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.”
The complete record
Every one of 6,322 lines we hold for Kerry McCarthy, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 24 of 127.
“Joanna Lewis: You asked whether you can separate the intention of gene editing to solve animal welfare problems from the broader challenge of facilitating the perpetuation of systems that result in very poor animal welfare. I think it is important that we bring these together—as the public brought them together in the Nuffield Council on Bioethics public dialogue. We know that conventional animal breeding trends have been to prioritise greater yield, litter size and fast growth over the welfare of sentient animals, and we know that the argument for gene editing is partly that it speeds things up and is likely, therefore, to accelerate those trends. The public were saying, through that dialogue, that this is where they want to see governance. They want the Government to come in and say, “This is our vision for the future of animal farming.”
“Where do you sit on that argument? They said that the animal welfare codes deal with some of the concerns. I would say, however, that they are not operating in the right way at the moment, because we already allow a degree of intensification and, to my mind, animal welfare standards are not good. On the separate issue of increasing yields from animals, cows produce an awful lot more milk than they would have done a few decades ago, and certainly a lot more milk than they need to feed their own calves. Where do you sit on the use of this technology for that purpose? Finally, do you think that the Bill’s provision for the Secretary of State to refer things to a welfare advisory body is a sufficient safeguard? Sorry, that was an awful lot of questions, and you do not have much time to answer.”
“Q Going back to what was being said about animals, particularly what Joanna was saying, I want to try to unpick this. It has been mooted that one of the benefits of the Bill is that it could result in the breeding of more disease-resistant animals and in less use of antibiotics in livestock management. The downside is that that could pave the way for more intensive farming, because disease obviously spreads when lots of animals are herded together. That does not necessarily mean that making animals more disease resistant and not having to use antibiotics on them is a bad thing. Some witnesses who gave evidence this morning said that it is not the Bill that is at fault. There is a completely separate argument, they said, about whether we want to increase the intensification and industrialisation of animal farming.”
“Q Is one of the concerns when it comes to the hormones of an animal—I am talking about animals that are being killed for meat; I know that this came up in the discussion about slaughterhouses —that if the animal is stressed throughout its life, that could affect the meat from a human health point of view? Roger Kerr: It can affect—”
“Q I was more asking whether stress—you were talking about being able to increase yields, and about cows being put under stress—would affect the animal’s meat in the same way that— Roger Kerr: I am not sure. We were talking about dairy cows, which, as you know, are not bred to be eaten. Beef animals would be different again. There is an issue around stress with killing an animal, but that is more about the environment that it is in. I think we should look at that in a holistic way in terms of the environment and not necessarily just say, “Let’s tweak something so that we can still treat—””
“It is absolutely in that zone of looking at how crop science and net zero intersect and how we can generate more sustainable farming systems. Much of the research, even if it is discovery and frontier bioscience, always has a strategic element to it.”
“I am absolutely driven by a desire to have sustainable productivity for both rich and poor world farmers. Historically, I got most, if not all, of my money from the British or European Governments, but now, as I said, I get money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and also from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. In that regard, it is absolutely policy driven for sustainable productivity for smallholder farmers. Dr Harrison: I echo that. For the UKRI-funded research that NIAB delivers there are two key components. One is scientific discovery. When you are working in crops, that is about strategic discoveries of things that are important to the strategic objectives of the research councils. Of course, BBSRC is the primary funder of agricultural research in the UK.”
“Q You have said that you are funded by the Government for some of your work. To what extent is that related to potentially boosting economic growth by making these crops more profitable for farmers, or to what extent is it about achieving public policy objectives? I am thinking particularly about the drive towards net zero. Is that ever put to you? I am thinking about measures to improve soil quality and, in that way, carbon sequestration. Let us take a potato, which takes an awful lot out of the soil in nutrients and so on. Are you looking at that sort of thing in the broader sense? Professor Oldroyd: I am probably the best person to answer that, because my research is entirely focused on trying to remove the need for the addition of phosphate and nitrate as inorganic fertilisers for food production.”
“Q The Government have been criticised for not having a net zero strategy for agriculture but you would say that there is a clear direction coming to you that it should be there. Dr Harrison: There is certainly a clear research strategy. Professor Oldroyd: Absolutely. In fact, it is more driven by that policy. The drive for sustainability is very much an active area of research in the public sector, probably more so than in the private sector. A lot of the public sector research is pushing towards some of those policy issues, in contrast to the private sector, which is looking principally at productivity.”
“Q When it comes to the new subsidy regime—public money for public goods—is that something that could be quantifiable? If a farmer switched to a gene edited product—this is getting a bit techy—could they be rewarded for looking after soil health under the public money for public goods approach? Do you see a situation where a farmer could make the switch because they know they would rewarded for that? Or is that outside your remit? Professor Oldroyd: I guess so. The subsidies are changing quickly.”
“That is a big opportunity for the UK, because we sit outside the common catalogue, so we can define our own value for cultivatable use and national listing system. Again, we could be progressive in the way that we look at this, and lead the way in making sure that the things that breeders are asked to do to put varieties on the market meet the wider policy objectives of sustainable farming and emissions reductions.”
“The challenge will be how you measure that, and it is probably going to be by encouraging farming practices that we know on average reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Dr Harrison: I think you absolutely have to measure it at a farming system level; the genetics alone, in isolation, will not do it. Of course, the system that we have at the moment, the value for cultivatable use, includes some public good traits, for example, disease resistance traits, which are ones that have a clearly measurable environmental benefit, because you are reducing the amount of fungicide sprays and so on. There is absolutely scope to look at that system and ask what additional measures could be put in place to ensure that the varieties, whether conventionally bred or using new breeding technologies, have some level of enhanced environmental service.”
“Q I suppose I am asking whether it is traceable. Could a product be badged as “This is better for the soil”, and therefore ticks the box when it comes to environmental land management schemes? Professor Oldroyd: In the case of my research, we hope that what we are testing right now in the field are lines that will be productive at lower levels of treatment of phosphate as a component of fertiliser. By that it is absolutely measurable how much fertiliser you are putting on the field relative to your productivity. The landscape for subsidies for farming is changing rapidly, and I think within that there are great opportunities for incentives for farmers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sequester more carbon in the soil.”
“Clause 31 states that transfers from prison to hospital should take place within 28 days of a referral notice, “unless there are exceptional circumstances”, and makes it very clear that those exceptional circumstances do not include a shortage of staff or beds. That is welcome, but at the moment about 50% of prisoners who are assessed as needing transfer to hospital are not transferred because the beds are not available. What can the Secretary of State do to make sure that that is not an issue by the time the Bill becomes law?”
“I thank the Minister for that response. Henry Dimbleby’s national food strategy was an “excellent plan to help people escape the ‘junk food cycle’”. That is what the former Conservative leader William Hague said when he was writing in The Times a few weeks ago. He went on to describe the Government’s U-turn on implanting any of the recommendations in that strategy as “intellectually shallow, politically weak and morally reprehensible”. Was he right?”
“T6. On Tuesday, at Foreign Office questions, the House paid tribute to the activists Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, who were killed while working on the book “How to Save the Amazon”. Does the Secretary of State agree that our food chain is contaminated by products linked to deforestation, in particular livestock feed from imported soya that is grown in the region, and that we need to do much more to stamp that out and protect the work of activists seeking to expose this?”
“My hon. Friend mentioned the impact of the people outside the clinics on the people going into the clinics, and the obstruction of the pavement and passers-by, but does she agree that there is a difference between the two? As we have discussed in Committee, protests that cause people inconvenience are legitimate, but there is quite a difference between that and the harassment of people making a possibly difficult life choice. Does she agree that there is a difference in the impact on people, and that protesters could hold a protest without being close to the clinic?”
“8. What recent assessment she has made of trends in the level of violence against journalists, environmental campaigners and indigenous activists in Brazil.”
“I thank the Minister for that response and I echo her comments about the tragic killings of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, but they are not alone. In 2020, at least 182 indigenous activists and 20 environmental campaigners were killed in Brazil. It is the relentless drive to develop the Amazon rainforest that is behind these murders. What are the Government doing to put maximum pressure on the Bolsonaro Government to reverse that trend, but also to reduce our complicity in this through our supply chains and the involvement of British companies in financing this?”
“In Bristol, we have a successful e-scooter rental pilot, but we also see people using e-scooters illegally and using rental e-scooters on the pavement. That can be very scary for people trying to walk along the pavement while that is happening. I know the Government are looking to legalise and regulate private ownership, but how will the Home Office team work with the Department for Transport team to ensure the police have the powers to stop them being misused in a way that scares people who are just trying to go about their daily business?”
“I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning that, because it is something that has been bothering me. As I have said before, I was with the police in the operation centre when they were looking at protests in Bristol. Part of the briefing before protests involves telling the police what offences might be committed, what to look for and so on. We have a plethora of offences, and they have to make judgments on whether something is a serious disruption. The more complex it is, the more difficult it will be for the police to know what they are supposed to do when they are out on the streets in a very difficult situation.”
“Concern about that has been expressed in Bristol. There are a lot of cyclists in Bristol and many who would be carrying bike locks around with them. College Green is the area where people tend to congregate if there is going to be a march or a protest. However, there would be an awful lot of people in that area who might well be carrying things that, if the police wanted to be difficult, might put them under suspicion. Does my hon. Friend share my concern? [ Interruption . ] I do not quite know how it works if I am intervening. I am intervening on my shadow Minister, not the Minister.”
“To give one example, a few years ago there was a protest in Bristol that involved people blocking the road by sitting and laying their bicycles down in it. That would potentially mean that they would have bike locks on them and could be subject to stop and search, would it not?”
“I understand the provision to mean that if they were then in a relationship, they would not have to give notice of it if it was the sort of set-up in which they were staying somewhere else for part of the week, and that they would have to provide notification only if they were doing it for a month at a time. Is that right?”
“I seek a couple of quick clarifications. Subsection (3) states that there is a duty to notify the police about “the address of any other premises at which…P regularly resides or stays.” However, subsection (4) then refers to P deciding “to live for a period of one month or more” somewhere else. Obviously, there is a difference there, so I wondered what counted as regularly residing or staying. What happens if P was in a relationship with somebody and stayed over somewhere? Quite a lot of people have a permanent home address but they stay over at somebody else’s for a few days or weeks, and they might notify that. But let us suppose they were not in a relationship at the time the order was granted and so have not given notice of a second address.”
“I do not think that is actually what the Bill says, although it is a fairly technical point. I have one other query on notifications. Subsection (6) says that the notification can be given by “attending at a police station”, which is fair enough, or by “giving an oral notification to a police officer, or to any person authorised for the purpose by the officer in charge of the station.” I am a little concerned about this “oral notification”. Will there be a process for recording it and making sure there is a record of it happening? I am surprised that a notification in writing would not be accepted. Is there a particular reason why that would not be allowed?”
“I have slightly lost track as to whether we are still at an intervention or not, but I think I am continuing my speech. I have had immigration cases in which people have had a duty to report to the police station and their attending has somehow not made it on to the record, and people have fallen foul of the law as a result. It can be quite difficult for someone to prove that they did something if the police did not keep accurate records of their doing it. I just want to avoid that situation.”
“That is the end of my speech. Question put and agreed to. Clause 17 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 18 Duration of serious disruption prevention order Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.”
“Can I ask the Minister to clarify a bit more? He said that someone would be in breach of the order if they attended a protest that the order covered. In Bristol, we tend to have quite a lot of political activity. We have marches that wind their way through the city centre and parks. We also had the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill protests, which lasted for several days in certain pockets. I am concerned about how “attending a protest” would be interpreted; if someone was just walking through the city centre alongside a march, would they be deemed to have attended the protest? I am concerned about how the courts would interpret “without reasonable excuse”. It might be difficult to prove that someone was just on their way through town, as opposed to being part of a march.”
“I entirely agree with the hon. Lady. As I said, the police in Bristol will be used to dealing with these sorts of situations on the streets, but we will have to bring in police from other forces who will not be accustomed to dealing with them. Does she agree that that is of particular concern? They will not have the knowledge that comes from just being on the job, dealing with cases and talking to colleagues.”
“Q9. We know that, at times of economic hardship, suicide rates are likely to rise too. We saw that after the 2008 crash. As well as doing more to support people through the cost of living crisis, will the Prime Minister commit to doing more to support excellent suicide prevention campaigns such as CALM—the Campaign Against Living Miserably—and also implement Labour’s pledge to let anyone in need of it to be able to access mental health counselling within a month and to end waiting lists?”
“We see turkeys and chickens that are bred to be so heavy that they cannot support their own weight on their legs; the milk yields of cows have more than doubled in the past 40 years, to about 22 litres per day in the UK—that is not natural; and we know that cows, as well as suffering from mastitis, now become infertile extremely quickly from intensive milking. Their life cycle has been reduced from 20 years in the wild to about three or four when raised in intensive farming conditions. Again, the causes, rather than the symptoms, ought to be tackled by the Government as well.”
“They are fed into maceration machines—mincing machines—because they do not lay eggs but, again, other countries such as Germany, France and Sweden are already doing things to stop chick shredding without resorting to gene editing. I am concerned by what the Secretary of State said in response to the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) about yields. He did not refute her concern about the Government saying the Bill will enable the development of “precision-bred plants and animals which will bolster food production” and “drive economic growth.” Existing livestock farming methods have already led to the creation of animals that are radically different from their original natural forms.”
“I accept there are some positives, such as helping to reduce our reliance on antibiotics, but there are other ways to do that. Other countries have been much better than us in restricting the routine overuse of antibiotics. The hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) said the Bill is trying to tackle the symptoms, not the causes. If not for the ever-growing intensification and industrialisation of farming, where animals are crammed together in unsanitary conditions, we would not need to rely on the routine use of antibiotics, as too many farmers do. We have had an interesting debate on whether we could use technology to suppress the birth of male chicks. At the moment, 29 million male chicks are killed by the poultry industry each year, and 7 billion are killed globally.”
“The Soil Association has raised concerns about the commercialisation of crops and tells us that just four companies control more than 60% of the global seed supply. I do not have time to go into detail on those concerns, but they need to be flagged up in Committee. I went to talk to farmers in El Salvador after the Central America free trade agreement, and they want to support organic farms and natural seeds but were told they cannot because, under the free trade agreement, alternatives from Monsanto and others have to be allowed into the market. I would be very concerned if such a situation were allowed to develop here at the expense of people who want to go down the organic route. The most problematic part of the Bill concerns the gene editing of animals.”
“We have heard today of the potential benefits and of how gene editing could have a role to play in reducing our reliance on fertilisers and pesticides and in creating food that is resistant to drought or food that is more nutritious. We have heard about vitamin D in tomatoes, and there has been a long-running conversation about vitamin A being added to golden rice, although it has yet to live up to its billing. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) that the Bill is very thin on the regulatory framework. Perhaps the Government ought to have put those measures in place before steaming ahead with developing these products. His points on labelling were well made, too. The concerns about cross-contamination and support for organic food producers and consumers are valid.”
“They chained themselves because that they wanted to make their voices heard. If they were immediately arrested, they would not have the chance to make their speeches, so it was a tactic to stay in place and at least get a few sentences out before they were removed.”
“They wanted to facilitate peaceful protest and were very good at trying to ensure that it did not turn into something that put people at risk. For the most part, they were successful. Can the Minister say where the parameters of the clause come in? There are historical examples. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central mentioned Greenham Common, but if we look back at the suffragettes, part of their tactics was to tie themselves with belts or chains to Buckingham Palace or Parliament. In January 1908, Edith New and Olivia Smith chained themselves to the railings at No. 10, which would not happen now, while one of their colleagues, Flora Drummond, went inside to disrupt the Cabinet meeting. I dread to think what the response would be now; they would not get anywhere near it.”
“I echo what my colleague on the Front Bench, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central, was saying about how we approach the policing of protests in this country. Obviously, Bristol has had quite a reputation for protests, particularly around the time of the events involving the Colston statue. We know that the people involved in that protest were eventually acquitted of criminal damage. I have been out with the police to see how they approach things. There were a number of weekends in a row when there were protests against the Bill that has become the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. People were, quite rightly, very unhappy about what the Government were trying to do. I went out with the police and also went to the operations centre to see their approach; what they wanted to do was to facilitate protest.”
“If somebody were asking a personal assistant to commit a criminal offence, such as assaulting someone or something that is generally regarded as beyond the pale, the assistant would not do that. If disability activists want to exercise their right to protest, are they allowed to exercise their right to break the law as well? Personal assistants are not meant to have their own opinions on such matters; they are meant to do as they are asked.”
“He has a personal assistant who went on a protest with him, and he insisted that his personal assistant chain handcuff him to the pole by the door of a London bus. There was a big protest of disability activists blocking the streets—I think it was around Piccadilly Circus—to protest about accessibility and public transport. When the police came along, they did arrested not the guy who was chained up but the personal assistant for locking him to the pole. It was the personal assistant’s birthday and he spent the night in the cells, while somebody else managed to get my friend, the activist, home. There is a clause in the Bill about locking somebody else to something and that raises interesting issues about the situation for a personal assistant. They are there to act at the will of the person they are assisting and to do anything they ask.”
“This silly example is more for the Committee’s amusement: we had the case of an Extinction Rebellion protestor in Bristol who tried to glue himself to the doors of City Hall. However, they were automatic sliding doors, so the moment someone approached them, they opened. I think it was caught on camera, but every time he tried to glue his arms to the door, they opened. He could not manage to do it. I do not suppose the protestor would be dealt with under an offence of this kind and he probably deserves a prize for entertaining everybody. That was an aside, but to give an idea of the sort of calculations people make, in my constituency I have a good activist on disability issues who has disabilities himself.”
“The Minister has rather pre-empted what I was going to say. The suffragettes knew that they would be arrested but took the decision because they felt their cause warranted it and they knew, roughly speaking, what the response would be and the sort of punishment available. If people are going to engage in this sort of activity and knowingly do things that would break the law, when we have an offence that treats something so seriously, my concern is at what point people can make that calculation on whether they are going to be arrested and taken to court under lesser legislation or whether the clause will be invoked. Its vagueness means that it is not clear where those parameters are.”
“We know that the clause will apply to the most serious cases, of people chaining themselves to planes. We know that it will not apply to a guy trying to superglue a hand to a sliding door at Bristol City Hall.”
“If I may just finish this point. They are entitled to make the decision to break the law and suffer the consequences. That is something that we accept in this country. People can choose to do that, provided they are willing to accept the consequences. To make that decision and exercise their democratic rights in that way, they need some certainty about how they will be treated by the law. It is a basic concept of operating in society that we ought to know how the criminal justice system will treat us. What is likely to happen if the provision on excuses is invoked? If the clause is invoked when people do not feel it should be, the courts will acquit because it is unfair. I do not get a sense of clarity and I am looking for one from the Minister.”
“The Parliamentary Private Secretary asks why not. That is quite worrying. Would that cause serious disruption, if he had one hand attached to the door and was wiggling backwards and forwards as everyone went in and out? That is exactly my point. If that is deemed to cause serious disruption, that is very worrying. I cannot think of many locking-on offences that would not be deemed serious disruption. It proves my point if the PPS thinks that the provision would cover a case as ludicrous and minor as that. That proves my point, so I will sit down and ask the Minister to explain where the middle ground and that clarity is.”
“Suicide prevention organisations such as the Campaign Against Living Miserably and Papyrus are, sadly, needed more than ever, yet in the current economic climate, because they tend to rely on charitable donations, they are struggling to provide the services to meet demand. What will the Government do to make sure they survive and provide the life-saving services that are so badly needed?”
“T5. After the conference on disarmament in March, the UK representative said that while the situation in Ukraine would clearly have an impact on countries’ security calculations, it also“makes it more important than ever for the international community to revitalise our commitment to arms control and disarmament.”Can the Secretary of State tell us what discussions he has had with his NATO counterparts since then on reinvigorating multilateral nuclear disarmament talks?”
“If there are more arrests as a result of what they are doing today, and there are more penalties, that should have a deterrent effect. In terms of fines, it is interesting that we have seen some offences being prosecuted and resulting in a fine. What sometimes happens, and we have seen this in other places, is that they will crowdfund and those penalties will be paid by others.”
“Q Can I go back to the question of deterrent? With some of the groups we are talking about, particularly the environmental campaigners, the aim is to get arrested—that is very clearly stated. I have seen calls to action where it says, “Our objective is to have x number of protestors, resulting in x number of arrests.” What makes you think that deterrence will make any difference, because the more offences there are, the easier it is going to be to get arrested for something, and that is their objective? John Groves: All I can say is that it is about the penalty that could follow an arrest. As I said earlier, if you contrast the number of incidents we have seen on HS2 sites against the number of arrests, there is a disparity.”