opposition colleagues. There should have been an impact assessment. However, it is worth bearing in mind that many times during the last Parliament—I could comb through Hansard to check the exact number, but it is in double figures— I asked the previous Farming Minister for an impact assessment of, for example, the reduction of the basic payment scheme and the failure to introduce the transitional changes in a timely fashion, and answer came there none. I can inform the Committee that livestock farmers were 44% worse off in terms of income at the end of 2024 compared with 2019. The Conservative spokesman, the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley, can visit as many farmers as he likes, and I hope the Minister also visits many farmers, but every last one of them will be poorer because of the actions of the last Conservative Government. It is important to have that on the record. The reality is that all parties in this place, certainly the ones represented on the Committee today, signed up to ELMS and the principle of public money for public goods. That is a good principle, but the transition has been marked by two clear things: imprecise timing of the reduction of the old scheme and the old money, and the failure to get people into the new schemes. Of course that is also the case under this Government, but we had the same conversations with the former Farming Minister, Mark Spencer, and he said the exact opposite of what the Conservative spokesman has said today. The failure of the transition between 2019 and 2024 led to a £200 million underspend. The Government are always talking about £5 billion over two years. My maths is not brilliant, but I reckon that is £2.5 billion a year, which is £100 million more than before. That is a good thing, because we worried ahead of the Budget last autumn that the new Labour Government would bake in the consequences of the underspend and the Tories’ incompetence, but they did not do that. However, it is right that Opposition Members have mentioned on more than one occasion that freezing the budget at £2.4 billion, which is what it was at the point we left the EU in early 2020, is hardly a great achievement. Of course, there was inflation through all the years of the Conservative Government. If they were serious about the transition being funded properly, the budget would have been more than £2.4 billion when the Labour Government came into power. Inflation has been huge over those five years, especially in the farming industry when it comes to feed costs, fertiliser, fuel, energy and so many other things. The industry barely washes its face, so we are left in this situation. I do not buy the Conservative party’s references, either before or since, to today's financial statement being an emergency Budget. If it had been an emergency Budget, it would have said something. The Chancellor could have had the day off, bless her, because it contained very little. One of the few things in the statement of any potential impact was the day-to-day budget savings for various departments, including DEFRA. I reckon it is about £200 million from a budget of which ELM makes up 40% or 45%. A pro-rata cut in day-to-day spending means we would potentially see the £2.5 billion shaved. It would be good to hear from the Minister whether that will be the case. One of the real problems with the transition, and the reason I am angry about the situation in which we find ourselves—on behalf of the farmers I represent in Westmorland and Lonsdale, and across the United Kingdom, and especially the farmers in England who are specifically affected—is that entry to the new schemes has been crudely marked by larger landowners, corporates and those with the wherewithal either to have land agents or to allow farmers time off to negotiate with Natural England, the Rural Payments Agency and DEFRA. Those people are inside the schemes; the typical farmer outside the scheme is, for example, a hill farmer in Westmorland, working 90 hours a week, either on their own or with no family members working on the farm. They cannot afford a land agent and are utterly isolated, feeling beleaguered. They are the ones outside the various environmental schemes, particularly SFI. When the drawbridge was pulled up, for the time being, on SFI, we worked out that there were 6,100 entrants to the scheme. Of those, a grand total of 40 were from severely disadvantaged areas, particularly the uplands. That gives a snapshot of who is in and who is not. When the Minister defended the Government’s decision on the SFI closure a few weeks ago, he made some points that were right, but with the wrong conclusions. He said, of course, that SFI was “first come, first served”. The big landowners were therefore typically on the inside and the smaller businesses were on the outside, but that is not a good reason to pull up the drawbridge, just at the point that these smaller farmers were about to cross the moat and enter the castle, so to speak. According to DEFRA’s own figures, the consequence of all this is that, as things stand, by the end of the transition in two years’ time, the average farmer in a severely disadvantaged area will be on 55% of the minimum wage. That is an absolute outrage. By the way, owner-occupiers in my neck of the woods could also be sitting on an asset that is technically worth £2 million or £3 million, so they will be clobbered by the family farm tax as well. Those people on half the minimum wage, earning £12,000 or £13,000, will have to pay 20 grand a year in inheritance tax. Come off it! That is not fair. The consequence is that those people will have to sell up. Where will that farm go? Will the neighbouring family buy it? No, of course not, because they are in the same pickle. Instead, it will be sold to a corporate that probably does not produce any food whatsoever. That ought to make Labour Members feel deeply uncomfortable. What a lack of social justice that implies. My concern is that we are now being asked to vote for the hastening of something that is already doing huge damage to the sector. A 76% cut to the basic payment in one fell swoop will be crippling for many farmers, particularly those who are not yet inside the other agri-environment schemes, particularly SFI. I worry about tenant farmers in my constituency and around the country. That money was probably paying the rent this year. Both this Government and the previous Government accepted the recommendations of Baroness Rock’s excellent review, yet neither implemented them. To do all of this and put tenants, in particular, in a moment of extreme fragility and vulnerability before the Rock review could protect them was doing it the wrong way around. That is why the reduction to the BPS should have been parked until the Rock review’s recommendations were in practice, so that tenant farmers could be protected. In parts of my community, I am seeing something akin to a lakeland clearance. People who have farmed the valleys, the lakes and the dales for generations are being forced off because of both Governments’ failure to plan ahead. I agree with the NFU, which clearly has the same sources as me, that there will be a £400 million shortfall and underspend based on what we know about the 76% cut to the BPS and the failure to roll out the agri-environmental schemes more comprehensively. All that builds a deeply troubling picture. A few weeks ago DEFRA officials appeared before the EFRA Committee, chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael). On behalf of the Department, they proudly said that they reckon 92% to 93% of farms will survive this process—I beg your pardon? That means DEFRA appears to be counting on 7% to 8% of farms not surviving. I know the kinds of places where they will not survive: places like the lakes and the dales, which is outrageous. This all boils down to a deep injustice, but it is foolish as well. At a time when the UK is in a very dicey situation internationally, for us to do anything that undermines our food security is incredibly stupid, as well as unjust. The consequences of this move will cause, and are causing, huge hardship. It is worth saying that people who will suffer the most are the people of the uplands and SDAs. It seems to me that Britain’s poorest farmers, in Britain’s prettiest places, are the ones who will take the hit. That will have consequences for our ability to feed ourselves. We produce only 55% of the food we eat in this country, which is nowhere near enough, and it needs to be at least 20 percentage points higher. Farmers care for our environment and our landscape. The Lake district’s world heritage site status could be at risk if we do not care for it properly. I am also seeing the consequences of a lack of trust in the Government’s transition—both this Government and the previous Government—which is leading farmers to take the exact opposite decision to the one the Government want. Just a week and a half ago, when I spoke to a group of farmers from Penrith and elsewhere in Cumbria, the overwhelming sense was of anger and, more than that, disillusionment with the whole system. What will those farmers do? They will opt out of environmental schemes altogether. They will think, “Do you know what? Perhaps I will pay the rent more easily if I quadruple my livestock, even if I undo all the good work that my mum and dad, and their parents before them, did on environmental issues for decades.” That is all because they have lost trust in the system. As other Members have rightly mentioned, all of this has a huge impact on the wellbeing and mental health of these folks. Typically, and certainly in my area, farmers are one-person bands farming in isolated scenarios, and they are the fifth, sixth or seventh generation to have farmed that valley and that community. They find themselves staring down the barrel of being the one who loses the family farm. It is not their fault, but they will believe it is. Do you know what that will do to people in those extreme circumstances? I will also vote against the motion for all the reasons that have been set out. There is a way forward for farmers, if this Government take food security seriously and seek to deliver public money for public goods, as was promised at the beginning of this process.

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

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  The Minister can write to me later if he cannot answer now, but what is the saving to DEFRA of the 76% cut in basic payment? The idea that this is financially literate would add up only if he had not created a saving, but he clearly has. By closing SFI when he did, he is clearly not spending that saving—so how much is it? Is the NFU right to say that it is £400 million?

• 25 Mar 2025 · Dualling the A66 · Hansard source

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  I rise to present a petition on behalf of 2,247 of my constituents who call on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to urgently give the go-ahead to plans to dual the A66 from Penrith to Scotch Corner. They declare that this would bring “huge benefits to the north West region, reducing congestion and providing a big boost to the North economy; further note that it will limit the number of serious and fatal accidents which tragically are a regular occurrence on this road. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to give the green light to plans to dual the A66 between Penrith and Scotch Corner, which would reduce congestion, boost the economy, and save lives.” Following is the full text of the petition: [The petition of residents of the constituency of Westmorland and Lonsdale, Declares that giving the go-ahead to plans to dual the A66 from Penrith to Scotch Corner would bring huge benefits to the north West region, reducing congestion and providing a big boost to the North economy; further notes that it will limit the number of serious and fatal accidents which tragically are a regular occurrence on this road. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to give the green light to plans to dual the A66 between Penrith and Scotch Corner, which would reduce congestion, boost the economy, and save lives. And the petitioners remain, etc.] [P003054]

• 25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  I hope I am not the only person here who is utterly depressed by the complete lack of compassion shown by the shadow Home Secretary and the lack of recognition that the people we are talking about have stories of their own and have experienced horrors that we can barely even imagine. Is it not right that we look at this in a more thoughtful way? To reduce cost to the taxpayer and help those who will be successful asylum seekers to integrate, would it not be wise to allow people who are asylum seekers to work after being here for three months?

• 20 Mar 2025 · Agricultural and Business Property Reliefs · Hansard source

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  Is the Minister aware that some of the farmers who will be worst hit by the APR changes are those who farm in severely disadvantaged areas in the uplands around our country, where typically property values are high and incomes are extremely low? When the change was made just last week with people being excluded from the sustainable farming incentive, 6,100 people had entered the SFI in this session, and only 40 of them were hill farmers. Is he also aware that his own Department’s figures show that at the end of the transition, the average hill farm income will be 55% of the national minimum wage? Does he not understand that his changes are bringing harm to the poorest farmers in the prettiest places, such as mine? Will he undertake to look at the Liberal Democrat proposal to bring in an uplands reward so that we do not plunge into poverty those people who care for our precious landscapes?

• 19 Mar 2025 · Transport Connectivity: North-west England · Hansard source

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  May I point out that there were many more railway lines then, and therefore more trains to be slow? It was also mostly pre-electricity—so there we go. I am grateful for the hon. Member’s point. The industrial capability of the west coast of Cumbria—not in my constituency—is significant to the economy of the whole country, and includes BAE at Barrow and Sellafield on the west coast. The railway line that serves them—the Furness line—saw a derailment a year ago and a flooding-related near disaster just a few weeks ago. We need to pay special attention to keeping the Furness line open, upgrading it and electrifying it if possible. I also want to make a case, on behalf of all my Cumbrian colleagues, for the Cumbria coastal line, which needs significant investment. It is great to hear colleagues from metropolitan parts of the north-west talk about keeping the £2 bus fare cap, but for many of us in areas that are far less well funded, and where devolution has not really happened, such as Cumbria, we are stuck with the £3 cap, and we are worried about that being got rid of altogether. Before the cap came in, the most expensive bus journey in the United Kingdom was Kendal to Ambleside, which cost more than an hour’s wage for somebody working in the hospitality sector. Will the Minister confirm that the £3 cap will not be raised or got rid of any time soon? It is my great privilege to represent a very rural area, but that means that even when the £3 cap exists, it is of no good whatsoever. It does a fat lot of good if we do not have any buses. Giving our local authority, Westmorland and Furness council, the ability to run its own buses is key to meeting the needs of many rural communities. I am honoured to chair an outfit called Cumbria Better Connected, to which all these issues are regularly fed in. One of the most important issues is connectivity and integration between bus and rail, but it is no—

• 19 Mar 2025 · Transport Connectivity: North-west England · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 19 Mar 2025 · Transport Connectivity: North-west England · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your guidance this morning, Dr Murrison. It is also an honour to follow the hon. Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt), who admirably led this debate, as well as many other colleagues from across the north-west who have made excellent contributions on behalf of both their constituencies and the north-west as a whole, which is of course the greatest region on planet Earth. It is home to the greatest towns and cities, and indeed the greatest and most beautiful landscape that we have to offer. The north-west is the birthplace of the industrial revolution, yet it is appalling that our region performs 6.8% below the national average on productivity. Indeed, the only regions with productivity above the national average are London and the south-east. Over the last 60 or 70 years, we have become a steadily unipolar country, and the north-west, like lots of other parts of the UK, has become undermined. We saw levelling up from the last Government, which had some admirable aspects, but essentially—dare I say—it felt like a whole load of pork barrel with no strategy. Let us hope that we can have some strategy. The cancellation of HS2 summed up that lack of strategy. I completely agree with the hon. Members for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer) and for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge), who is my neighbour; they talked about HS2 being about capacity and not speed. If we had a proper HS2 line to the north-west that mirrored and upgraded the west coast main line, which is the most congested rail line in western Europe, that would give us the opportunity to reopen many stations along the existing main line— I will throw out Tebay, Shap and Milnthorpe, just to name three. We must also think about how important it is for the north-west to relate to not just London but other parts of the north of England. East-west connectivity is crucial. What we used to call High Speed 3, or Northern Powerhouse Rail, is hugely significant, and we want to see and hear more about it. As an MP in Cumbria, I am bound to say that often, when we talk about the north-west, we seem to stop thinking about anything that exists north of junction 32 —I can confirm that it does exist. In particular, I would love the Minister to focus on the A66, which is a hugely important road for connectivity that links the A1(M) and the M6, so it connects the ports in the east and the west of this country. In a parallel universe, it would have been a motorway. However, for 12 miles it is a single carriageway, where there are hideous numbers of deaths that are always concentrated in that small section. I urge the Minister and his colleagues to say yes to the A66 upgrade as soon as possible. Everybody in my neck of the woods is on tenterhooks waiting to hear. Likewise, there is work that has to be done on the M6 near junction 38. While it is massively important to the whole motorway network in the north, the people of Tebay must not be isolated during that work, and I ask the Minister to pay special attention to the so far inadequate levels of mitigation from National Highways, as those eight bridges have to be replaced in the coming years. It is also important to talk about trains, and to think about what train services are like across the whole of the north-west. I want to highlight the situation with Avanti, and its failure to serve the northern half of the north-west adequately. It is worth bearing in mind that rail services on the west coast managed to meet their timetable obligations only 43.5% of the time, and last year, more than one in 20 services were cancelled. Any of us who live north of Preston know that any problem in the borders of Scotland or Glasgow means a train cancelled at Preston. Lancaster, Oxenholme, Penrith, Carlisle and Lockerbie are often completely overlooked, and that must stop. I also want the Minister to think very carefully about what can be done to expand existing railway lines to make better use of them. The most visited destination in the United Kingdom outside London is the Lake district, yet we have a single railway line that goes from the main line to Windermere. It is possible, quite cheaply, to double capacity by having a passing loop at Burneside, and I would love the Minister to look at that possibility and see whether he agrees to it.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source

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  I strongly support all efforts to increase energy efficiency and bring down bills. Is the Secretary of State concerned about the potential unforeseen consequences of raising the minimum level of energy performance certificates to C for long-term rented accommodation but not doing so for short-term lets and owned properties? Will that not create an incentive in communities such as ours for people to go to Airbnb or second home ownership, rather than providing affordable homes for local people?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  In that spirit, will the Minister look at my new clause 30, which calls on the Government to review the effectiveness and value of outdoor education and learning for young people in both primary and secondary schools? We have a mental ill health pandemic in this country and are trying to put that right. Will she acknowledge that building young people’s resilience through outdoor education is good not just for dealing with that, but for building young people’s ability to rely on others and themselves? That helps them in situations in which they are not comfortable, and when they go back to the classroom, they are more willing to learn. Does she see this as a moment in which to invest in outdoor education, in every part of the country?

• 17 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T4. The Secretary of State co-chairs the child poverty taskforce. Will she confirm that its brief will be very wide-ranging, including looking at children in poverty in dispersed rural communities such as mine, but also taking practical steps to tackle poverty among migrant children whose parents have no recourse to public funds?

• 12 Mar 2025 · Housing Development Planning: Water Companies · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. She mentions the amendment we pushed in the Bill Committee, which was not accepted by the Government. It is indeed vital that water companies are statutory consultees throughout the process, but we should bear in mind that there is an incentive for water companies to say that there is no problem: the additional buildings mean more water bills and more income for the water company. If the company concedes that there is a problem, it may have to respond by making improvements to the infrastructure, costing it money. Do we not need better regulation? Ofwat and the Environment Agency need to be put together into a single, new clean water authority, so that we enforce clean water standards on the water companies that are currently running rings around our regulators.

• 12 Mar 2025 · Sustainable Farming Incentive · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. The closure of the SFI from 6 o’clock last night came without warning or consultation, and it constitutes the breaking of the Government’s word to farmers. Farmers are already losing their basic payment this year, but they are now excluded from the very scheme designed to replace that. Has the Minister not broken his word to farmers and to all who care about nature? Will he clarify how much money he will save from the BPS cuts this year and say that it is not true that SFI is overspent? Is it not true that when the BPS cut is taken into account, more than £400 million of the £2.5 billion farming budget will remain unspent? A bigger budget is pointless if we do not spend it. This money was supposed to reward farmers for nature restoration and sustainable food production. Does this not damage both? There are 6,100 new entrants to SFI this year, yet only a mere 40 of them are hill farms. Because of the failure of the Conservatives in the previous Administration, the big landowners and the corporates are already comfortably inside the tent, but the farmers who are outside and now locked out without warning are Britain’s poorest farmers in beautiful places, such as mine in the lakes and the dales. As the Tories oversaw a 41% drop in hill farm incomes in just five years, is this not a bitter and unbearable blow for our upland farmers? This betrayal will outrage everyone who cares for our environment, our upland nature and landscapes and it will outrage everyone who cares about food security and it will outrage everyone who cares about our tourism economy. It will also outrage everyone who clings to that old-fashioned expectation that Governments should keep their word. On Monday, the Secretary of State came to my beautiful constituency to pose for pictures by Windermere. I wonder whether he might come back tomorrow and face up to the farmers who steward the stunning landscapes around our beautiful lakes, and who he has abandoned so shamefully. Will he reopen SFI and honour his promises, or turn his back on the very people who feed us?

• 10 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  What formal assessment have Ministers made, or will they make, of the benefits to children’s mental health and physical health, resilience and ability to learn of investing in more opportunities for residential outdoor education experiences?

• 5 Mar 2025 · Renewables Obligation Certificate Scheme · Hansard source

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  It is a great pleasure to serve under your guidance, Mr Murrison. It is also a great pleasure to follow four excellent speeches. I pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Terry Jermy) for his excellent contribution and for securing this important debate. He said it felt somewhat less glamorous to be here talking about chicken poop, but people will say that I have been talking poop for the last 20 years; certainly, as my party’s water spokesperson, I spend half my life in this place talking about the human variety, so chickens makes a nice change. I also belatedly congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his elevation to this place, not least because it has allowed us to deploy Liz Truss elsewhere, in our battle to take down the forces of reaction across the world. On the renewables obligation certificate scheme, we are right to think about what happens next. The scheme is being phased out by the current Government, with the contracts for difference scheme being its principal successor. For what it is worth, I am proud of the role the Liberal Democrats played in the coalition in trying to move on to a better scheme. That said, hon. Members have rightly pointed out that letting ROCs disappear without being replaced is a particular problem for biomass. All four Members referred to the impact on their constituencies if that was to happen, and they talked about the jobs the scheme has created in Stafford, Suffolk, Norfolk and in Strangford, in Northern Ireland. They recognised that biomass plays an important part in providing diversification of income for farmers and others, and in using organic waste that might otherwise find itself on the land. Indeed, when I am in this place talking about water quality, we are principally talking about the failings of the water companies, but agricultural run-off is clearly part of the issue, so if we can deal with that in a positive way, that will be a good thing. It would be an unintended consequence of moving on to new and better schemes if we allowed important plants such as the one in Thetford to close, with the impact that that would have on the local economy, because we had not thought through the transition and managed it in an efficient way. I want to say a few words about how ROCs fit in with the nation’s energy security and about the extent to which they sometimes have perverse incentives. Drax power station in Yorkshire enjoyed just over 9 million renewables obligation certificates last year, at a value of £548 million. The material burned at that site includes biomass that has been imported into the UK, which is often wood pellets, mostly from America and Canada. Drax has previously admitted that some of the wood is from primary or old-growth forests—ancient forests of incalculable value in terms of biodiversity and beauty that would be vital in the fight against climate change if they were not felled. The new contract, I am pleased to say, states that 100% of those pellets must be sustainably sourced, which is something. But it is not organic waste, and there is still something not very sustainable about wood imported from across the oceans and then burned. We want to ensure that we invest in renewable power, so that 90% of the UK’s electricity is generated from renewables by the end of this decade. To do that, we will need to call in all our available resources; we do not want a situation where we are meeting our targets by having renewables in name only. Members have talked about energy security and the importance of getting to net zero, which is vital. In the last few days—hopefully it is longer than that—we have been waking up to our need to protect our national security on a military footing. Yesterday, in Treasury questions, I raised the issue of our failure to step up to the mark when it comes to food security. Only 55% of Britain’s food is produced in Britain; that is a deep threat to the United Kingdom’s food security, and we need to take action quickly to tackle that by undoing the basic payments cut and scrapping the family farm tax. We also need to look at energy security. It troubles me that some of those who claim to be very patriotic seem to pour cold water on and be sceptical about the environmental imperative. Even if I cannot convince people of the reality of climate change, and of the need to produce renewable energy for that reason, if we care about our energy security, we should surely care about net zero, which is a way of achieving it. To put it bluntly, Vladimir Putin cannot turn off the wind, the waves or the sunshine in this country.

• 5 Mar 2025 · Renewables Obligation Certificate Scheme · Hansard source

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  I completely agree. We are talking about incentives that we give to renewable energy generators and providers, but we have an energy market that essentially advantages not just fossil fuels but ones that, to some degree, are in the hands of potentially hostile powers. That is ludicrous for both the environment and our security. I was pleased to hear Members on all sides of the debate talk about the importance of farmers and farming to the battle against climate change and to clean energy generation. We would love to see a recognition that farmers are primarily food producers but that diversification of businesses and cross-subsidy within them is a good thing. It is right that farmers should be incentivised and encouraged to use their land—for example, by putting solar panels on buildings and land that is not good for food production—so long as that is not displacing good-quality agricultural land. I want to draw attention to a site near Barrow, which is not in my constituency but next door, in the Westmorland and Furness council area. The council now has a solar farm on unproductive former agricultural land, with the full support of the local farming community. Let us look at the ways in which we can support farmers to do that. I live in a very wet part of the United Kingdom with 1,500 farms within it. Pretty much every farmer has fast-flowing becks and rivers on their land, so why are we not incentivising them to build small but nevertheless powerful hydro schemes? That would be great for the environment and the local economy, and it would ensure that farmers can continue farming. I sound like a broken record given how regularly I talk about this, but it continues to astound me that the United Kingdom, which has a higher tidal range than any country on planet Earth apart from Canada, does next to nothing with the latent tidal power around our islands. I encourage the Minister to come up with schemes to reward that. I also want to say a word about grid capacity. A huge barrier to progress with this scheme and those that follow is the fact that 75% of energy sector insiders find timely grid connections to be the biggest single obstacle to growing renewable energy in the UK. To give a sense of the size of the queue, there are £200 billion-worth of projects waiting to be connected to the national grid, and that delays all the benefit that would come with that. We would seek to expand the grid network and unlock those billions of pounds of renewable energy projects through a land and sea use framework that has statutory weight in the planning and infrastructure Bill. That would help us to balance the many competing demands on our land, and the competing priorities of security and self-sufficiency that I mentioned earlier. Those priorities also include local communities’ experiences, which are important to understand when we are trying to tackle the climate imperative. It is no good building huge energy infrastructure near communities if there is no clear, tangible benefit to them. For example, customers in communities local to such projects should receive energy at a discounted rate. If we build renewable energy schemes on the River Kent or the River Crake, the people of Kendal, Staveley, Windermere and Coniston should benefit from them, at least to a degree. We also want to empower local authorities to develop local renewable electricity generation and storage strategies, because they are best placed to understand where the most and least appropriate sites to place them are. I return to the issues raised by the hon. Member for South West Norfolk. It is important that ROCs have played a significant part in the transition from fossil fuels to new and renewable forms of energy. I recognise that they have had a big impact on his constituency by creating jobs and ensuring that farmers have additional sources of income. They are part of a range of actions—our arsenal—for tackling water pollution. We must not throw out the good things that ROCs have achieved when we move on to new schemes, which hopefully will make even more progress in our move towards a society run entirely on renewable energy.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Britain is only 55% food secure. In these deeply uncertain times internationally, is it not time to change policy when it comes to agriculture? Is this not the day to get rid of the family farm tax, undo the 76% cut in basic payments and invest in the people who keep us food secure?

• 4 Mar 2025 · Bathing Water Regulations · Hansard source

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  Forty-four.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Bathing Water Regulations · Hansard source

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  I will not take that personally, Sir John, although I am sure it is intended. It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance this afternoon and to speak in a long line of Liberal Democrats, as you might expect when water is mentioned. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) for securing the debate and for the eloquence with which he spoke on behalf of his communities. I know how active he is, not just as a bather but as a campaigner for clean water swimming in his constituency, recognising and amplifying the importance of bathing water status for the people who use the rivers in his communities and in all our communities. He also recognises that it is an important way of upping the ante and improving the standards that all those responsible for the quality of our waterways are held to. I welcome the point that my hon. Friend made about de-designation and how that will not help people or keep them safe; we will simply be in a situation where people will carry on swimming in those places and will no longer have the protections they had beforehand. He rightly talked about an issue I am deeply concerned about, which is the potential for flexibility over fixed season dates. The minimum must be the May to September window, but many people who are enthusiastic about open water swimming do so at other times of the year. I have swum in Windermere in February, but I know people who have swum in Grasmere and Rydal in January and December and marvel at their hardiness. They tell me it is good for their mental health, and I believe them. That falls without that window, and it seems a nonsense to not have year-round testing. I want to pick up on the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington made about what it is we are testing. There is much good in the Government’s new Water (Special Measures) Act 2025. Nevertheless, the insistence on only testing for the duration of spills in our waterways, lakes, rivers, streams and coastal areas means that we do not get the full picture. There could easily be a brief deluge or a lengthy trickle. The reality is that not testing for volume and content does not give a full picture of what is happening in our lakes, rivers and coastal areas. My hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings) talked about the public health and ecological aspects of maintaining bathing water designations and how important it is to extend those designations in her constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Henley and Thame (Freddie van Mierlo) talked about bathing water status in his communities and his active campaign to extend access in his constituency. He also talked about the topsy-turvy nature of the bathing water status, which can create all sorts of perverse outcomes. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello), who is no longer in his place, made a really important point about the economic value. There is a clear case in my communities in the lakes and the dales, because people do not visit the Lake district not to see the lakes. The value to our communities is something like £4 billion every year in tourism revenue. Any threat to the cleanliness of our bathing water sites or the rest of our waterways could be catastrophic for our economy. My hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Manuela Perteghella) made incredibly important points about the biodiversity of our waterways and how it is important to protect them and stand by the wonderful citizen scientists who underpin the work of trying to maintain them and their cleanliness. It is also about recognising that, as with all aspects of nature, our job is to preserve our waterways for those who come after us. Caring for our neighbour means caring for the environment for those we will never meet. That is vastly important. In my communities in the lakes and the dales, there are seven designated bathing water areas, on Windermere and Coniston. One of the sites on Coniston was recently designated as poor, which is deeply concerning. However, it has been pleasing to see the local parish council work very successfully with the national park, Councillor Suzanne Pender, the business forum and others, and United Utilities has agreed a significant package of investment to help deal with that problem. The current bathing water regulations have not been sufficient to protect our waterways from egregious offences. For example, in the north-west alone in 2023, United Utilities spilled 10,467 times for 76,259 hours into bathing waters alone. That does not include all the other times that it has spilled in other parts of our region. Indeed, United Utilities is the worst offender of all the water companies, despite the fact that there are other serious offenders across the country. The Liberal Democrats take the view that water is precious. It is important to our economy, our ecology, our heritage, leisure and human health, as well as biodiversity. It is of such significance that we have made it one of the key issues that we continue to campaign on, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley and Thame. The leader of my party, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), is so dedicated to our waterways that he spent much of the election in them. Much of what the Government have done in the first part of this Parliament, including the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, has been commendable. We wait now for the Cunliffe review to see whether there will be the advances that have been promised or hinted at. There are three things that we need to make sure we do better. First, monitoring must be much more comprehensive. We welcome the fact that the Government are engaging citizen scientists in the process, including the Clean River Kent campaign, Save Windermere in my own constituency, and the Rivers Trusts up and down the country. But we are not helping them if we do not ask for them to be given a place on water company boards. Nor are we helping them, although they are very useful to a degree, if the monitoring sites available for those people to look at do not have historical data. We depend on our brave water campaigners around the country committing their time to never, ever go to bed or go to work or look after their children. They cannot look backwards. If they blink, they may well miss egregious offences in our bathing waters and in other parts of our waterways. Monitoring is important. Secondly, regulation is all important. I always try to be careful not to castigate the individuals working for Ofwat or the Environment Agency, or any of the water companies for that matter, but I recognise the system is broken and we have a diluted regulatory framework in this country. That is why the Liberal Democrats think that Ofwat, the Environment Agency and other water regulators should be merged into a much stronger regulator that the water companies would actually fear, rather than running rings around them all the time. Finally, there is ownership. We could have an organisation called the clean water authority. It would replace and advance on Ofwat and create real powers. It would have real teeth that the current regulatory system does not have. Ownership matters. It is an outrage that between 11% and 40% of the water bills of every person in this country are going to pay off the debt of the water companies. That is a disgrace. And it is time that we moved those water companies into a not-for-profit status. We do not want to call for nationalisation, but we do call for public-benefit companies to be incorporated to make sure that those who look after our waterways do so in the interests of our water quality, and of meeting the needs of the consumer, not racking up huge profits. Finally, because bathing water status does give communities more power over the cleanliness and the standards of the waterways that they care about so much, particularly in my part of the world in the lakes, it is clear that very often DEFRA does not grant clean bathing water status when it really should. So I want to say on behalf of my own communities—communities up the River Kent, north of Kendal through Burneside and Staveley—that the river desperately needs to be given bathing water status in several places. That would allow the communities who campaigned so vigorously for the cleanliness of that river to be able to hold United Utilities and other polluters fully to account.

• 3 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  In the Lake district and the dales of Cumbria, average house prices are around 20 times average household incomes. Will the Minister try to tackle this issue by making sure that there is a specific and unappealable designation of social housing-only developments that national park authorities and local councils can enforce?

• 26 Feb 2025 · Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 2 Report · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Deputy Prime Minister’s statement, and the moves towards centralised regulation and improved safety generally. Does the report not serve as a single act of shame for this country? As she just said, it reveals that the safety and quality of social housing has been considered to matter less, because the people who live in social housing have been considered to matter less. Should that point of view, which has been in place since the decline in building standards in the 1960s, not be a matter of deep national repentance? As the Deputy Prime Minister seeks to tackle that, has she spoken to or is she continuing to speak to her right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer? There is a cost to making sure that we build to a high standard, as we did immediately after the war, while also expanding the number of social rented homes, particularly in parts of the country where build costs are more expensive, such as London and the Lake district.

• 25 Feb 2025 · Groceries Code Adjudicator · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your guidance this afternoon, Mr Twigg. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick) for bringing this important issue to this place and for making an excellent speech. There have been great speeches from all the speakers so far, with a number of interesting and useful interventions. The five hon. Members who have spoken all made good points that I want to endorse. My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe spoke about imbalance in the market with large numbers of producers—1,500 farmers in my constituency alone and thousands across the country—and 12 retailers making up 95% of the sector. That is an incredible imbalance of power. Others have also referred to the greater depth to the industry in the supply chain than the Groceries Code Adjudicator is allowed to give credit for. My hon. Friend talked of the impact on farmers of potential delisting, the impact of late payments, having to pay for waste, and all the things that many have to struggle with. The hon. Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey) made a great speech, emphasising the power those retailers have in the market and its irrational nature, which leads to farmers and producers of all kinds going out of business just because the large, powerful entities who own our supermarkets can make that happen in order to maximise their own profits. My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) absolutely deserves credit. I first heard the phrase “supermarket ombudsman” from his lips before I entered this place. When he was doing the job I am now doing—being the Liberal Democrats DEFRA spokesperson —he fought hard for that ombudsman, and that is the reason why, in the coalition agreement, what became the Groceries Code Adjudicator came to pass. It was introduced by Liberal Democrat Ministers including my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), Vince Cable and Jo Swinson, who were involved in the Department. The hon. Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) rightly talked about processors. They are significant and are often untouched by the arm of the Groceries Code Adjudicator. The right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) talked about the role of ownership in the sector and the unfairness that affects the workforce in the retail sector, as well as the producers who supply to it. There is an important point for us to remember here. Those who are at the wrong end of the abuse of power in the food supply chain are processors in broadly rural communities and workers in broadly urban communities; they have a lot more in common than we are sometimes allowed to think. The Groceries Code Adjudicator is one of the things that came from the coalition of which the Liberal Democrats can be rightly proud. It was motivated in no small part by the simple reality that many producers—many farmers—were being paid less than the cost of production for their produce. Most notably in my constituency in Westmorland, but elsewhere in the country, that means those working in the dairy sector, but there are many others besides. As with all things in the coalition, there were compromises. Even the good things we got were often watered down and were not what they might have been had we had what will one day obviously happen, that is, a majority Liberal Democrat Government. There are three particular areas of weakness with the Groceries Code Adjudicator, which we passionately believe should be addressed in the interests of our farmers, producers and consumers alike. First, the reach of the adjudicator is too small, particularly its ability to investigate across the range of people involved in the sector. As has been mentioned, the adjudicator can investigate direct supply arrangements between farmers and retailers, but cannot get involved in the enormous majority of the food chain—that is, in the processing sector, and the middle people within the market. The Groceries Code Adjudicator should be given that ability. That is obvious. The second point is about protecting farmers and other producers from the reprisals that they fear they will get if they refer something to the adjudicator. Members of Parliament, the National Farmers Union—local branches in Kendal and Appleby, and the NFU across the whole country—the Tenant Farmers Association and other advocates should be allowed to make referrals to the Groceries Code Adjudicator so that farmers do not feel that they have to do so themselves while fearing the reprisals, which they clearly do. We strongly support that idea. Finally, there is the issue of resource, which has been mentioned by other people. The team is seven-strong, including the adjudicator themselves four days a week. That is not right. However wonderful those people are, they can be run rings around by the enormously powerful supermarkets. The unfettered free market is indifferent to Britain’s food security, and we need to be not indifferent. We need to decide that it is of ultimate importance and that we therefore need to referee the market powerfully to protect our food security. Over the last 20 years, we have seen 30,000 farm holdings cease to be—a 22.7% reduction in the number of farms in the United Kingdom. That is undermining our ability to feed ourselves. Now, only 55% of Britain’s food is produced by farmers in the United Kingdom. If we are serious about food security, we are going to have to put that right. The Liberal Democrats are challenging the Government over the family farm tax—we would scrap it—which is suppressing production and creating unfairness in the market. There is a 76% reduction in the basic payment this year, undermining small family farmers in particular, in Westmorland and beyond. DEFRA officials told the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee the other week that they expect 92% to 93% of farms to survive the environmental land management transition—so, 7% to 8% will not survive that transition. The land use framework, which I welcome in principle, will in practice potentially take productive farm land out of usage. All of that leads us towards a situation where the UK is less food secure. The overdue Groceries Code Adjudicator reforms are not just vital to ensuring British farmers are treated fairly, which they must be; they are about underpinning the vitality of food security in this country, which is essentially national security. A country that cannot feed itself is not safe.

• 25 Feb 2025 · Kendal Post Office · Hansard source

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  I rise to present a petition on behalf of 2,830 of my constituents in Kendal and the surrounding communities in favour of retaining and keeping alive the Kendal Crown post office on Stricklandgate in our town. In 2019, we successfully ran a campaign to save the Kendal Crown post office and, as a community, we are determined to do so again. The Crown post office serves our community wonderfully with fantastic staff, but more than that, it provides the home for the Royal Mail sorting office, and the postal workers there also do a wonderful job. To lose the Crown post office building could mean that we also lose the Royal Mail sorting office, and we are determined to stop that. The petition states: The petition of residents of the constituency of Westmorland and Lonsdale, Declares that Kendal Post Office should not be included in the list of 115 directly operated post offices at risk of closure; further notes Kendal Post Office’s role as a vital community service at the heart of Kendal; further declares that it should remain in its current position or should only be moved to suitable premises. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government and Post Office to reconsider and guarantee the future of Kendal Post Office. And the petitioners remain, etc. [P003046]