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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“Turning to the amendments on air pollution, we have heard about the tragic death of nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah, and we also know that covid has left many people extra-vulnerable with long-term damage to their lungs. As we mark today the horrific milestone of over 100,000 covid deaths and many more infected, I urge the Minister to think again on this. I support adopting the target on PM 2.5 ; the suggestion that it would prevent higher ambition is ludicrous. The Government have for too long tried to pass the buck to local councils; what we need is a comprehensive national strategy on air pollution to prevent any further tragedies. We also need urgent action from the Government on their decarbonisation of transport plan. I do not get any sense at the moment that the Government are joining the dots.”
“Labour’s new clause 8 would require the Secretary of State to take account of the waste hierarchy. From food waste to plastic pollution, the starting point should be to prevent waste from occurring in the first place. I hope that when this Bill reaches the other place, we will further debate our global carbon footprint and the need to bring proposals to COP26 to measure consumption, not just production. Promoting the circular economy should be at the absolute heart of any green recovery package. At present, we have disincentives to send waste to landfill but very few mechanisms to encourage compliance further up the hierarchy, and virtually no enforcement either, because the Environment Agency simply does not have the resources to do so.”
“The general post-Brexit watering down of workers’ rights is also relevant. Contrary to what the Government would like people to believe, being part of the EU never prevented the UK Government from raising their standards and going higher than the level playing field. The freedom we have now, about which many Government Members are so enthusiastic, is a freedom to lower standards and remove workers’ protections. That is why Labour has called an Opposition day debate today on that very topic. I hope the Minister will give the Committee some assurances that she appreciates the importance of legislative protections for drivers in the haulage sector that go above and beyond the regulations under discussion and that she will seek to uphold and, indeed, strengthen them whenever such issues cross her desk.”
“That reckless brinkmanship meant hauliers, importers and exporters had little time to prepare for the new customs regime, and the Government have had precious little time to communicate the new rules to them. As the Minister and I have discussed previously, that involves translation into many different languages through the haulier handbook—it is not a simple task to get the information out. As a result, we have seen regular reports of goods rotting in border facilities, UK hauliers facing a significant drop in demand for their services and predictions of shortages of goods in the coming months. In fact, the situation is predicted to get worse before it gets better, as many companies stockpiled before the end of the transition period to avoid being caught up in the chaos we now see.”
“On 22 January, the Government extended the relaxation of enforcement for the retained EU drivers’ hours rules until 31 March. We agree that such measures may be necessary in the short term to avoid immediate chaos at our borders, but to extend the relaxations for more than two months is not exactly an expression of confidence from the Government in their own ability to address the chaotic situation. Such emergency measures may not have been necessary had the Government negotiated a trade agreement with the EU in a timely manner rather than at the very last minute, or had they taken adequate steps to prepare, such as hiring and training the necessary number of customs agents.”
“It is vital for the safety of all of us using UK roads that those driving heavy goods vehicles are rested and can remain vigilant and drive safely. We know how terrible—I think the Minister said “catastrophic”—the consequences can be otherwise: we have all witnessed the accidents that occur sometimes because of driver error or other incidents. Limits on maximum hours driven and requiring rest breaks are the best way to keep us all safe, and it is right that they should continue to be protected in law now that the transition period is over. The regulations will help UK officials properly to enforce any breaches of the rules, so it is important that they are transferred into UK law. However, the timing of the regulations is somewhat unfortunate, given recent developments.”
“Let me say at the outset that we will not oppose the regulations. The Opposition’s priority has always been to ensure that the rights and welfare of drivers are protected, and this amendment to legislation for the UK’s future outside the European Union is an important part of that. I am pleased that the Government are applying rules regarding the monitoring and enforcement of the hours driven by haulage drivers to domestic journeys in the UK as well as international journeys. It is important to recognise that hauliers have kept this country going during the difficult times of the past year, ensuring that essential supplies of food and medicine have got through —sometimes in difficult circumstances. It is too easy to forget the contribution they make.”
“What recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Government’s definition of care, support and supervision for benefits recipients in (a) supported and (b) exempted housing.”
“The Minister and I have talked about this, so he will know that I have real concerns about the exploitation of vulnerable people in the supported housing sector by landlords who know that they can charge much higher rents by providing only “more than minimal” support. Will the Minister look at the regulations to see whether they can be tightened up? I know that pilots are going on and consideration is being given to whether we can regulate supported housing, and that might be one way to do it.”
“I am very pleased that my mother, my aunt and my uncle are all having their vaccinations today, so it seems that the roll-out to the over-70s is going well in Bedfordshire at least. May I ask about young carers? We know that the 10 to 19-year-old group is at particular risk of transmitting covid, if not at risk of suffering badly from it. Many of them will be looking after people who are in the clinically vulnerable group, but at the moment it seems that they will not be prioritised for vaccination, just the people who have more professional caring responsibilities. Will the Secretary of State add young carers to his list of people who, for the sake of the people they care for, will be vaccinated early?”
“It sounds to me like the Secretary of State has not been listening to the Road Haulage Association, which has warned that supply chains to Northern Ireland are close to collapse because of the problems with the new processes at the borders. As he says, there have been scenes in Belfast of empty shelves in supermarkets, but there have also been reports of hauliers losing huge amounts of money because lorries are having to return to Northern Ireland empty. Will the Government listen to the Northern Ireland logistics sector and take urgent action to address that?”
“That is why parliamentary scrutiny of trade deals is so important, and why I will be voting for these amendments.”
“Deforestation in Brazil is one such example. Current Government proposals to eliminate illegal deforestation from UK supply chains simply do not go far enough—not when there are Governments such as Bolsonaro’s in Brazil, who have given the green light to it. The World Wide Fund for Nature found that 43 million hectares—an area the size of California—was lost in deforestation fronts such as the Amazon in the 13 years between 2004 and 2017. If business continues as usual, by 2030 we will have lost another 170 million hectares. Put simply, I do not trust the Government to raise such issues in anything more than a tokenistic way when it comes to negotiating a bilateral trade agreement with the likes of Brazil. When I asked about that in the Chamber last week, the answer that I got confirmed that.”
“The Government have continually claimed that they will not allow UK food and environmental standards to be ripped up but have still fought every attempt to put such protections into law, despite massive public support for them. Principles-based parliamentary scrutiny of trade deals, impact assessments and a robust Trade and Agriculture Commission are essential if we are to hold the Government to account. It is not just about protecting our own standards. We ought to be using what leverage we have in trade negotiations to put pressure on other countries to raise their standards where they are low. If we import and consume food, or if our companies are involved in its financing or production, from countries where land degradation and the abuse of animals and workers are commonplace, we are complicit.”
“This is something we simply should not tolerate in our business relationships. In this speech, I will focus—not for the first time—on another issue that constituents have contacted me about in droves: the need to ensure that we do not bargain away our existing environmental and food standards in the heated pursuit of new trading relationships. The damage we have done to our trading relationship with our closest partners in the EU with the flimsy Brexit deal last month puts the UK in an even weaker negotiating position, but we need to stand firm and, for the sake of our health and the planet, refuse to sacrifice British standards.”
“I am pleased that this Bill has returned from the other place in a much stronger form, with an enhanced role for parliamentary scrutiny, and I will be opposing any attempts to water down those changes today. If I had a bit more time, I would talk about protecting NHS patient data, protecting children from online harms and, of course, the genocide amendments, all of which have been raised with me by concerned constituents, as well as the need for a triple barrier against trade agreements with countries that abuse human rights. I am pleased that so many other speakers have more than done justice to those issues, in particular raising concerns about appalling human rights abuses in China. Only last week, we saw shocking reports about the connection between many global brands and the forced labour camps in Xinjiang.”
“As Ministers know, both the Children’s Commissioner and I are keen to get their support for a ban on placing looked-after children in unregulated accommodation, but I understand that the Department wants to do this only for under-16s, which would currently affect 90 or so children. There are many, many more 16 to 18-year-olds in unsafe accommodation who are still legally children and who are still meant to be in our care. Can the Minister explain the justification for treating them differently and, in doing so, potentially putting them at risk of harm?”
“I thank the Minister for his response, but in recent correspondence I have had with the Brazilian ambassador, he has refused even to acknowledge that deforestation is an issue in the Amazon. We have also seen recent reports in the press about terrible working conditions on Brazilian beef farms, which have been described as akin to modern slavery. What more can be done to ensure not only that these concerns are raised in discussions with Brazil but that any future bilateral trade deal is conditional on Brazil taking action to stop the abuse of workers and the deforestation?”
“What recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on the development of the new national autism strategy.”
“I was not really able to hear the Minister’s answer, but a report from the Care Quality Commission in October last year was quite damning in its account of the experiences of people with autism and learning disabilities in mental health facilities. What work is the Minister doing—particularly in terms of the review of the Mental Health Act 2010 that we will hear about later today—to ensure that people with autism are treated sensitively when they end up encountering mental health services and having to spend time as an in-patient?”
“I, too, extend my best wishes to the Minister. Bristol has a particularly complicated set of elections coming up. We have the all-outs for councillors; the mayoral election; the West of England Combined Authority metro mayor election; and the police and crime commissioner election. That would be difficult enough for people to get their heads round in ordinary times, so what extra support will the Minister be able to give to local authorities such as Bristol’s to try to ensure that people understand what they are voting for and quite what is up for election? I am thinking, in particular, of those who perhaps do not have the best command of the English language, and those who have visual disabilities or other reasons why this would be particularly tricky for them.”
“The Woodland Trust has been helping to plant mini-orchards on some of those pieces of land, which makes a huge difference to the look and feel of a place. I hope to hear how the Minister plans to do more to empower local communities to push forward with those sort of tree-planting and rewilding programmes. One of the upsides of covid, and of councils having less in the way of resources, is that they have not been mowing the grass in the same way, and we have seen biodiversity flourish. Some people think it looks scruffy, but I think most of us would agree that that is a massive improvement. I think we are all on the same page on this, but I would like to hear from the Minister how we will raise our ambitions and meet the targets that we have been talking about.”
“I hope that the Minister is doing what she can to encourage that. In Bristol—I am a Bristol MP—we are leading the way on tree planting. We have a campaign to double Bristol’s tree canopy cover by planting 250,000 trees by 2030. The “one tree per child” campaign is part of that, and in 2015, when we were the European green capital, we managed to plant one tree for every primary schoolchild in the city. The Woodland Trust has been doing great work planting mini-orchards. One of my pet hates is when housing is developed, leaving green triangles everywhere—little bits of green space—or verges by the pavement. They are of no use for anything. People cannot sit on them and children cannot play on them. It is nothing but grass.”
“I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on agroecology for sustainable food and farming—if anyone wants to join, they are very welcome—and we have been campaigning for these things for a long time. Agroforestry should be an absolutely central part of any national tree-planting strategy. All major landholders have a responsibility to try to do their bit. I have been asking questions at Church Commissioners questions, as the Church of England is one of the biggest landowners in this country. I was originally told that because so much of its land is high-grade agricultural land, it is not really suitable for planting trees, but the figures I have show that well under half of it is good-quality agricultural land, so the Church of England could do much more to plant trees, and the same goes for the Ministry of Defence.”
“A major driver of deforestation in this country, as in the Amazon, is land conversion for agricultural purposes. A key means to address that is agroforestry. I am pleased that, under the Agriculture Act, farmers will be rewarded for planting more trees and encouraging biodiversity on their land. There is a lot of evidence to show that if we plant trees and other plants among crops, rather than rigidly sticking to monocultures, we could improve conditions for crops and wildlife by creating nutrient-rich, complex ecosystems. A lot of people think that the countryside that we see as we go through it on a train—fields of grass, with cows grazing on them—is the natural environment, but it is not. That is not what our countryside should look like. It should be far more diverse, and there should be far more trees.”
“We have already heard that there is going to be rowback on planning proposals, but there is still a real battle between the need to protect our natural environment and the desire to build more houses. We have not had the right reassurances about how net gain and biodiversity offsetting will work, particularly over the long term. It is one thing to say that if trees are chopped down to build houses, more trees need to be planted elsewhere, but how can we be sure that, 10 years down the line, that woodland is protected and maintained? Who is responsible—the developer or the council? Who is held to account if the trees are not put in place? There are concerns about whether the regulators have the powers and resources to take such enforcement action.”
“When the Environment Bill was in Committee we tried to add provisions to start measuring our global footprint and the links to deforestation in our supply chain. While I am talking about the Environment Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central criticised its lack of focus on tree planting. I have a huge number of concerns about the Bill, not least that it has yet to become law. There will be a regulatory gap once we exit the transition period, with the Office for Environmental Protection not fully up and running and able to take enforcement action until July 2021, according to what I have heard. A chair has been appointed but no board has been recruited. We do not know about its budget or resources. How are we going to enforce regulations, not just stop people chopping down trees?”
“As has been said, at the last election there was a race to outdo each other on the number of trees to be planted. The Government were bottom of the league table, pledging to plant only 30 million a year, while the Labour party was pledging to plant 100 million. I think we can all agree, if not on the precise number, that the ambition needs to be there. I briefly want to mention my concern about deforestation overseas. We are here to talk about England’s tree strategy, but it is shocking to see the continued devastation in the Amazon rainforest, which is referred to as the lungs of the Earth, due to its immense capacity to convert carbon to oxygen. It faces an onslaught due to industrial agriculture, mining and forest fires linked to climate change.”
“Without natural climate solutions we have little hope of reaching net zero emissions or preventing further species decline. The issue is not limited to tree planting; peatlands and seagrass meadows are also vital carbon sinks. I give credit to the RSPB and the WWF for their recent work to raise the profile of those areas. I hope the Government will finally act in response to their campaigns. However, we are here to talk about tree planting. The UK’s lack of ambition on this front in the past is reflected by the fact that we have 13% forest cover. My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central said 12%. Whatever the precise figure, that is compared with an EU average of 40%, so clearly there is a lot more to be done. I welcome recent Government pledges on tree planting.”
“As has been said, planting more trees is absolutely central to efforts to address the climate change emergency, the ecological emergency and the devastating collapse in biodiversity that we have we seen, by providing natural carbon sinks and habitats for wildlife to flourish. As has been mentioned, it also prevents soil erosion and flooding. In the winter of 2015-16, when I went to some of our northern constituencies that had been badly affected by flooding, there was much discussion about the need to plant more trees to prevent soil erosion. I went to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and talked to Yorkshire Water. It is about planting trees in the right place, as well. It is not just numbers that count but location and the type of tree.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) on securing the debate. I am the parliamentary species champion for swifts, so I am in the slightly unusual position of campaigning for swift bricks, rather than trees, to protect their habitat; but we all recognise the importance of tree planting and rewilding. It is about not just making our towns and cities more pleasant places to live, but the benefits for physical and mental health of being able to get out into nature, as hon. Members have mentioned.”
“It has been nearly two years since the Environmental Audit Committee published its report into fast fashion. During that inquiry, we heard disturbing evidence about practices in the cotton trade in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and about bondage child labour in the cotton mills of Tamil Nadu, and there was reference to prison camps in China as well. The Government rejected nearly all of our recommendations, including a requirement for due diligence checks on the supply chain. Does the Minister regard that as a missed opportunity, and what progress has been made in the past two years since that warning sign was raised by the Environmental Audit Committee?”
“In a recent report, the Children’s Commissioner highlighted the risk to young people in care who go into unregulated and mostly unsupported accommodation, and called for a ban on that. One risk is of being preyed upon and drawn into county lines activity. Will the Minister speak to her colleagues in the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to see whether they can support my Bill which aims to outlaw this?”
“As the least musically talented member ever of the Musicians Union, I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am sort of pleased that the Minister gave that answer, although it does mean that I am slightly floundering as to what question to ask her now, because that was what I was going to ask. Musicians really need that reciprocal exemption. I know she says that what is important is that they are ready and prepared for when they can resume touring again, but it is really late in the day to leave this, and Ministers told the Musicians Union that it would be quite an easy thing to do. Is it possible to get some reassurance to them now, rather than later?”
“In that case, I thank the Minister for what is clearly a very genuine response to the concerns expressed today. What has been said about the culture within the NHS, revealed in this review, has echoes of the Bristol heart babies scandal, and it is tragic that parents must still fight to have their voices heard now. One of the things mentioned by families contributing to the Ockenden review is the desperate need for longer-term support following experience of baby loss. I know from my constituents that the NHS has struggled to provide that during the current pandemic. What more can we do to ensure not just that parents are listened to at the time of losing their baby, but that they are supported from then onwards, too?”
“May I follow on from the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) about the situation with Honda? Given that chaos at ports is already occurring before the end of the transition period—I understand that that is because people are stockpiling because they are so worried about what will happen next year—can the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster confidently say that the perfect storm of Christmas, Brexit stockpiling, covid restrictions and the new customs regime will not lead to significant disruption come January?”
“I am pleased that the RTFO continues to be considered a success across the transport sector, but we must recognise that, as the climate emergency becomes more pressing and transport emissions continue to stagnate rather than reduce, it now needs reform.”
“We can all support the transition to renewable fuels across the transportation sector. As the Minister will be well aware, transport is the largest contributing sector to UK emissions, and progress in trying to decarbonise the sector has been very slow in recent years. To achieve that, we need to make the types of vehicle that we use, and the fuel they consume, more sustainable. It was disappointing to hear this week that the transport decarbonisation plan will not be published until spring 2021; we really do need an overarching strategy and coherence in policy making, as well as a greater sense of urgency. The renewable transport fuel obligation was a key achievement of the last Labour Government. It has been a central part of encouraging the adoption of renewable fuels in transport, particularly fuels sustainably sourced from waste.”
“I know that we are expecting more details of the sixth carbon budget soon, and I will be watching closely for future announcements.”
“Many stakeholders are proposing further reforms to the RTFO, such as a floor price mechanism to help to ensure stability for investment in the sector. I would be interested to hear from the Minister whether the Government are considering that reform to further strengthen the RTFO, because it has come up in many of my conversations with people in the sector. I hope to see more support from the Government for emerging sources of renewable fuels, especially in hard-to-decarbonise sectors such as aviation, shipping and HGVs, which at present cannot easily be electrified. Proper investment in genuinely sustainable fuels for those modes of transport may prove vital in meeting net zero targets and putting us back on track.”
“I am pleased that, as a result of that consultation, there was agreement to go for a 50p multiplier rather than 40p, which would have been considerably less ambitious. I am also pleased that implementation will begin swiftly on 1 January. We will support the SI on the grounds that it strengthens the mandate to supply renewable fuels. Moving forward, however, I hope to see action from the Government to support renewable fuels in other ways. A consultation on introducing E10 petrol was launched earlier this year, but we are still waiting for the Government response, with a final decision on how it will be introduced and, hopefully, how we can ensure that an increased demand for biofuels does not lead to an increase in deforestation due to changes in land use.”
“That is a very good argument for European co-operation, so it is sad that the right hon. Gentleman is such a fan of going it alone. The statutory instrument goes some way towards meeting the need for reform. As the Minister has explained, from 1 January, it will mean that the buy-back price multiplier will increase from 30p to 50p, strengthening the RTFO by providing more incentive for people to meet our renewable fuel requirements, rather than buying themselves out of their obligations. The Government estimate that, without acting to raise the buy-back price, we risk losing annual greenhouse gas savings of up to 6.5 million tonnes of CO 2 . As the Minister said, the SI is the result of consultation.”
“Following my conversations with people in the sector, I am concerned that some companies, particularly those operating fleet vehicles or bus companies —I know that the right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby has a company in his constituency that is keen to manufacture cleaner buses—have been so financially hit by covid that they have put their plans on hold, because it is not an ideal time for a company to upgrade its vehicles if it has not made a profit in the previous year. Will that affect what is in the decarbonisation plan?”
“This morning, at Southmead hospital, 98-year-old Jack Vokes became the first person in Bristol to be vaccinated, which is obviously great news, and I join my colleagues in congratulating NHS staff on all their work at this time. May I press the Secretary of State on the point about transport workers, particularly taxi drivers, who we know are vulnerable not just because of their contact with the public, but because they are overwhelmingly drawn from the black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, which puts them more at risk? Under the headings of prioritising occupations and minimising the inequalities in the second tranche, are they likely to be considered for vaccination early?”
“Was he as unhappy as I was with the reply, and can he release the figures showing that anti-dumping duties should not be lifted because they do represent more than 1% of the UK market?”
“I did not know MAMILs were a thing, but I have now been enlightened by my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane). As part of support for active travel, we ought to be supporting our UK bicycle manufacturers and retailers, but they have been hit by tariffs imposed as a result of the Boeing-Airbus dispute. I think the Minister will agree it is somewhat ironic that an aviation dispute should lead to bicycle manufacturers being penalised. They are also facing the threat of anti-dumping duties being lifted and a flood of cheap Chinese imports. I know the Minister has written to his counterpart in the Department for International Trade about this.”
“Research from the Education Policy Institute, among others, on the performance of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities suggests that they can be particularly vulnerable to being underestimated in assessments. Given that some of those pupils might also, for health reasons and owing to shielding, have had more disruption to their education, how can we be confident that any new system introduced for next year will take their needs into account?”
“As I understand it, the independent review of administrative law panel was due to report this year. I hope the Secretary of State can give us an update on that and on whether it has looked at the fact that the number of successful environmental claims for judicial review fell by two thirds from 2016 to 2019, despite a tougher test for granted permission to proceed to the final stage. Does he agree that it is really important that access to judicial review is protected, even during difficult times like these?”
“I thank the hon. Member for that answer. At the last Church Commissioners questions, he said to me that he strongly wanted to see more trees planted on the Church estate, but that most of the rural estate is high-quality agricultural land and is therefore not suitable. He has just said that 39% is high-grade agricultural land. Does that not mean there is an awful lot of other land on which the Church could plant trees and help meet the Government’s commitment to increasing woodland cover?”
“It was interesting to see that, by and large, people were coming quite new to those arguments, whereas perhaps if it has been a discussion about transport they would have given it a lot more thought in their everyday lives. It was interesting to see the further information they were asking the experts for, and how willing they were to shift their views as they listened to the answers they were given. In the final few seconds that I have to speak, I wish to reflect briefly on the additional recommendation that we should get to net zero without pushing our emissions anywhere else in the world, which was endorsed by 92% of assembly members. The fact is that we are already doing that. We cannot tackle climate change in this country unless we also look at our global carbon footprint.”