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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“Before I move on to the specific topic of the debate, I think it is important to acknowledge, as many others have, that we cannot debate this in isolation; we have to see it in the context of Black Lives Matter and the grievances stretching back not just decades but, in many cases, centuries. Bristol was of course very much in the forefront of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations earlier this month with what our Mayor, Marvin Rees, the first democratically elected black Mayor in Europe, described as an act of “historical poetry”—the hugely symbolic removal by protesters of the statue of Edward Colston. The Observer headline this Sunday was, “The day Bristol dumped its hated slave trader in the docks and a nation began to search its soul” but in fact the reverberations from the removal of Colston were not just national but global.”
“The Minister is actually giving quite comprehensive answers to most people in this Chamber, which makes it all the more striking how curt he was in replying to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). Let me have another try. Yesterday, 57 charities wrote to the Government urging them to pursue a green recovery, which could support at least 210,000 jobs, while a report from the Office for National Statistics has just said that vacancies are at a record low. I am not interested in hearing what the Minister did when he was an Energy Minister; I want to know what the strategy is now. What will he do now to ensure we build back better and that it is a green recovery?”
“In the past week alone, 80 tonnes of food came to Bristol via FareShare South West, but this is not, as the Government would have it, just about this summer and coping with the fallout from the pandemic. People have been attending food banks in record numbers since the economically illiterate, morally bankrupt policy of austerity was adopted a decade ago. The Government have consistently refused to acknowledge the sheer scale of the problem, to engage with those working on the frontline, or to address the underlying causes of food poverty, and it is time that they did.”
“In 2020, we again missed out, apparently by just one point, but again we have no idea why. The Mayor of Bristol and I both wrote to the Government asking why some cities and towns were getting six-figure or even seven-figure sums but Bristol was getting nothing. We suggested spreading the money more evenly so that many more schemes could be pump-primed, but we have not had a response. We know that covid-19 has made many more families financially vulnerable and those who were already vulnerable even more so. I pay a particular tribute to FareShare, which has been fantastic throughout this crisis. Again, let us congratulate Marcus Rashford on raising £20 million for its national effort.”
“Of course I welcome this U-turn, but we need to embed it, so that we do not have to have this argument every time the school holidays come around. This move alone will not be enough. For far too many children, their free school meal is the only decent meal they get, and the under-fives do not even get that. In Bristol, we will still be running our healthy holidays scheme this year, which is about far more than just providing a meal, but it looks as though we will have to do so without Government support. Feeding Bristol was fortunate enough to be a holiday hunger pilot in 2018, but last year we were not so lucky and we do not know why. We got nothing from the Government, but we raised £100,000 and we did it ourselves, albeit to a more limited degree than we would have liked.”
“I congratulate Marcus Rashford on spearheading this campaign. He is an amazing role model, both on the pitch and off it. His speaking out on how his mother struggled to make ends meet and how he would turn up at his friends’ houses in the hope of being fed resonated across the country, and there are far too many other young kids like Marcus out there. Last year, I was one of the MPs who served on the children’s future food inquiry, and we heard devastating accounts from children, not just about raw and real hunger, but about living on leftovers, scraps or cheap food with little to no nutritional value. It should not take a famous footballer speaking out about his experiences as a child; the Government should have listened to those children back then in April last year and implemented the children’s right to food charter.”
“Places such as Eden House in Bristol provided an important alternative to custody for vulnerable female offenders, but the services were slashed under privatisation. Will the Minister commit, based on the work of my predecessor in this place, Baroness Corston, to making sure that services such as Eden House are returned to full capacity, so that we can fulfil that agenda of trying to keep women out of prison and providing a safe alternative for them?”
“I and my colleagues in the shadow Transport team are very happy to work with Ministers to try to ensure that the aviation industry is given the certainty, the clarity, the direction and the support that it needs.”
“There has been a devastating collapse in air traffic of approximately 90%, which is putting at risk an economically vital industry that supports 230,000 jobs. We need clarity from the Government on three major policy areas. The first is the one that we are discussing today—the legislation related to the European Union and the transition period. We also need clarity on the financial support for the industry, and on the nature of the measures that the industry must implement to avoid further spread of covid-19. I am pleased that today we are establishing a degree of clarity on one aspect, as it relates to the EU transition period, but confusion still reigns over the Government’s quarantine for new arrivals, and we continue to wait for a specific conditional support package for the aviation industry.”
“I do not think, however, that fixing in law the end date for the transition period has been beneficial to the legislative process, and I am uneasy about the apparent lack of progress in ongoing negotiations with the European Union. The concerns about a damaging exit at the end of the year are very real. That is particularly important for the aviation industry, given that we are in a time of unprecedented economic upheaval for the sector. The aviation sector’s need for certainty has never been greater. Brexit will inevitably have an impact on a business that is, by its very nature, about crossing borders and relationships with other countries, and the global pandemic has hit aviation especially hard.”
“Given the limitations on parliamentary scrutiny at the moment because of the need for social distancing and the fact that not as many Members can take part in proceedings, as well as the delay that we have had over the past few months, there is a danger that we could be rushing delegated legislation rather than giving it the proper attention that it deserves. Given the need for certainty for the people who will be affected by such legislation, we do not want a logjam towards the end of the year, giving rise to uncertainty about whether arrangements will be put in place or not. The fact that we have now got started, and that we have dealt with two of the statutory instruments this week, is a good start.”
“Given that the statutory instrument transfers power from the European Commission to the Secretary of State to set those minimum requirements, and that he—or she in future—can do so by regulation, is there potentially a risk that the minimum insurance levels will not be the same as they would be if we were still part of the EU scheme? I think that is quite an important point to note. The statutory instrument is one of many that the Government are having to rush through Parliament as a result of what I would say is an unnecessary focus on an arbitrary date in our exit from the transition period.”
“As the Minister said, the function of the measure is to ensure that there are minimum insurance requirements for air carriers and aircraft operators in respect of passengers’ baggage, cargo and third parties. My understanding is that that stems from the 1999 Montreal convention, whereby airlines are responsible for compensation in the case of death and injury to passengers, and are required to be adequately insured to cover any liabilities. The EU civil aviation insurance regulation sets out the minimum level required. I have one question, which the Minister may have answered in her opening remarks.”
“The statutory instrument that we are discussing today is uncontroversial in that we accept that, now that Britain has left the European Union and the end of the transition period is in sight, we need to transfer relevant powers away from the European Commission and to the Secretary of State for Transport as smoothly as possible. I understand that a number of statutory instruments will be issuing forth from the Minister in the coming months, and that could be seen as a mechanistic process to ensure continuity. That does not mean to say, however, that we will not scrutinise and challenge if we have concerns about the way that the Government are doing things.”
“It has been some four years since I stood at this Dispatch Box, so it is a pleasure to be back. I took part in Transport orals a few weeks ago, but that was on one of the screens above us. I am very pleased to be here shadowing the Minister today. We have already established a constructive relationship. We debated our first statutory instrument together yesterday in Committee. As I said to her, I will be writing to her and scrutinising what she does, but in a spirit of constructive working. We have the decarbonisation of transport brief and the EU transition brief, both of which are incredibly important in the current circumstances.”
“As negotiations with the EU continue, albeit far from smoothly—I am sure the Minister will agree there is a lot to get through before the end of the transition period—I hope that the Government ensure that there is close co-operation between the UK and the EU on the research, development and deployment of new air traffic management technologies, regulation and network management functions in future. Air traffic management and aviation generally is an area where close international co-operation will always be absolutely vital, and the UK’s relationship with the European Union can be no exception to that. I thank the Minister, and you, Mrs Cummins, for giving me the opportunity to speak. I very much look forward to working with the Minister in future.”
“I sent her another letter this afternoon—just to flag that up—about car scrappage. I am sure she looks forward to seeing that in her inbox when she returns to the Department. At a time when the industry faces such immense economic difficulties because of the ongoing pandemic, it is right that we do not put up any more legislative barriers for the sector. The priority must be providing clarity on the future for the sector post transition, and that is what we are attempting to do today by ensuring that the legislation passes and the responsibilities are transferred away from the European Commission without further hold-up.”
“The European Union’s single European sky legislation successfully enhanced air traffic safety for many years, so I am glad to see a broad continuity in policy throughout these regulations. We certainly support smooth legislative continuity for the aviation industry as the transition period ends. There was much uncertainty for the sector because of Brexit, but that has obviously been heightened by the ongoing covid-19 crisis and the fact that so many flights have been grounded. The need for certainty and safety in aviation is why we will not oppose this statutory instrument, and why we will try to work with the transport team as much as possible. I do not have the aviation brief; I have the EU brief, and the brief for things such as decarbonisation of transport, on which the Minister and I have worked closely; I appreciate her doing that.”
“Obviously, air traffic management is an extremely important aspect of the successful and safe operation of the aviation industry, so it is right, now that the UK has left the EU and the end of the transition period looms, that the relevant powers in relation to air traffic management are transferred to the Secretary of State and authorities such as the Civil Aviation Authority and NATS Holdings to ensure that all air traffic flows can safely continue. We might have our own views as to the wisdom of leaving the EU and having to replicate all this or take it back into our hands, but we have probably exhausted that debate, and I do not intend to revisit it, although I cannot promise that I will not at some point in future, particularly as we get towards the end of the year.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Cummins. I do not intend to take up too much of the Committee’s time, which I am sure everyone will appreciate, but I want to place a few things on the record. First, I thank the Minister for the pre-briefing with her civil servants that she offered me earlier today. Particularly with what, on the surface, can seem to be quite obscure statutory instruments, it is always helpful to have access to the same advice as the Minister. I thank the civil servants for taking part in that. The statutory instrument is not controversial and I do not intend to oppose it, but it is important for the reasons that the Minister outlined.”
“There was already a huge backlog of Crown court cases before the coronavirus outbreak. My concern is that many people will be remanded in custody without having been convicted of any offences. Technically they are innocent until proven guilty. What impact has the outbreak had on the time they are having to spend time remanded in custody without having been convicted of an offence? Does he have numbers?”
“As a Bristol MP, I want to commend the police for how they handled things yesterday; it was a very difficult situation for them. Does the Home Secretary agree that we need to look at the underlying reasons for people going out on the streets to protest yesterday and accept that austerity, covid-19 and many other issues are factors behind that?”
“As the Foreign Secretary has acknowledged, there is concern not just about what is happening in Hong Kong but about the treatment of the Uighur Muslims and Falun Gong practitioners and what is happening not just in terms of human rights abuses in Tibet but the terrible environmental destruction going on there, too. The Foreign Secretary mentioned the asymmetric economic power of China, and also implied that, basically, China’s refusal to engage on human rights dialogue means it can get away with doing whatever it wants; is that really the case?”
“I very much welcome what the Secretary of State has said about the PHE report and the need to get to the bottom of why these racial disparities seem to be a thing, but it is not enough to work out after the event why there have been so many more deaths among the BAME community. What is he doing to support the public health function in local authorities so that they can work with local community groups to try to identify people who are more likely to be at risk, to prevent the illnesses and deaths from occurring in the first place?”
“To ask the Chairman of the Public Accounts Commission, if the NAO will estimate the cost to the public purse of changing the date of eligibility for the coronavirus job retention scheme to 19 March 2020.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for that response, which may well have answered my question—that is unusual. The point I wanted to flag up with him is that although the Government coronavirus support packages have helped a great many people, far too many have fallen through the gaps and, for one reason or another, are not getting the help they need. I therefore ask him to bring this issue to the attention of the Comptroller and Auditor General, so that the NAO could look into the operation of these schemes to see whether they represented the best use of public money or whether lessons could be learned as to how we would approach an issue such as this if, God forbid, we ended up with another situation as serious as the current pandemic.”
“It is so good to see so many cities and towns now putting in place infrastructure to support active travel, particularly cycling, but not everyone can work or cycle to work, not everyone has a car and no one wants the new normal to be cars clogging up the streets and despoiling the clean air. Why are the Government not working with city regions and other councils on a safety-led scaling up of passenger transport, why did they not talk to local leaders about public transport before urging a return to work and why is there a support package for Transport for London but not for other major cities?”
“I will finish with another quote from a farmer in that nature-friendly farming report. He says: “This crisis has made it very clear that we have lost the resilience in our food and farming system, with value being placed on ‘cheap’. This has led to degraded soils, diminishing wildlife and imports of lower food safety and farming standards. We need to shift back to a more sustainable, mixed farming system for resilience across the board.” That is what my amendments seek to achieve, and I hope that the Government will listen.”
“Despite being an ardent remainer, I will not shed a tear for us leaving the common agricultural policy. I broadly support the public money for public goods approach, but my concern is that it will allow farmers to cherry-pick. What we need is a whole-farm system approach, so that across the farm, not just on the margins, farmers are using agroecological methods, focusing on getting the best from the whole landscape. Such measures include protecting soil health through no-till farming, which not only boosts food production but helps to sequester carbon; using integrated pest management rather than toxic pesticides; and protecting habitats and promoting biodiversity, so that we see a return of nesting birds, pollinators and beneficial insects to our countryside.”
“This pandemic has brought home to many people how dysfunctional our relationship with the natural world has become, with overconsumption, unsustainable exploitation of natural resources, a food system that is broken, and birds and wildlife disappearing from our countryside and gardens. I urge Members to read a recent report, “Feeding the Nation: How Nature Friendly Farmers are Responding to Covid-19”, which includes a quote from a farmer from Northern Ireland. He says: “The current crisis provides people with time to reflect on the importance of food and farming to all humanity…Our food can only be sustainable and bountiful if it’s produced in harmony with the environment and wildlife.” The Bill goes some way towards creating a better approach to farm subsidies and rewarding nature-friendly farmers.”
“During the current crisis, organisations such as Feeding Bristol have done a tremendous job in my home city, trying to ensure that everyone in lockdown can get the essential food supplies that they need, and that no one, including children who no longer attend school, goes hungry. The voluntary sector has been brilliant, but our children should not have to rely on charity. I will focus on amendments 18 and 19, which are tabled in my name. I thank the Landworkers Alliance for its work with the all-party parliamentary group on agroecology, which I chair, and for all that it has done to promote the amendments. I have had many emails from constituents in recent days urging me to back my own amendments, which I am obviously more than happy to do. Agroecology is a cause whose time has come.”
“As time is limited, all I will say is this: it has been made abundantly clear that no one—not the farmers, not the environmentalists, not the public, not the consumers and not even Tory MPs—trusts the Government’s verbal assurances on this. It is not enough for the Minister to say that it will not happen; we want it in writing, enshrined in law. I also support amendments on better labelling, procurement, baseline regulation, and fairness and transparency in supply chains, and the Opposition amendment on food security, which calls for a statement to Parliament every year so that we can end the scandal of food poverty.”
“I wholeheartedly support new clause 1 and the other amendments seeking the same outcome: that there should be no lowering of standards on food safety, the environment and animal welfare as a result of any future trade deals, no undercutting of British farmers and no race to the bottom. The hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) and I had more than a few differences of opinion when we first served on the Agriculture Bill Committee in the last Parliament—unlike him, I was allowed back for the second one too—but on this issue we are utterly on the same page. The same goes for the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), on whose Select Committee I served in the last Parliament. I thought that he made a very good speech.”
“Will the Secretary of State tell the House what the UK’s approach will be to chemicals regulation during any future trade negotiations? Will we retain the precautionary principle, or is she looking to relax our current laws?”
“The closing of borders in many African countries not only means that it is very difficult to get humanitarian aid to refugee camps, where people are living in conditions of overcrowding and poor sanitation; it also means that tens of thousands of migrants are trapped at the borders, sometimes having been abandoned there by people smugglers, or stuck in transit camps. What is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that people in those conditions are being helped and are avoiding the risk of coronavirus?”
“What discussions she has had with the Director of Public Prosecutions on CPS management of people remanded on bail during the covid-19 outbreak.”
“Given that there was already a backlog of more than 37,400 Crown court cases before the covid-19 outbreak—I am sure that many of those defendants were remanded in custody—what is the CPS doing to ensure that bail hearings for people who perhaps do not need to be remanded in custody can be expedited and that people can be released into the community when it is safe to do so? In that way, we can ease the pressures on the prison estate in dealing with the coronavirus outbreak.”
“In Bristol, we are desperately trying to replace free school meals for children with home provision and other provision, but there have been real problems with the supply chain. How can we make sure that those providing those meals—including Andy Street at Feeding Bristol, to whom I pay tribute—can get hold of the food they need so that kids can get good, healthy food while they are at home?”
“Following up on the point made about answers to named day questions, I tabled a question last week on behalf of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, asking what special provisions would be put in place to ensure that people would have priority access to hospital and to testing. I was told on Monday that the Government would not be able to answer in the time available. Does that mean that I am not now going to get an answer until the end of April, or is there any way we can at least ensure that those questions are carried over?”
“I thank the Minister for that response. The Committee on Climate Change has said that we need to plant 32,000 hectares a year for the next 30 years if we are to meet the net zero target, but my understanding is that the Government’s recent announcement was that they would be planting 30,000 hectares in full by 2025, not per year. Can the Minister clarify that? The manifesto commitment was per year, but I think the Government have not now committed to that.”
“Can I ask about people who use registered childminders who now will not be able to do so? Quite understandably, childminders are still asking for the fees, because otherwise they will be short. We now have people who cannot go to work because they have to look after their children, but if they are self-employed, they cannot get money either. What support is available to help them?”
“7. What discussions he has had with representatives from the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs on the development of a Northern Ireland environment strategy.”
“In its submission to the consultation, Sustrans said: “It is unacceptable there is no specific climate change legislation in Northern Ireland” which “would allow specific policies to be developed to meet emissions targets and adapt…to… risks.” Given the close connection between the climate emergency and the natural environment emergency, is it not time that Northern Ireland was able to legislate so that it could develop its own climate strategy?”
“Last summer, Feeding Bristol distributed 53,000 meals to children, 75% of whom would otherwise have been in receipt of free school meals, but it did so in collective settings such as summer play schemes. Now we are in a very different scenario, as we are talking about getting meals out to children in individual places. What support could the Secretary of State give to organisations such as Feeding Bristol to help them facilitate the work they have been doing?”
“I have read that Somerset County Council has sold off nearly two thirds of its agricultural land in the past decade. The Agriculture Bill Committee is looking at how we can better support county farms, which the Government have promised to do in the past. Does the hon. Gentleman think it is a real shame that the council no longer owns those farms, which often provided an entry to farming for people who could not afford to buy huge swathes of land themselves?”
“The first is significantly to reduce global meat and dairy consumption and to give large areas of existing agricultural land back to nature. Another is to end the use of crop-based biofuels, to prevent further land conversion away from high-quality natural ecosystems. We also need to clean up global supply chains, to limit deforestation, which new clause 5 particularly addresses. This is one way that the UK can show leadership as we approach COP26. It would also show leadership towards one of the draft targets for the Convention on Biological Diversity at Kunming in China later this year, if that goes ahead.”
“Many of the products that we consume in the European market, particularly embedded soya in meat and dairy, as well as palm oil, cocoa, pulp and paper, are directly or indirectly connected through the supply chain with deforestation and human rights abuses in some of the most precious and biodiverse ecosystems across the world, including the Amazon and Indonesian forests. For example, 95% of the chickens slaughtered in the UK each year are intensively farmed—a model of production that relies on industrial animal feed containing soya. The solution is to stop deforestation and to give significant areas back to nature. The 2015 United Nations New York declaration on forests committed to restoring an area of forests and croplands larger than the size of India by 2030. We need three significant interventions to meet that goal.”
“In the 1990s, the carbon uptake from those forests used to be equivalent to about 17% of carbon dioxide emissions from human activities. That figure has now sunk to around 6% of global emissions in the last decade. If dramatic action is not taken now to halt deforestation, tropical forests may even become a source of additional carbon into the world’s atmosphere by the 2060s. Much of this global deforestation is the result of agricultural production. Some 77% of agricultural land is currently used for livestock, through pasture grazing and the production of animal feed, such as soya. Soya imports represent almost half of Europe’s deforestation footprint, and around 90% of that is used for animal feed.”
“It accounts for more than 90% of our biodiversity loss and water stress and around a half of our climate impacts. That is having a particular impact on the world’s forest. From other debates, we know about the importance of our land and our oceans in terms of carbon mitigation—acting as natural carbon sinks. Land and oceans could offer as much as one third of carbon mitigation needed globally by 2030, to contain global warming at 1.5°. We have had that debate in the UK, about tree planting and peatlands and so on, but obviously, the huge forests of the world, such as the Amazon, are incredibly important. However, the world’s intact tropical forests are now absorbing a third less carbon than they did in the 1990s, owing to the impact of higher temperatures, droughts and deforestation.”
“Sometimes, that is an environmental cost. Often, it is at a cost to the people who work within the food system. If we need an economic reason to pursue this agenda, as opposed to just caring about the environment and climate change, the World Economic Forum “Global Risks Report 2020” ranks environmental risk as the greatest systemic threat to our global economy, although I suspect that the report may have been published before coronavirus hit us. It says that the decline of natural assets will cost the world at least £368 billion a year, which adds up to almost £8 trillion by 2050, and the UK will suffer some of the biggest financial losses because of our trading patterns, consumption and so on. As we all know, the extraction and processing of natural resources globally has accelerated over the past two decades.”