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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“We need action on so many fronts to tackle this climate emergency, but time is limited so I will speak about just one. Unsurprisingly, it is about the fact that 30% of our global greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to our food system. If we do not make changes, the food and farming system will singlehandedly use up our Paris climate agreement emissions budget within the next 30 years, yet there is still a woeful failure to rise to the challenge, and there is no excuse. There have been endless wake-up calls, including from the UN, the IPCC, EAT-Lancet, Chatham House, academics from Harvard and Oxford, and many more—I have a big pile of reports in my office—yet politicians are still hitting the snooze button.”
“I think a lot of people in the sector will feel that the delay is not acceptable. Does the Minister agree that the Government must mandate a fair minimum floor price to prevent suppliers from taking advantage of solar households and other small-scale solar generators? The energy price cap is there to ensure suppliers sell power at a fair price. We need a similar mechanism to ensure they purchase at a fair price, too.”
“6. What steps his Department is taking to prevent the intimidation of candidates in the event that the UK participates in the upcoming European Parliament elections.”
“I am very glad that the Minister is taking this seriously. There will be so many of us in this House who have seen an escalation of threats and abuse in the current political climate, and there is a real fear—when we have the likes of Nigel Farage saying that the European elections are an opportunity to put the “fear of God” into politicians—that such people run the risk of stoking up that kind of intimidation and aggressive behaviour. What can the Minister do to try to ensure that everyone conducts the European elections in a moderate, temperate, professional way?”
“The global food system accounts for 30% of emissions, and it is said that without any action—if we do not do anything about it—food and farming will take up the whole of the Paris carbon emissions budget, so why is no one talking about it? I have been sitting here listening to this, and I have sat here listening to many of these debates, and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of parliamentarians who are ever prepared to ask what we are going to do about the global food system.”
“Bristol was the first city in the UK—I think—to declare a climate emergency, so I put on record that Bristol would be more than willing to host the COP talks, if we do win the bid. I can think of nowhere better.”
“That is a joint bid by my hon. Friend and me! I want to ask specifically about sustainable development goal 12 on responsible production and consumption. It seems to me that we are using far too many of the world’s natural resources producing things we do not actually need just to keep money flowing between buyers and sellers. How can we limit that circle and use our natural resources more wisely?”
“2. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the inclusion of the historic environment in the definition of the natural environment in the Environment Bill.”
“I am pleased to hear that response from the Minister, because the historic and natural environment often enhance and rely on each other. In my patch, we have the lesser horseshoe bats in Arnos Vale cemetery, the Iron Age hill fort in Leigh woods, and the work being done by the Heritage Lottery Fund in Avalon marshes. The manmade structures—the built environment—enhance and, in some ways, protect the wildlife there. Will he keep us updated on the progress of those discussions?”
“As the legendary John Barnes said, if every racist who came to football was silenced, football stadiums would still be full of racists. It is not enough just to stamp out expressions of racism. What can we do to tackle the underlying causes?”
“That recognition of the biodiversity net gain principle is incredibly important. Will the hon. Gentleman join me in condemning what seems to be becoming a pattern of developers netting off hedges? The most recent case was at the Bacton cliffs, where there was terrible footage of a sand martin that had flown back from its winter migration and was trying to return to its nest, but was being prevented by netting. It is an attempt to flout the rules that say, basically, that developers cannot interfere with hedgerows once the nesting season has started. Is it not absolutely appalling that that is going on?”
“I think that is quite a selective answer. A coalition of 20 community energy projects and affiliated groups has warned that the Government’s decision to axe the feed-in tariff incentive scheme could prove the final nail in the coffin for the sector. Since that warning was issued in February, at least 30 planned community energy projects have stalled. So what conversations has the Minister had with his colleagues in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to give proper support to community energy projects?”
“I, too, have visited Rwanda, although it was with the all-party group on agriculture and food for development, so I saw a far more positive vision of the country. It is shocking to go round the stunning countryside and reflect on the fact that it was once steeped in bloodshed. Has the Minister had conversations with his colleagues in the Department for International Development? The number of survivors of the genocide is dwindling as the years pass. Between 250,000 and 500,000 women were deliberately targeted with rape, and many were deliberately infected with HIV. Working with the survivors can perhaps help us to gather evidence and eventually bring people to justice.”
“I am sure this is already on my right hon. Friend’s radar, but disability groups in Bristol are worried about the shortage of accessible homes in the UK. They say that something like 1.8 million households require some sort of adaptation or the addition of access features to their homes, but very few of them get that at the moment. Is it part of the future Labour Government’s plan to build more accessible homes?”
“Ordered, That Kerry McCarthy, Darren Jones, Daniel Zeichner, Alex Cunningham, Henry Smith, Sir Roger Gale, Bob Blackman, Caroline Lucas, Ben Lake, Mr Alistair Carmichael and Dr Lisa Cameron present the Bill. Kerry McCarthy accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 5 April, and to be printed (Bill 375 .)”
“I know that some, a minority, still question whether this Bill is needed. Some people want greater licence to ignore animal welfare concerns, whether that be so that they can cram animals into ever-more intensive and industrialised farming systems, or so that they can pursue so-called “country sports”. The fact is that this Government promised this legislation. Indeed, they staved off a major Commons defeat—and no doubt there would have also been defeat in the Lords—with that promise. That was back in November 2017. It is now time for the Government to keep their promise to this House and to the British people, and to back my Bill. Question put and agreed to.”
“Since February alone, almost 70,000 people have signed the parliamentary petition to recognise it in law, and 101 Members from across this House have signed early-day motion 2070. I want to thank organisations such as Wildlife and Countryside Link, World Animal Protection, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Humane Society International, Compassion in World Farming and the splendidly named Crustacean Compassion for their support and assistance with this Bill and their campaigning. We pride ourselves in this country on our strong record on animal welfare, and we are right to do so, but we should never be complacent. There are many examples where we could and should do better. There are pressures on us, economic and global, that could lead us to backslide. We should always be vigilant and guard against that.”
“The reality is that if we do not legislate for this now, there is a risk: that imports of lower-welfare animal products could be permitted under new trade deals; that developers may not have to consider the impact of new roads, housing or major infrastructure projects on wildlife in the area; that the UK could, through its overseas aid or trade programmes, invest in the kind of intensive farming systems that are not allowed in the UK because of animal welfare concerns; and that it would be more difficult to take action against inhumane wildlife management practices and wildlife crime. Those are just a few examples. As the Minister knows, there is widespread support for enshrining sentience in UK law.”
“The creation of an animal welfare advisory committee is fundamental, as it would issue guidance on how the animal sentience principles should be interpreted and applied, and ensure that the duty is discharged. It is clear to me that no existing body could undertake this role effectively or adequately replace the current advice of EU institutions. To perform this function, the committee will need: to have an open, transparent recruitment process; to include independent members with appropriately wide-ranging specialist perspectives and expertise, in both animal welfare and ethical review; to be able to co-opt additional expertise as required; to be able to liaise with stakeholders and respect their views; to be transparent in its advice; and to include a mechanism to take representations, including concerns and complaints, from the public.”
“Specifically, it will establish an independent animal welfare advisory committee; provide a mechanism for informed assessment of animal welfare impact risk, taking into consideration the specific welfare needs of the species affected, weighed against other public policy needs; provide animal welfare guidance to Departments, as well as a triage process to allow Departments to prioritise resources for risk assessments on those policies with the potential to cause the greatest harm to the greatest number of animals; require full transparency from the Government, in real time, on assessments undertaken, policy options considered and reasons for the choice of the final policy option and so on; and provide a mechanism for public consultation. There is more in the Bill on reporting and reviews that I will not go into now.”
“To be clear, recognising sentience is about recognising that animals are capable of experiencing pain and suffering, that they have welfare needs and that Government policies should, to the greatest possible extent, and taking into account other policy needs, result in a good life for the animals concerned. My Bill creates a framework for a mandatory process by which the Government and public bodies will implement and report against the sentience duty.”
“Today, I am providing that vehicle for the Government, and if the Minister wants to take over from me in the driving seat, I would be more than happy for him to do so. Turning to the detail of what I am proposing, the Bill recognises animal sentience and ensures that all vertebrates, cephalopods and decapods, including crustaceans, octopuses and squid, are legally defined as sentient beings. It also includes a mechanism for the list to be expanded in the future, based on the latest science. Aristotle once described the octopus as a “stupid creature”, but we now know that that is far from the case—indeed, sometimes I think it is far more intelligent than quite a lot of us.”
“They show loyalty and devotion, and they know pleasure and pain.” In February, at the “A Better Deal for Animals” parliamentary reception, which brought together 36 of the UK’s largest and most effective animal protection organisations, he said: “Animals are sentient beings who feel pain and suffering, so it is absolutely right that we recognise this in UK law after we leave the EU”. Just last week, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley), who has responsibility for animal welfare and I am glad to see in his place, told the EFRA Committee that the Government were committed to legislating “as soon as possible” and were “looking for a vehicle” to bring this forward.”
“It was not until August 2018 that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs got round to publishing the outcome of the consultation on the draft Bill, having apparently been overwhelmed by the public response, with over 9,000 direct submissions and another 64,000 from 38 Degrees members. DEFRA took on board the Select Committee’s recommendation to split the Bill, but since then we have had nothing. Just warm words and a lukewarm promise to legislate. In October 2018, the Secretary of State told the Tory conference: “Animals are our fellow sentient beings.”
“The consultation on the draft Bill closed on 31 January 2018, and the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on which I sit, carried out pre-legislative scrutiny and recommended splitting the Bill so that the largely uncontroversial sentencing provision could be dealt with separately. I am not focusing on the sentencing provision today, but I genuinely do not understand why the Government have not been able to act in the intervening period to increase maximum jail sentences for animal cruelty from six months to five years—it would take a day of parliamentary time and it has public support. The Government purport to support it, too, so why not treat animal cruelty with the severity under law that it deserves?”
“The Government, for reasons best known to themselves, were less enthused and tried to argue that the concept of animals as sentient beings was already enshrined in English law, but the backlash was fierce. There was a lot of press coverage suggesting that Government Members had voted in the belief that animals cannot feel pain, which was slightly unfair, but the public were clearly unhappy. Forced to act, the Government tabled the three-clause draft Animal Welfare (Sentencing and Recognition of Sentience) Bill in December 2017. This was the Government promising the House that they would legislate. Indeed, the Prime Minister also said that. The Government were promising that they would legislate before Brexit day, which we thought at the time would be 29 March 2019.”
“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to impose a duty on public bodies in relation to the welfare needs of animals as sentient beings. Back in November 2017, I added my name to an amendment to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). New clause 30 called for the EU protocol on animal sentience, as set out in the Lisbon treaty, to be recognised in domestic law post-Brexit. As every Member knows, animal welfare issues are always popular with constituents, and this was no exception. There was a mass email campaign and vocal support from non-governmental organisations. It was clear that the public wanted the reassurance of including it in the Bill.”
“I was inspired suddenly, Mr Speaker. I asked the Minister about this when he appeared before the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs yesterday: he says that he will bring back the sentencing Bill and the animal sentience Bill when we have parliamentary time, but we have spent an awful lot of parliamentary time sitting around, twiddling our thumbs and waiting for Brexit votes. He could bring forward that legislation very soon, could he not?”
“I am glad that the Secretary of State is taking a personal interest in this matter. In Thursday’s debate, I mentioned the case of Oli Rayner, who gave evidence to the Health Select Committee. He fell ill in his 30s and was given Orkambi just to make him well enough to undergo a lung transplant operation. Is it not ludicrous to wait until people are virtually at death’s door before being prepared to give them the drug?”
“My recollection of the Agriculture Bill Committee is that the right hon. Gentleman disagreed with rather a lot of the Bill. Now he has been promoted to the Front Bench, has he had something of an epiphany so that he agrees with the Government line?”
“I assure the Minister that I have gone through what he said in the Agriculture Bill Committee with a fine-toothed comb. I have a very long list of where there might now be some inconsistencies, but we can return to them at a future date.”
“Over the past decade, Bristol has seen a 40% rise in bus use, which is obviously really good, but there is a downside in that buses and coaches contribute almost a quarter of NOx emissions in the city. We have been doing what we can to retrofit the bus stock, but we have just put in a bid for £2.5 million from the clean bus technology fund so that we can retrofit another 170 buses. Will the Government support that?”
“NHS England is right to continue to take the wider patient population for whom it is responsible into account.” The Minister has previously responded to such debates, so can we have an update on where the conversations have got with Vertex, including the Secretary of State’s meeting? There are so many cystic fibrosis patients waiting to hear the outcome. Last time I looked, the petition was up to about 80,000 signatures. Can we try to get some answers soon?”
“We now have Orkambi, and there will soon be a successor that will benefit about 40% of patients. For the future we are looking at triple therapies that will cover about 90% of the cystic fibrosis community. If 90% of people can benefit, of course the overall cost will go up, but the decision should not be made on the basis that we fund one thing because not many people will benefit. I am concerned that Vertex and other companies would be deterred from exploring further therapies and treatments if they cannot get a commercial deal. The line that jumps out of the Health and Social Care Committee’s letter to Vertex, which it wrote shortly after the meeting, is: “Vertex appears to have decided on the pricing of its therapies on the basis of the return it wants to make, rather than the value which they bring.”
“Was it Hugh Dalton or Clement Attlee who was called a “desiccated calculating machine”? Anyway, the system seems to be based on desiccated calculations. It may be incredibly naive of me, but why cannot the system just think of the impact on people’s lives and of the hell they are going through? It is incredibly difficult for teenagers to come to terms with discovering that they have a life-limiting condition, and there is also the issue of the availability of mental health support and counselling. It is striking that everyone who gave evidence to the Health and Social Care Committee said that the drugs work. There is no question but that this would be of benefit to people. Kalydeco, the first drug, helped only 5% of patients, and it was funded in part because not many people would benefit and, therefore, the costs were lower.”
“I have been trying to get my head around quality-adjusted life years, how the calculations are made, whether NHS England is doing the right thing and whether NICE is using the right sorts of calculations compared with other countries. NICE says the calculations factor in societal benefits, but it is not clear how they do that. The hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), who made an excellent speech, spoke about the cost of hospital treatment to society as a whole. If a person has to go into hospital several times a year, there is the cost of care, but there is also the cost of lost work time, the cost of care by family members and even the cost of transportation to hospital if they live in a rural area. There are so many factors. Although NICE says it takes those things into account, I cannot quite see them.”
“He has just turned 40 and had a lung transport around 18 months ago, so he is at the healthier end of the spectrum, and he talked about being quite lucky until he reached his thirties, when his health started to deteriorate. However, many cystic fibrosis patients are not as lucky. My constituent Lee Partridge lost both his daughters within eight months when they were both in their late teens, and it is common for people to start to deteriorate when they reach their teens. Luckily, my niece is very much at the healthier end of the spectrum, but that does not influence my judgment; I want to make the case for Orkambi to be available not just for her when it is needed, but for everybody else with the condition.”
“My heart went out to him, and I do not need to add any more, because my hon. Friend made such an excellent speech. We have also had excellent speeches about the difficulties of obtaining Spinraza. I do not claim to be an expert, as some other Members are, but constituents have been in touch with me with similar problems. I would therefore support any efforts to get the drug approved, because that would make a huge difference to their lives. As I said, I am here to talk about cystic fibrosis, and I have a personal interest in that my 14-year-old niece Maisie has CF. She must be the most mentioned niece in Parliament, because she gets name-checked quite a lot. Before I talk about Maisie, I want to mention the recent evidence to the Health and Social Care Committee from Oli Rayner, who lives with cystic fibrosis.”
“I will be brief because I have spoken on this topic many times, specifically about cystic fibrosis, but before I get on to that I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) on her speech about PKU. I popped into the PKU drop-in event a few months ago purely by accident when I was doing one of those classic MP things where we are asked to go here, there and everywhere to be photographed holding up a sign or wearing a silly hat. I knew nothing about PKU, but I talked to an 11-year-old boy there about his diet. I am somebody who chooses to have a fairly restrictive diet in that I do not eat meat, dairy or fish, but I look for protein alternatives, and I was struck by the sheer difficulty that the boy has in functioning and by the fact that he is unable to enjoy the normal life of an 11-year-old.”
“My hon. Friend will probably be aware that the Government are looking at a new food strategy, and one of the things under consideration is better food labelling. A lot of people think that those who make certain dietary choices do it almost to be trendy, or just because it is the fashionable thing to do, but there are people whose lives are at stake if they cannot get the information on food that they need. Food manufacturers and anyone else involved in the provision of food need to be alert to the fact that it is important that people know what they are going to be eating.”
“This is such an important issue. My hon. Friend talked about agriculture, and the growth of the agrochemicals industry is obviously a main cause. Does he agree that integrated pest management and a more agro-ecological approach to farming is the way we need to go if we are to protect our pollinators and other insects?”
“As has been mentioned, Bristol’s links with the fellow port city of Beira go back a long way—in fact, back to the days of anti-apartheid campaigning when we were officially twinned. There is already a fundraising effort going on in Bristol to try to support people in Beira, but how can we best work with DFID to make sure that we can constructively share information and get the help to the people who most need it?”
“I like to feel that I have been slightly vindicated since then, because there have been so many other highly authoritative reports—it is not just me who says they are highly authoritative; my opinion does not count for very much—that make exactly the same point, and I ask the Minister, “When will we listen on this and do something about it?” In its 2018 progress report to Parliament, the Committee on Climate Change identified agriculture as one of the key priority areas for an emissions reduction programme over the next decade. Otherwise, we will not meet our fourth and fifth carbon budgets.”
“Globally it is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases and one of the leading causal factors in the loss of biodiversity, while in developed and emerging countries it is perhaps the leading source of water pollution.” Nearly 10 years ago today—it was actually 25 March 2009—I stood here in Westminster Hall, having secured a debate on the environmental impact of the livestock sector. There was quite a good turnout, but everyone else who turned out was there basically to give me a hard time.”
“I want it written in ink.” We want it “in ink” in the Agriculture Bill and we want that Bill to come back sooner rather than later. The final issue that I will mention is climate change. We have 12 years to avoid a catastrophic climate emergency, and we must openly discuss the impact of livestock on climate change and the environment more frequently in debates such as this one. It is now almost 13 years since the Food and Agriculture Organisation published its “Livestock’s Long Shadow” report, which stated that “the livestock sector is a major stressor on many ecosystems and on the planet as whole.”
“However, as I have said, the Chair of the EFRA Committee has tabled new clause 4 to the Agriculture Bill and I have tabled new clause 1, which is very similar; we are working together, on the same page, on this issue. We are at serious risk of exporting our environmental footprint abroad while sparking a race to the bottom in food production and safety to compete on price at home. There is no point in having all this talk about keeping our environmental standards and promoting nature-friendly farming in this country if we allow imports from other countries that are produced to much lower standards than our own produce. As Minette Batters, the National Farmers Union President, said a few weeks ago: “Mr Gove has said that over his dead body would British standards be undermined. I don’t want it written in blood.”
“Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), has tabled to the Agriculture Bill—whenever that Bill reappears—because we need multi-annual funding to give farmers that certainty. We also need a strong regulatory baseline for the farmed environment to thrive, which is something that we discussed in the Agriculture Bill Committee, and if we have those standards, they must be enforced by a new farm inspection regime. The other issue that will have a massive impact on farming in a post-Brexit world is what trade deals we negotiate with other countries. Again, this issue has been discussed in a lot of detail in other forums, so I do not intend to dwell on it here.”
“That is why I have supported the introduction in the Agriculture Bill of the new environment land management scheme, based on the principle of delivering public goods, such as adaptation to climate change, improved water quality and public access, for which no functioning market exists. This approach is overwhelmingly supported by the public. A World Wide Fund for Nature/Populus poll found that 91% of those surveyed wanted the Government to pay farmers to protect nature. However, as has already been mentioned, farmers need funding certainty if they are to go down that path. They need certainty beyond 2022 and I support the amendment that the Chair of the Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the hon.”
“Their numbers have declined by 56% in the past 46 years and 12% of British farmland species are now threatened with extinction. The State of Nature report 2016 identified the intensification of agriculture as having, by a huge margin, the biggest negative impact on wildlife in the UK when compared with other sources of wildlife decline. As has been mentioned already, that has partly been driven by the CAP. I hope that we do not leave the EU, either today or towards the end of the process, but I would be glad to see the back of the CAP. To reverse the decline of species and address the serious environmental challenges facing us, farmers must be incentivised to provide environmentally beneficial outcomes.”
“Soil degradation in England and Wales costs £1.2 billion every year, with a staggering 2.2 million tonnes of soil lost annually. In the Agriculture Bill Committee, this Minister was sceptical about that and said that the soil on his farm had never been healthier, but the then Farming Minister, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), subscribed to the view that we need to do far more to support our soil. I suggested that we need a specific public good in the Bill, but the then Farming Minister said that that was already covered by the listed public goods. Whatever our views as to the wording required in the Bill, we all need to do far more to improve soil quality. The decline in bees has been well documented over the years, but farmland birds are another indicator.”