Kerry McCarthy
MP for Bristol East · Labour · United Kingdom
“We see that in four main ways: physical risks, including floods, wildfires, droughts and storms; transition risks as economies move away from high-carbon industries; nature-related risks affecting food production and natural resources; and systemic risks, where shocks spread rapidly across sectors and markets.”
“The glaciers of the third pole function as Asia’s water tower, feeding major river systems that support nearly 2 billion people. When rising temperatures accelerate glacial melt, the consequences extend far beyond the mountains.”
“Following the heatwaves and wildfires across Europe this summer and the destruction caused by the glacier collapse and catastrophic flooding in Nepal and Tibet, the message is becoming impossible to ignore: the consequences of climate change and environmental degradation are real, not some distant future threat.”
“Personally, I cannot see that Rosebank is compatible with meeting our climate objectives, but I recognise that the process should be followed. Green Alliance has reported that the gas being wasted in the North sea would be enough to heat 570,000 homes.”
“I too worked in the financial markets, although I think I have done a better job of hiding it in my 21 years in Parliament. I was more on the debt market side. In fact, I am so old that I was part of the salvage operation for Barings bank when it went under. That brings me to the right hon. Gentleman’s point about regulation.”
“My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that I very much agree with the point that he just made. We have some excellent, innovative businesses in Bristol that came up through the Science Creates innovation hubs and attracted private capital.”
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“The Minister will also know that the Government had to be taken to court, because it is one thing declaring targets and ambitions, but unless they have the strategy— [ Interruption . ] The Government were taken to court, and that is why they had to produce the delivery plan earlier this year. The Climate Change Committee, which by his account was all his idea because it was all his idea to introduce the Climate Change Act, has said that the Government are not on track to meet their ambitions. So the Minister cannot just rely on grandiose boasts about where he wants to get us to if he does has not have a plan to get us there, and it is very clear that he does not have a plan to get us there.”
“I welcome what the Minister has said. I think that another problem for those countries is coming up with the evidence base to demonstrate the impact that climate change is having on them. There are currently some very good initiatives: for example, science students from the UK are going out to study marine areas. There is a great deal of interchange. Does the Minister think we could do more to facilitate that evidence-gathering, which could then be used as a basis for making an application to show the need for climate adaptation funding?”
“I welcome the Minister’s enthusiasm and recognition that peatlands have an important role to play but, at the moment, they are emitting carbon because of how they are treated in this country, particularly when it comes to grouse moor management. Does he agree that we need to address those practices? Many peatlands are also sites of special scientific interest or are meant to be protected for nature in other ways.”
“Q7. A new generation of drugs, Orkambi, Symkevi and Kaftrio, is transforming the lives of patients with cystic fibrosis. People who would otherwise be waiting for double lung transplants are now living happy, healthy lives. However, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is now saying that we cannot afford those drugs. Will the Prime Minister and his new Health Secretary get around the table with NICE and the drugs company to ensure that the children who are being born with cystic fibrosis today are given those life-saving drugs in the same way as the children who are currently living with cystic fibrosis?”
“The Rwanda scheme is callous, inhumane and ineffective; one might say the same about the former Home Secretary. That is why I welcome the new Home Secretary to his post, on the grounds that he could not possibly be any worse. I hope that he will consider the ethical dimension of this issue, since the Court has just ruled that Rwanda is not a safe country. Even if he does not, does he not agree that the scheme is simply not workable? It is not a good use of money, and it will take a huge amount of effort to get to a place where anyone is sent to Rwanda. Are there not much better ways of pursuing this issue and destroying the small boats model?”
“At the last FCDO questions, I asked the Minister twice about getting fuel through to hospitals, and highlighted in particular the plight of women due to give birth in appalling circumstances. Their babies are now dying. I appreciate what he says about trying to do everything we can to get fuel through to hospitals, but at what point do we say, “Enough is enough; Israel will not allow that to happen”, and what can we do to ensure that those babies’ lives are saved?”
“What this King’s Speech reveals is that we have a Government devoid of compassion, of leadership and of conscience, exemplified by a Home Secretary who describes homelessness as a “lifestyle choice”. Demonising the most vulnerable in society is a political choice. Overseeing the managed decline of the NHS is a political choice. Trashing the UK’s international climate reputation is a political choice. Letting that trickle-down mini-Budget crash our economy last autumn and lead us into a cost of living crisis was a political choice. Those are the actions of a Tory Government who for 13 years have put self-interest over the interests of the country. It is time to give the people of Britain a chance to choose. This King’s Speech shows that the country needs a general election and a Labour Government.”
“Given that the Government seem to have so few ideas, why have they stalled on some of the things we already know they have been looking at? Where is the mental health Bill, for example? We have had the draft Bill and plenty of time for pre-legislative scrutiny, so why is this Bill dragging on and running out of time when reform is so desperately needed? And why, five years on, are the Government still procrastinating over a ban on so-called conversion therapies? LGBT+ people deserve better than to be told that their sexuality or gender identity can be cured. When will the Government follow Labour’s example and back a full, inclusive conversion therapy ban?”
“There was no mention of the long-awaited employment Bill or pensions reform; no register of children out of school; no commitment to reform the dental contract, which dentists and my constituents are crying out for and which Labour will deliver; and nothing on tackling the climate or nature emergencies. I am told we will need primary legislation to ratify the global ocean treaty, which the UK signed with some fanfare earlier this year. Where is that legislation? It will be a very short piece of legislation, but why the delay? It is not as if this is a Government bursting with ideas, full of ambition and struggling to find space in the parliamentary timetable for all the urgent and inspirational things they want to do. We will have to wait for next year’s King’s Speech for that.”
“We have a record backlog in our courts, with more than 65,000 cases waiting to be heard in the Crown courts. That is thousands of victims waiting for justice to be done. Two thirds of English and Welsh prisons are overcrowded and as of last month we had barely 500 prison places left, which raises the question of where those extra prisoners will go. That is just not joined-up thinking; again, it is making grand statements without making the investment in our public realm that is needed to back up those promises. This debate is as much about what was not in the King’s Speech as what was in it.”
“In another example of better late than never, I welcome the long-overdue football governance Bill, finally giving us a chance to realise recommendations from the fan-led football review. We desperately need greater parity across the footballing pyramid in this country to protect the future of the game and ensure that the excessive wealth of the top clubs reaches the lower leagues and grassroots football. On crime, of course Labour supports the need to bring in tough sentences for serious and violent offenders, but this is not the first time the Conservative Government have made such promises. Since 2010, almost 4,000 convicted rapists have received sentences of less than seven years. It is no surprise that this Government are all talk and no action.”
“Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris), managed to get through 10 minutes without mentioning anything at all in the King’s Speech, though he told us an awful lot about Shakespeare, which I guess was educational in its own way. I am pleased that we are finally getting a Bill to ban live exports, even if it has been more than seven years since we heard all those promises during the 2016 referendum campaign. It was one of the Leave campaign’s flagship things. I know people who voted for Brexit only because they thought that there would be a ban on live exports, so it has taken the Government a long time, and where are the other promises that were made on banning imports of fur and foie gras? They were supposed to be a Brexit bonus too.”
“It is good to see a ban on leaseholds for new houses, but houses make up only 30% of leasehold homes in England. There is no reason why flat-owners deserve less protection and higher costs. That is yet another Tory U-turn that will leave far too many flat-owners facing extortionate bills and ground rents for homes that they already own. Given that the Home Secretary’s recent announcement on tents was not taken up, at least they will be safe in the knowledge that they can switch to sleeping under a dual carriageway in a little tent of their own for the foreseeable future. I am trying to be positive, but there is not a lot to go on. That is evidenced by the fact that no Tory MPs are waiting to speak, and the last Tory MP who did speak, the hon.”
“There will be no statutory decent home standard in the private sector, and local housing allowances will remain frozen, meaning that the vast majority of privately rented homes in places such as Bristol will remain unaffordable for people on housing benefit. Given that we have not heard anything from the Government this week, I certainly hope that we will see something on that in the autumn statement. We talk about opportunity. The opportunity to have a decent home and a roof over their head is being denied to so many. I am pleased that the leasehold and freehold Bill will be introduced. Even the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has admitted that the leasehold system is “outdated” and “feudal”, but it is disappointing to see such a half-hearted attempt at reform again.”
“It was a relief that the Renters (Reform) Bill came back before Parliament just before Parliament prorogued and was carried over, but frankly the Bill is not good enough. The ban on no-fault evictions is still being kicked down the road, for probably years into the future. More than 60,000 section 21 notices have been served since the promise to ban them was first made. While we wait for the Government to act, thousands more will become homeless through no fault of their own—victims of a Government pandering to the wealthy property-owners on their Back Benches. The Renters (Reform) Bill was supposed to transform the private rented sector, but it will remain legal for landlords to discriminate against tenants on benefits.”
“Could it be the oil and gas companies, making record profits, which are handed billions in taxpayer subsidies? Doubling down on fossil fuels is not the answer. Clean, cheap home-grown energy is the only way to make us energy secure. As the Prime Minister stumbles in the starting blocks in the race for net zero, or indeed seems to be going backwards, Labour stands ready to lead the sprint for renewables with all the opportunities that they will bring—whether it is green jobs in communities that are making the transition away from dirty fossil fuels; whether it is community power, which we have heard about; or whether it is economic regeneration and technical advances. There is so much potential.”
“We might have a new monarch on the throne, but what we saw yesterday was a complete abdication of responsibility from the Government, who have, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) just said, completely run out of ideas. With no answers to the cost of living crisis and other problems of their own making over the past 13 years, their default response now is just to distract, delay and, as we see with the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, sow division through political point scoring, rather than doing what is right for this country’s economic future and for the planet. The Energy Secretary herself has conceded that we cannot rely on that Bill to bring energy bills down, so who does benefit from the Bill, if not consumers?”
“T3. By the time we next meet for Transport orals, it will have been more than three years since the Government consultation on pavement parking closed. Are we ever going to see a Government response, or is it time that the Government came clean with disability groups and admitted that they have put this issue in the “too hard to do” pile?”
“I completely endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) just said about the impact on children. Trucks at the Rafah crossing are welcome, but the aid getting through is nowhere near enough to avert humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. Fuel is urgently needed for the desalination plants that would ensure drinking water and for the energy generators that would power hospitals, which would prevent huge loss of life. Why is that fuel not being allowed through?”
“T5. Fifty thousand women in Gaza are pregnant, with 5,000 due to give birth now in truly hellish circumstances. If bombing a hospital is, as the Minister just said, a war crime, how would he describe the deliberate withholding of fuel to power those hospitals and keep them working?”
“The recent accounting error by the Secretary of State’s Department will mean a cut of more than £2.5 million for schools in Bristol. That money could have been spent on breakfast clubs, SEND provision, mental health support, or even such basics as paying the energy bills. The Prime Minister said in his conference speech that his main funding priority in every spending review from now on will be education, but he is cutting school budgets now. Does the Secretary of State not realise the impact that will have on schools, whose budgets have already been cut to the bone?”
“My right hon. Friend is right to highlight the human cost of those evictions, but there is also a financial cost to councils. Bristol City Council pays exorbitant amounts to put people into emergency and temporary accommodation, which it should not have to do, so does she agree that, on top of helping people by ensuring that they do not have to go through the pain of eviction, the Government have a financial interest in resolving the issue?”
“I am glad that we are supporting this Bill. My hon. Friend talks about women being subject to sexual harassment, and we know that the problem is endemic, but it also seems that, increasingly, young men are reporting that they are falling foul of that—even in this place. It is really important that we recognise that men, particularly younger men, can be victims as well.”
“Every year, post-farm gate, 9.5 million tonnes of food that could have provided more than 15 billion perfectly edible meals is wasted. That also has a massive carbon footprint. Given that DEFRA’s impact assessment concluded that mandatory food waste reporting would result in “financial benefits to business and significant environmental benefits” and is backed by many retailers, including Tesco, why have the Government dropped their plans?”
“I am sure the Solicitor General will be aware that the CPS Inspectorate recently conducted an investigation into the response to complaints from victims of crime. It found that almost half were below standard and only a third were “adequate”. Do victims of crime not deserve better?”
“According to the Climate Change Committee, “the private sector…is being held back…by weak policy signals, uncertainty, and barriers to investment,” and perhaps we would not need to be so reliant on China if those issues were addressed. Just last month, UK investors representing £1.5 trillion in assets wrote to the Prime Minister, warning that that could mean the UK missing out on 1.7 million jobs. Will this zombie Government listen to investors and their own advisers, look at the game-changing interventions in the States and bring forward a UK version of the Inflation Reduction Act before it is too late to save British businesses and British jobs?”
“I would have hoped to hear a rather more robust defence from the Minister of the need to reach net zero and of the massive job opportunities that will come from pursuing a green agenda, as we have seen from what is happening with the Inflation Reduction Act in the States. I visited Port Talbot last month during the recess, and I echo what the constituency MP, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), said about the importance of the site and of continuing to support jobs there. Concerns were raised with me about the availability of scrap and how difficult it is to recycle and retrieve scrap metal. There does not seem to be any strategy from the Government for dealing with that. Can the Minister tell us what she intends to do, working with her colleagues in other Departments, to achieve that?”
“Over the recess, I had the pleasure of visiting the historic Harland & Wolff shipyard in north Devon, where we talked about the potential for UK shipbuilding jobs linked to the offshore renewables sector. Given last week’s disappointing auction round, to put it mildly, what can the Minister say to convince the shipbuilding industry that there is a future for it in making those service vessels?”
“I appreciate what the Minister is saying: the humanitarian response to what have been described as apocalyptic scenes has to be the priority. I went to Kashmir in my first term as an MP, following the devastating earthquake there, and saw how the way that school buildings had been constructed lent itself to roofs collapsing on children and other horrific scenes. We talked about how the UK could lend its expertise in that area to make sure that, following the reconstruction effort, Kashmir would be more resilient to future shocks. Are we still involved in such programmes? Can we use that expertise to ensure that, when it comes to rebuilding Libya and other affected countries, they are far more resilient?”
“The hon. Member for Aberconwy is right to raise the deficiencies in the energy supply market. Soaring energy bills are a threat to livelihoods up and down the country. I reinforce his calls for the Government to not just sound sympathetic but actually take action to help SMEs to survive.”
“Analysis from Labour revealed that over the summer 300,000 businesses have been forced to cut hours directly as a result of inflation, with 17% of hospitality firms reporting reducing staff work because of price rises. I think we have all seen that: anyone who went down to places like Cornwall or Devon over the summer will have seen cafés that we would expect to be open at the peak of the tourist season having to close early because they cannot get the staff to maintain seven-day-a-week opening. Despite record energy profits, the Prime Minister continues to refuse to implement a proper windfall tax, which we have been calling for. Our green prosperity plan would cut £53 billion off businesses’ energy bills by 2031. In the short term, we would help businesses to cut their plans for good, with vouchers for energy efficiency measures.”
“The extent of that failure was laid bare last week during the auction round for contracts for difference for offshore, which saw zero bids because the price was set at an unrealistic rate. There was the potential there for 5 GW of wind, which could have powered nearly 8 million homes and saved consumers £1.5 billion a year compared with the cost of electricity from gas. That is a real lost opportunity to bring cheap and clean power to many more houses. We had an urgent question on that in Parliament yesterday. Hospitality businesses need immediate short-term support, and we heard good examples from the hon. Member for Aberconwy about delivering that within the supply market. Until we transition to clean, cheap and secure renewables, however, we will remain exposed to the same energy market that forced the Government to cap energy bills.”
“The British Beer and Pub Association has been calling on Ofgem to ensure that, beyond voluntary measures for suppliers, there is also “recourse to more binding mechanisms to ensure expected standards of conduct and behaviour are met and maintained.” The context here is important. It is not a crisis that has come out of the blue. The situation in Ukraine has had an impact on global energy supplies, but that is not the only factor. From getting rid of our gas storage—unlike any of our European counterparts—and slashing energy efficiency installation rates, to banning onshore wind and crashing the market for solar, the Government have failed to prepare and protect Britain. It is families and businesses that have paid the price.”
“Whether it is refusing to renegotiate contracts, demanding enormous deposits, or simply refusing to supply the sector, it’s clear that some energy suppliers are mistreating the sector.” We have heard about how extortionate security deposits and unfair contracts are holding businesses back. Labour’s view is that we need to start reforms to the market to ensure that the cheap price of low-carbon energy is passed on to consumers. We also support calls for decoupling gas and electricity, which is something that we have mentioned many times before. It is good to hear that Ofgem has been encouraging suppliers to work with hospitality businesses to resolve the issues they are facing with fixed prices that are far above the current market level. However, that sort of voluntary approach is not good enough.”
“As we have heard, too many small businesses are locked into expensive multi-year energy supply contracts that were perhaps taken out at the peak of the market. The fact that many of them have been denied service altogether because they are deemed to be too high risk is an issue on which we need to hear from the Minister. The Government and Ofgem must work in tandem with suppliers to ensure that the disproportionate hit that hospitality is taking does not continue. The hon. Member for Aberconwy quoted the CEO of UKHospitality, Kate Nichols, talking about a canary in the coalmine; last month she said: “The Ofgem review last week was crystal clear that many of the issues facing businesses lie at the door of the energy suppliers.”
“An independent bakery contacted me to say that it had received a final demand for an energy bill that was in the thousands—way more than they had been paying in the past. It managed to get the money together to just about pay when the final demand came in, but the bailiffs were still sent in and disconnected it. It is now having to rely on a noisy generator, which is understandably upsetting the neighbours. That is not how it wants to conduct its business, but it has no choice. An independent café told me about the problems it was having. The neighbouring café is part of a big nationwide chain, which can negotiate an energy bill contract that goes across all of its outlets. The little independent café found that the energy companies do not want to talk to it at all because it is not a big enough customer.”
“As has been said, small businesses in the hospitality sector have faced an onslaught of difficulties over recent years. We had the pandemic, which obviously hit them very hard, we have had a rise in rents and interest rates, and we have had soaring inflation, yet sky-high energy bills remain one of small businesses’ main concerns. I have certainly seen that in my own constituency and across Bristol. The Christmas period should be a boom time for hospitality companies, but in Bristol we saw several go under, including a brewery that was forced to stop production after a 500% increase in energy bills. That was the last straw after everything else they had had to contend with. Thankfully, there are other businesses that are just about surviving, although they are very much struggling with their bills.”
“It is a pleasure, as always, to see you in the Chair, Ms Fovargue. I thank the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) for bringing this important debate to Parliament. He came up with quite a comprehensive list of asks for the Minister, so I hope she has time to respond to them in full. I endorse many of the things he said. As the hon. Member for Aberconwy suggested, the energy supply market seems stacked against hospitality businesses in particular, and we need both short and long-term action. Today’s debate has reflected the fact that although the actual peak of the energy bills crisis has dampened a little, the problems are still out there. Just because it is not on the front page and we are not having urgent questions every other day in Parliament, that does not mean to say that the problem has gone away.”
“There is huge potential for offshore wind in Scotland and it is an important part of the transition to a green economy there. What conversations will the Minister be having with the offshore wind sector following the absolutely disastrous contracts for difference round last week?”
“The Secretary of State seems to have a weird amnesia about the past decade or so, so that there is a big leap from Labour being in government to her suddenly being in front of us today. I hope she does remember the many times, whether in the Environmental Audit Committee, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee or the Environment Bill Committee, that I asked her about making sure the Office for Environmental Protection really had teeth, was independent and was respected by Government. I am concerned that there are already signs that the Government are trying to undermine the work of the OEP. Will she assure us that she will respect the conclusions that it comes to and act accordingly?”
“A proactive approach to a circular economy could create hundreds of thousands of jobs and cut our consumption emissions. What circular taxation measures is the Treasury looking at to help us achieve those outcomes?”
“Does the Minister accept that the proposed investment in the Natural England nutrient mitigation scheme covers only 15% of the total mitigation requirement to 2030? Where will the additional funds required to address the shortfall come from?”
“That would be particularly useful for people who have fluctuating conditions that may vary from day to day or manifest differently—somebody with ME, for example, can have very different symptoms, experiences and health from another person with the same condition. I endorse the hon. Member’s point; I suppose if I had to ask him a question, I would ask whether he thinks it would be valuable for those people.”
“Recently, I did a Zoom surgery with a constituent who is in receipt of benefits, and she said that what would help her most would be having extra hours of childcare and being able to send her child to nursery for an extra day a week. It could be argued that she could spend her PIP money on buying those extra childcare hours, but it is an expensive business, and she needs her PIP money for other things. Is that—whether there is the potential for that extra support—something the hon. Gentleman has taken into account in terms of signposting? She has been offered somebody who can come into her home and do her cleaning and everything like that, but what she really needs is a bit of respite.”
“17. What estimate his Department has made of the number and proportion of unsuccessful benefit decisions that were overturned on appeal in the last 12 months.”
“The Minister is being very selective in his use of statistics. The most recent tribunal stats show that an increasing number of cases, the vast majority, are being overturned—something that is certainly borne out by my constituents contacting me. Why are we not getting it right first time? Surely it is a huge waste of resources to be taking so many cases to tribunal?”
“I will not repeat the Minister’s explanation of the three amendments that are being introduced, other than to comment that the second amendment, to regulation 34, simply gives effect to something that was for practical purposes always the case, as the low carbon contracts company was never in a position to know whether the capacity market holding generator would be successful in a CfD bid. As I said, we do not have a problem with any of the amendments, so we will not seek to divide the Committee.”
“A system of fines is in place for generators that have committed themselves to supply but then do not deliver when required. It is worth noting that suppliers have to agree to deliver power only if required. They still get paid for the capacity agreement if they are not required to deliver power. I can see why that might be the case—we do not want to disincentivise them—but there is an element of free money in the system, and that needs revisiting at some stage.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Robertson. I say at the outset that we will not oppose the Government in bringing forward the amendments, but I am going to speak for about half an hour about why we will not— [ Laughter. ] No, I will not. We accept that the changes should be made and they are of very minor significance to the scheme overall. To recap, the capacity market is currently the main system in place for securing a stable and reliable electricity system. Generally, the system works well in providing secure provision. It provides commitments by generators to supply guaranteed power into the system, allowing those balancing the system to know in advance what capacity they can rely on for each period.”
“T8. The buses Minister assured me a couple of months ago that he was prepared to work with the West of England Combined Authority to ensure “maximum flexibility” in how bus funding could be spent, but I am still struggling to find out how we can get the funding to reinstate commercially non-profitable but essential buses. Will he meet me so that we can try to get to the bottom of it?”