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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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 47 of 127.
“In 2009 I held a debate in this Chamber that was prompted in part by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s report “Livestock’s Long Shadow”, which was released in 2006. It made a compelling case for action to tackle the consequences for the climate and for our natural environment of the ever more industrialised and intensive livestock industry. As I said in that debate, growing animal feed is a supremely inefficient use of land; it takes around 8 kg of grain to produce 1 kg of beef, and there is a huge water footprint, too. It takes almost 21 square metres of land to produce 1 kg of beef, compared with 0.3 square metres to produce 1 kg of vegetables. Since then, numerous other highly authoritative reports have made the same arguments.”
“In its recent report “Money to Burn”, the NGO Global Witness identified the financial institutions behind six key agribusiness companies involved in deforesting climate-critical forests in Brazil, the Congo basin and New Guinea. It revealed that UK-based financial institutions were the second biggest source of financing, providing $6.5 billion, so the UK has a huge responsibility to take action to tackle the source of financing for deforestation. I urge Members to read the report, which is powerful. We must have due diligence regulation across sectors and throughout the supply chain, so people know what their money is being invested in. That would send an important message to businesses, and companies would change the way they operate.”
“The Seychelles issued an ocean bond, saying it would protect its marine areas and not overfish if people gave it money to do that. Although there are wealthy people in the Seychelles, there is a lot of poverty too. That blue bond was successful; we need to look at such initiatives, because it is not just about sanctions, but about working together. As the hon. Lady mentioned, I think it is the wrong approach for us to say, “You cannot exploit what you have got,” when we have exploited everything we have got, and we have been to many other countries and exploited what they have as well, over the centuries.” Some 77% of UK soy imports come from the high-risk countries of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay.”
“I think so. There have been some interesting global initiatives or attempts at global initiatives. When I was a shadow Minister in the foreign affairs team, I remember meeting representatives from Ecuador. Yasuni national park in Ecuador is almost as biologically diverse and as amazing as the Galapagos Islands, but oil has been discovered there. The representatives wanted to raise funds from across the world by saying to people, “We are a poor country. We need to exploit our natural resources. We need to get the finances in. If you don’t want us to do that and you think that is appalling, then give us some money not to do it.” I understand that was not a successful approach; they did not raise any money and they ended up having to exploit the natural resources.”
“My hon. Friend is making a great and passionate speech. According to figures I have seen from the International Labour Organisation, some 62% of slave labour in Brazil is employed in livestock farming-related businesses. As she says, it is not the indigenous people who are benefiting from the trade, and people are being grossly exploited at its heart.”
“Can I ask the Minister how this works in terms of co-operation between Government Departments? The other day in the Chamber, I asked the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy about the things I highlighted in my speech today and she basically said it was an issue for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and not anything to do with her. I said, “It is because it is about climate change and that is your brief.” We also hear reports of Ministers in the Department for International Trade lobbying on behalf of BP at meetings in Brazil. On the other hand, we talk about reducing our fossil fuel use in this country, so there does not seem to be much joined-up working.”
“7. What recent discussions he has had with the Director of Public Prosecutions on ensuring more effective prosecutions of cases involving rape and other sexual offences.”
“There have been reports that the number of reported rapes, sexual assaults and harassment allegations in universities has trebled in the last three years, including worrying reports that universities are trying to carry out their own investigations of the assaults. What role does the Minister think that his Department can play in trying to ensure that those allegations are taken seriously and go through the proper judicial channels?”
“10. I welcome the Minister to his post. I am sure he will agree that the food and farming system has a major impact on climate change in developing countries, from deforestation to water use and mountains of food waste, but that is not really talked about in DFID terms except for some small livestock programmes. Can he assure me that it will be at the top of his agenda as a Minister in this Department?”
“It is right that we should get homeless people off the streets, but I also have real concerns about the unregulated supported housing sector. I have discussed that with the Minister’s officials and his predecessor. The Charities Commission has just reported on Wick House in my constituency, where several people have died, and there seems to be consensus that we need regulation of this sector, to prevent exploitative landlords from moving into it. Will the Minister follow up on my conversations? Can we see some action on this, please?”
“I am glad that the Minister has admitted that this error took place, but the Department has had to bring forward about 80 or so SIs over the summer. Has it conducted a review to ensure that similar errors have not been made in other legislation or are we are going to see a repeat of this situation, with other last-minute amendments?”
“I share my hon. Friend’s concerns. One of my concerns is that the Government may seek to recoup some of these costs, or to make savings, through the weakened requirement to obtain independent scientific advice. As I understand it, the measure now says: “The assessing competent authority may obtain independent scientific advice where it considers it appropriate to do so.” That is quite a bit weaker than the current requirement where it says that it “shall” obtain advice. That may be one way in which the Government would seek to save money.”
“Some of the railway’s services come to Bristol, although it is not the preferred route for getting to London as it takes so long, so I appreciate the right hon. Lady’s concerns. One group of passengers most affected by unreliable services of the types she describes are those with disabilities. It is easy to say that if information is made available passengers can change routes, but people with disabilities have to plan their journeys well in advance and it causes huge disruption for them if they cannot rely on the service.”
“The reason why this is not business as usual is that we are faced with Government Ministers who have close connections with and financial interest in some of the speculative funds and who are making a decision that would have catastrophic consequences for my constituents and for businesses in my constituency, and there is no transparency as to the closeness of that relationship. It cannot be divorced from what is going on in this place, which is why the Minister needs to agree to the requests for an inquiry. We need to get to the bottom of this.”
“The Secretary of State has mentioned the £140 million package for protecting and restoring forests around the world. That is all well and good but if we are still bound to the trade in beef and livestock feed for the Amazon, we are contributing to the problem. When is she going to say something about that?”
“If I can start by asking the Leader of the House to pass on my congratulations to his niece, who, I gather, was selected for Stafford last night. I am slightly disappointed that she is not standing against me again given the 2017 result. On a more serious note, we both raised at Prime Minister’s questions before the summer recess the case of my constituent Jake Ogborne and access to the drug Spinraza. It has been raised a number of times in various different forums in this House. What does the Leader of House think that we can do to try to make sure that Jake’s case is raised again?”
“I apologise for not having been able to be present at the start of the debate. On the point about fees, I have many cases where people’s visa applications are rejected for minor points, because a document has gone missing or they did not provide something with the right date. If it is rejected, they have no right of appeal, so they have to start all over again, not quite knowing what they did wrong. Would it not be easier if officials could just phone people up and say, “You haven’t sent in a copy of your landlord’s agreement”, or whatever is required? It would save so much money.”
“1. What recent assessment he has made of the effect of the provisions of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 on trends in the level of sustainable development in Wales.”
“The aim of this Act is to focus minds on the long term so that we leave things better off for the next generation than they are for us. Given the decade of austerity, the risk of a no-deal Brexit and the climate emergency we are currently in, how does the Minister think this legislation would fare in UK law judging by what we are doing to the future generations now?”
“Does my hon. Friend share my astonishment that the Welsh Secretary said over the summer that we could start exporting to Japan and that that market has opened up? They do not eat lamb in Japan at the moment, and they are certainly not going to start eating it on 1 November just to oblige us.”
“The Minister is probably wondering whether she will be in post by the end of today, but even if she is moved on to greater things, I hope she asks the new Prime Minister to give that the same priority as the previous Prime Minister did.”
“I welcome the fact that the need for better community services was highlighted in the recent NHS long-term plan, and I am pleased that the Government have committed more funding to severe mental illness and to greater use of alternative mental health crisis provision, such as crisis cafés. However, an overhaul of the Mental Health Act is clearly needed if that investment is to be used in the best interests of patients by ensuring that their dignity and rights are protected and that they are treated in hospital only as a last resort. The previous Prime Minister committed to new legislation to bring the Mental Health Act into line with a more modern understanding of how best to treat mental health. She confirmed that a White Paper would be published before the end of the year.”
“In a recent investigation into children with learning disabilities or autism living in mental health hospitals, some families told the Children’s Commissioner about the excellent support that their children had received—it is important to put on the record that there is good care out there—but others had shocking stories to tell. For example, one family said that their son had not been washed for six months while in hospital. Basic care needs were not being met. Despite improvements in recent years and the drive towards parity of esteem between physical and mental health services, it has not been realised. The aspiration is noble and shared by both parties, but we need to invest far more in our mental health services for people to get the support they need.”
“Clearly, when parents are faced with such a choice, they want their child to go to the best unit possible, but that can put huge pressures on a family, in particular when they have other children, as well as jobs and lives. They might also not have the money to decamp to somewhere so they can visit their distressed child each day. There is a real lack of support in the system for families placed in such circumstances, with their whole lives disrupted by trying to be in two places at once. Another problem is that the quality of care in hospitals can be highly variable. The Whorlton Hall case demonstrated just how awful situations can be, and how badly people can be treated in some places.”
“Last year, an extensive study of mental health rehabilitation by the Care Quality Commission found that stays in private beds cost twice as much as in the NHS because they tend to last twice as long. It found that the annual cost of rehab was £535 million and that private beds were on average 30 miles away from patients’ homes, whereas in the NHS they are only nine miles away. One of the cases that I have been dealing with recently is that of a child who is in a mental health unit 150 miles away from home, but the unit closest to her home is in special measures and not accepting new patients. However, the unit she is in is ranked as outstanding and she seems to be making good progress.”
“As the British Medical Association lead for mental health, Dr Andrew Molodynski has said: “Warehousing unwell people in locked wards far from home goes against the very nature of mental health rehab—to help them reintegrate back into society.” Unnecessary detention of vulnerable patients is not only unhelpful in terms of their recovery, but an ineffective use of taxpayers’ money. Too much money is being given to private firms to look after people with serious mental health problems in units often hundreds of miles away from their homes due to a shortage of NHS beds. That figure was £158 million in 2016-17 and £181 million in 2017-18—an increase of £23 million.”
“That is particularly important where conflicts arise between the clinical team about how to meet the best interests of the young person, including where contact between young people and their parents is seriously restricted—in some cases, the mental health crisis might be the result of chaotic family circumstances at home or ill treatment—or where the wishes of the young person conflict with the wishes of the adult. Every in-patient child or young person should have a personalised care plan that includes their views and wishes and access to an advocate. They should be regarded as a child in need under the Children Act 1989 so that parents can ask for help from their local authority.”
“The independent review calls for better safeguards to protect children and young people, ensuring that they are treated in hospital only when necessary and that their rights as a child are clearly set out. There is a need to establish clear tests as to whether children and young people are able to consent to hospital admission or treatment and whether they should be involved in decisions made about them. Clear roles need to be established for parents in care planning and treatment. The review also states that there needs to be more advocacy available for children and young people.”
“Some children and young people under care of Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire CCG had to travel up to 243 miles away from home for mental health care. That cannot be in the child’s best interests and will add to the sense of isolation and anxiety, and it can also prevent their families from being properly involved in their care. A recent Children Commissioner’s report found that many parents feel they are being shut out of decisions about their children’s care and are not always informed about incidents involving their children. Serious incidents had happened in hospital without families even being told. Some families had even faced gagging orders where they had been prevented from speaking out about their children’s care.”
“We need to look at the people, rather than just trying to fit them into categories and, when they do not fit into categories, rejecting them from the system, almost as though we are saying, “Come back when you are a lot worse, and then perhaps there is something we can do for you.” That has to be the wrong approach. Going back to children in particular, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has expressed specific concerns about the adequacy of therapeutic community-based services for children. Because of that lack of community provision, children are being detained when they should not be. According to NHS Digital, at least 1,777 people aged 17 or under were detained under the Mental Health Act in 2017-18. Of those, more than a thousand were admitted to a non-local bed, in many cases more than 100 miles from home.”
“To do the standard CAMHS anxiety counselling, someone has to have a certain ability to rationalise their actions and think about how they operate. That cognitive behavioural therapy-type approach was not suitable for that child, but that meant that nothing was available, because that was the pathway for young girls suffering from anxiety. I had another case where a constituent was told that she was too traumatised by a recent experience to go through the counselling on offer through her GP. She clearly was not in a serious enough condition to be sectioned, however, so it seemed like she was caught between two things. She clearly needed help, but she was deemed to be too serious a case to get the help that was available.”
“Of these, 875 interventions were used against children.” Most of those people should never have had to go into an in-patient unit, let alone be subject to those types of restrictive intervention. They are ending up in such units because of challenging behaviour due to unmet needs in the community. Those needs, as I have said, should be met with vital investment in community mental health services. From my experience of people who have come to my surgeries, other casework that we have been dealing with and what I have picked up from visiting institutions, it seems that mental health services suit certain people because of the pathways developed in the NHS, but others do not fit into that category. For example, a child with learning disabilities was rejected for anxiety counselling, and they were later diagnosed with autism.”
“The Equality and Human Rights Commission echoes such concerns, stating: “The Commission is concerned about the lack of suitable provision for people with learning disabilities and autism, who may be in restrictive institutional settings because there is insufficient community-based support. The Government failed to meet its minimum target to reduce the number of people with learning disabilities and autism detained in inpatient settings, and at the end of March 2019 there were still 2,260 children and adults living in these institutions. On average, they had spent almost 5 and a half years detained away from home. There were more than 2,600 restrictive interventions recorded against inpatients with learning disabilities and autism in a single month, including physical, chemical and mechanical restraint, seclusion and segregation.”
“The independent review found that the Mental Health Act was “being used inappropriately for people with a learning disability, autism or both, to deal with a crisis that has arisen because of a lack of good community care or placements…It is particularly intimidating for a person with autism, learning disability or both to be removed from a place they are familiar with or from people they know, even if at the time there seemed little alternative…Instead of improving their mental health, the environment (including relationships with staff) has made them worse, not better.” One of the common characteristics of autism, for example, is being wedded to routine, and being uncomfortable with unfamiliar circumstances and stimuli that those people would perhaps not get in a more protective environment. That can be particularly challenging.”
“One of the things that the Minister said was that learning disabilities, autism or other special needs are often not diagnosed until a child is detained in a mental health unit, which again shows the failings. Child and adolescent mental health services are incredibly under-resourced, and schools are really stretched when it comes to education, health and care plans and working with children who show signs of mental health problems. It is so important that we put proper resources in, so that we can give those children the help they need as early as possible. I am sure that the Minister responding to today’s debate, the hon. Member for Thurrock, agrees with that. Under the Act, people with learning disabilities and autism can be sectioned with no mental health diagnosis if they are displaying challenging behaviour.”
“I echo the points that have been made about the link between this issue and the cuts to, and failings of, other services in the community that might be able to help at an earlier stage. Perhaps that is one reason why people are ending up in the most serious of circumstances; that is, being detained. Being detained in a secure mental health unit is obviously going to be an intimidating and frightening experience for anyone. However, it is particularly intimidating for people with learning disabilities and autism, especially young people with those conditions, so I will focus on those groups in my speech. I raised this issue at Health questions on Tuesday, and the Minister—not the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), but another Minister from the Department of Health and Social Care—gave a very thoughtful response.”
“As always, it is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Buck. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) on an incredibly powerful speech that was very detailed and knowledgeable about this issue. Obviously, my hon. Friend was speaking from personal experience, which was very brave of him. It is clear from the findings of the independent review of the Mental Health Act, published last year, that the current legislation needs significant reform. There has been a 47% increase in detentions under the Act over the past decade, while the proportion of people living with a serious mental illness remains relatively unchanged, so clearly there is some imbalance there; it cannot be right that the number of detentions is going up.”
“I thank the Minister for that. There are two aspects that I have come across. First, it is often when a child reaches their teenage years, which we know are difficult for any child with all the turmoil that is going on physically and mentally, that the anxiety takes over and they eventually go into crisis, and things that perhaps should have been picked up sooner are only picked up then. Secondly, that seems to be particularly true for girls. We know that it is more difficult to diagnose girls with autism than to diagnose boys. I was told yesterday, although I do not know whether this figure is true, that one in four girls in mental health units with anorexia is diagnosed with autism. There is a lot of work to be done in the early years, before they reach that crisis point in their teens.”
“In the case that I was talking about, the problem was not just that the treatment was so specialised that it was that far away, but that that was when the bed became available. It is a bit of a lottery. The one closest to home was not taking in new patients because it was in special measures. There would have been other places closer. If the person does not accept a bed when one becomes available, they may have to look after a distressed child for an awful lot longer.”
“On the subject of the Game Fair, it is very sad that Chris Packham has been banned from attending to speak out against grouse shooting. I would have thought that the Minister would welcome free speech on the subject. On food, the Government grant for school meals has not risen in the last five years. It is £2.30 per pupil. It is really difficult to provide nutritious meals for children for that amount. Can he speak to the Secretary of State for Education about that?”
“It is just so cruel. There was a party to celebrate the fact that my 18-year-old constituent Jake Ogborne would have access to Spinraza. There was no mention of eligibility criteria, but suddenly he was told that he would not be eligible because he had not been able to walk in the past 12 months. He lost his ability to walk about 18 months or two years ago. I raised this in Prime Minister’s questions. I got a response that basically told me what we already knew and just set out the rules on this. It is immensely cruel for an 18-year-old to be faced with a decision like that.”
“15. What additional funding he plans to allocate to the NHS to reduce the number of people with autism and learning disabilities held in in-patient settings.”
“I do not know whether the Minister has seen the report from the Children’s Commissioner, but it says that the number of children with autism or learning difficulties in mental health hospitals has doubled in recent years. Many are very far from home. Their parents are not consulted properly on their care, and they are in for much longer than they need to be. What proportion of the money that she mentions will go towards trying to ensure that children can have support in their home, so that they are not in this situation?”
“At Prime Minister’s Questions on 26 June, I was pleased to hear the Prime Minister express sympathy for my 18-year-old constituent Jake Ogborne, who has spinal muscular atrophy. In May, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence posted a press release saying that the drug Spinraza would be made available to SMA patients—the clear implication was that it would be made available to them all—only for Jake to have his hopes cruelly dashed when he was told that he was just outside the hitherto unmentioned eligibility criteria. This is a young man whose future is at stake. The Prime Minister said on that occasion that she would follow up the case. May I ask her if she has yet managed to do so?”
“The Minister is a constituency neighbour of mine. If he has time during the summer break, may I urge him to visit Wyke farm in Somerset for an example of a business that prides itself on being 100% green? It has used pulp from the cider mills to supply its anaerobic digesters and is doing really interesting things on waste water. It really shows how a farm can be at the heart of the local community, using its waste and farming in a sustainable way.”
“To return to the subject of continuity agreements, a number have been put in place but they do not apply to some of our biggest trading partners. Does the Secretary of State really think that by the end of October we will have a significant number of agreements in place with those countries with which we do the most trade?”
“They are raised on factory farms in France, Spain, Portugal and Poland with standards that we would not accept. Regardless of what we think about shooting birds for sport, we should be challenging the likes of Eurotunnel for bringing in so many of these birds to facilitate a very cruel pastime. We certainly ought to be looking at the conditions in which the animals are transported. If we are going to have a shooting industry, I do not see why we cannot insist that either the birds are raised in this country or eggs are imported, rather than live animals. There is a lot more to do. I welcome the Bill, and I am hoping to serve on the Bill Committee. I hope that we can get it passed into law before too long. Once the Minister has got this out of the way, there are many other things on his to-do list to turn to.”
“I do not understand why a ban would only be on live exports for slaughter and not fattening. I do not see the difference, because the cruelty is in the journey that the animals have to take. We need to look at vivisection. The number of animal experiments continues to rise. I am not opposed to genuine scientific advances or genetic research, but so many of these experiments are totally unnecessary. If we leave the EU and its chemicals testing regime, we could find that we are doing far more duplicate animal experiments, and we need to be more serious about reducing those numbers. The final point that I want to make is about shooting. We heard recently, as a result of inquiries that I made with the League Against Cruel Sports, that 27 million game birds are being imported into the UK to be shot for so-called sport each year.”
“discovered about the way that pigs were being treated on Hogwood farm, it seems that this is just the tip of the iceberg. If these are the higher welfare farms, what is going on at the farms that do not have a red tractor mark? We need to do far more to investigate standards on our farms and in slaughterhouses. I know that there is now CCTV in slaughterhouses, but there have been horrific stories. I am keen for the Bill to go forward, and I do not want to delay it, but there is scope to look at some amendments. The Minister has said that there might be a larger piece of animal welfare legislation, or it might be tied into the environment Bill or the agriculture Bill—I have heard lots of different rumours about what might be coming forward. I urge him to look at issues such as live exports.”
“Those people should certainly have had much longer sentences, and it should not have been left to an organisation such as Animal Equality to do undercover investigations to reveal the case. Animal Equality has also just revealed footage from a chicken farm that supplies Nando’s, Lidl and Asda—it is very much part of our mainstream food chain. The chickens were kicked and abused on the farm. They were stepped on, which broke their necks. Again, this was a red tractor farm. Whenever those responsible for the red tractor scheme are put on the spot, they say that it is a one-off, and the reason why animal welfare groups such as Viva! or Animal Equality went into those farms is that rumours had been heard about them, and these are the rogue guys; they are not indicative of what is happening across the piece. However, if we look at what Viva!”