Kerry McCarthy
MP for Bristol East · Labour · United Kingdom
“We see that in four main ways: physical risks, including floods, wildfires, droughts and storms; transition risks as economies move away from high-carbon industries; nature-related risks affecting food production and natural resources; and systemic risks, where shocks spread rapidly across sectors and markets.”
“The glaciers of the third pole function as Asia’s water tower, feeding major river systems that support nearly 2 billion people. When rising temperatures accelerate glacial melt, the consequences extend far beyond the mountains.”
“Following the heatwaves and wildfires across Europe this summer and the destruction caused by the glacier collapse and catastrophic flooding in Nepal and Tibet, the message is becoming impossible to ignore: the consequences of climate change and environmental degradation are real, not some distant future threat.”
“Personally, I cannot see that Rosebank is compatible with meeting our climate objectives, but I recognise that the process should be followed. Green Alliance has reported that the gas being wasted in the North sea would be enough to heat 570,000 homes.”
“I too worked in the financial markets, although I think I have done a better job of hiding it in my 21 years in Parliament. I was more on the debt market side. In fact, I am so old that I was part of the salvage operation for Barings bank when it went under. That brings me to the right hon. Gentleman’s point about regulation.”
“My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that I very much agree with the point that he just made. We have some excellent, innovative businesses in Bristol that came up through the Science Creates innovation hubs and attracted private capital.”
The complete record
Every one of 6,322 lines we hold for Kerry McCarthy, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 51 of 127.
“In 2018, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board found that introducing wildflower margins around the edges of fields increased bumblebee numbers in courgette fields and boosted yields by 39%. Due to the reduced input costs required from the farmer, that provided pollination services valued at £3,400 per hectare, so just because land is taken out of production, the farmer does not necessarily lose out. At the moment, under the common agricultural policy, there is a distorting incentive to farm absolutely every inch of the field, but we will hopefully move away from that under the new public-money-for-public-goods approach. Despite a lot of professed support for more nature-friendly farming, the reality on the ground is different.”
“As a nation, we should do far more to make organic farming and agroecology mainstream, as they do in France. Organic farms have on average 50% more wildlife and 30% more species than conventional farms. We should also do more to support agroforestry; pasture-based livestock systems, which have already been mentioned; integrated pest management; and low-input mixed farming, as we look to restore ecosystem services and our long-term food security. At every opportunity, we should move away from unsustainable intensification and an over-reliance on agrochemicals. Over the years, numerous studies have shown that farming in an environmentally beneficial way is not just good for nature, but better for business.”
“It is a pleasure, as always, to see you in the Chair, Mr Evans. It is also a pleasure to be reunited with two former colleagues on the Environmental Audit Committee, the hon. Member for Gordon (Colin Clark) and the Minister, who have both gone on to other things. We also went into battle on many occasions during the Agriculture Bill Committee, although it is fair to say that we were not always on the same page about everything. Now the Minister has taken up his post, to which I welcome him, he may have to revisit some of his views, compared with the freedom he had as a Back Bencher. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on agroecology for sustainable food and farming, I support the idea of a whole-farm system based on nature-friendly farming.”
“Sorry—I did not quite get that. And, yes, soil is absolutely brilliant for carbon sequestration. I will just conclude, Mr Evans; I apologise, as I did not know that you had said Members should take five minutes. The signs that are being sent out by the Government at the moment are that they are trying to head in the right direction with the Agriculture Bill, but the need to act swiftly is imperative, and I would like to see more ambition.”
“It is ridiculous that we are here at this time of night trying to work out what on earth is going on, based on Twitter rumours and bits of paper that are being passed to the deputy Prime Minister and read out in dribs and drabs. Can we focus on what will actually happen if the deal is voted down tomorrow; all the indications are that it will be? When will we get a chance to decide on ruling out no deal? When will we get a chance to decide whether we need to extend article 50, to try to sort out the mess we are in?”
“I apologise for being unable to stay for the whole debate; I need to speak in the House. As the Committee inquiry highlighted, the prohibition on the transfer of dogs is utterly ludicrous. There was a very high profile case in Bristol on this matter. The dog can be transferred if the owner dies, but not if they move abroad because of work, as happened in one case, or if they lose their home and have to move into a flat where they are not allowed animals. It seems completely ludicrous that in some situations the dog then has to be destroyed when it might be, as the hon. Gentleman said, a perfectly well-behaved, acceptable dog.”
“The UK is the chair of CHOGM until Rwanda takes over in two years’ time, and I really hope that we will be in the forefront of pushing this forward.”
“I hope that the discussions at CHOGM 2018 will represent a much greater step forward. It was acknowledged at CHOGM that temperature and sea level rises, and other aspects of climate change, posed a significant risk to many of the Commonwealth’s most vulnerable member countries, and that climate change could push an additional 100 million people into poverty by 2030. There was renewed support for a target well below 2°, along with support for innovative financing solutions including disaster risk insurance, which is important for farmers affected by climate change. It was agreed to establish action groups on ocean issues led by Commonwealth member countries, and for the secretariat to take forward the Commonwealth blue charter.”
“The first listed priority area was climate change and sea level rise, followed by natural and environmental disasters, management of waste, coastal and marine resources, freshwater resources and more, but that was 25 years ago, and it does not feel as though much progress has been made since then—certainly not enough. It was 10 years ago, before the Copenhagen climate summit, that the then President of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, held an underwater Cabinet meeting to highlight the impact of rising sea levels. He warned that with a 2° rise in temperatures, his country would be “on death row”, yet it is only in the past year or so that it is becoming accepted that limiting temperature rises to 2° would not be sufficient to address the climate emergency, and that 1.5° should be the target.”
“With the help of the World Bank, the Seychelles have also raised $15 million through the world’s first sovereign blue bond, which is designed to support sustainable marine and fisheries initiatives. Again, these are examples of the positive things that are happening to help the small island states, but we need to move faster. It is quite depressing to look back at past efforts to address these issues. In 1994, the first meeting of the small island developing states on sustainable development was held in Barbados, and it resulted in a 14-point programme of action.”
“In the Seychelles, for example, the fisheries sector is the second largest industry after tourism, and 95% of its exports are fish products such as canned tuna. The Seychelles also have amazing biodiversity, especially round Aldabra, the world’s second largest coral atoll. Six plant studies students from Oxford University have just gone out there, along with six Seychellois students, to do a three to five-week plastic clean-up project, and I am looking forward to hearing what they report back. In a recent debt-for-nature deal with a US conservation group, $21 million of Seychelles debt was written off in return for the island nation committing to designating 30% of its waters as marine protected areas. That sounds like a great initiative.”
“I have not been to the bottom of the Blue Hole but I can pay testament to just how upsetting it is to see man-made pollution wrecking the marine environment. Other threats the oceans face include ocean acidification, which has been described as the “evil twin” of global warming, and unsustainable fishing, whether over-fishing or environmentally damaging pulse fishing and bottom trawling. There is also a real issue with waste disposal in small island states. They do not have space for landfill, so where do they put the rubbish? With the ban from China, and with Malaysia now refusing to take waste, including that from the UK, that issue has become an ever more pressing problem. For many of these small island states, there is a conflict between immediate economic needs and environmental protection.”
“If sea levels rise by 1 metre, the Maldives, which was in the Commonwealth until a few years ago and may yet return, will disappear entirely. Climate change is not the only environmental threat. There has been a very welcome rise in public and political awareness of plastic pollution in recent years. Richard Branson recently led a dive expedition to the bottom of the beautiful Blue Hole in Belize, which is 400 feet deep, and found plastic bottles. In his blog he wrote that “the real monsters facing the ocean are climate change—and plastic. Sadly, we saw plastic bottles at the bottom of the hole, which is a real scourge of the ocean. We’ve all got to get rid of single-use plastic.” I have dived in Belize and it remains the most beautiful place that I have dived.”
“But I want to talk today mostly about the Commonwealth’s small island states, many of which are already vulnerable on a number of fronts—their size, their remoteness, and their narrow resource and export base. They are now increasingly being affected by climate change and extreme weather events. In the Caribbean, islands are experiencing more intense hurricanes, coastal erosion and rising sea levels, and their fisheries are also highly vulnerable to climate change. In Kiribati in the Pacific the shorelines are being pounded away by high tides: whole villages are having to be relocated, food crops are being destroyed, and freshwater supplies are contaminated by sea water. In the Indian ocean, around the Seychelles and Mauritius much of the coral reef has been lost to bleaching.”
“I want to focus today on a matter that has already been mentioned: the adoption at CHOGM last year of the Commonwealth blue charter. Some Commonwealth countries are among those most affected by our failure to tackle what we should now call the climate emergency. We have heard of droughts in the Caribbean, Australia and many parts of Africa, sea level rises in Bangladesh causing flooding, loss of livelihoods, and what could become the climate migration of more than 20 million displaced people. In 2013 it was reported that in Tanzania, Mount Kilimanjaro’s shrinking northern glaciers, which are thought to be 10,000 years old, could disappear by 2030. In fact forecasts show that both Mount Kenya and Mount Kilimanjaro could be without ice within a decade.”
“At a recent surgery I held for carers, a woman came along with a case relating to her daughter who has disabilities, and we managed to get a back payment of £22,000 in disability payments. If I had not held that surgery for carers, and if the excellent local carers organisation had not put that lady in touch, her daughter would still be waiting for those payments. We cannot have a situation in which people rely on such fortuitous circumstances to get justice. What can the Minister do about that?”
“This, alongside the injustice that, unlike schools sixth forms, we still also have to pay VAT on all goods and services we purchase, is now putting a considerable strain on our finances and the ability to continue to deliver an outstanding education to our community.” St Brendan’s serves not only my constituency, but constituencies in a significant range around the Bristol area. It is so important that we do all that we can to support it.”
“The discussions have been going on for a very long time. I will finish by referring to a note that Michael Jaffrain, the principal of St Brendan’s, sent me recently, in which he asked me to speak in the debate. He said that the fact that Catholic sixth-form colleges are not allowed to become academies “seriously limits choices in terms of future strategy.” I have already said that the college has huge ambitions to expand, which I support. The principal also said: “The ability not to be able to convert into the schools sector is now starting to have a real bite. Unlike the sixth form colleges who have converted, St Brendan’s will not receive any additional funding to cover the 2% increase in teacher pay and there is still no commitment that we will be fully funded for the 7% increase in teacher pension contributions.”
“Perhaps the school system failed the young people; perhaps they simply were not ready to grapple with education; or perhaps there were issues with their home circumstances. We have a lot of children in Bristol who have come from fairly chaotic family backgrounds. They might come from refugee families, for example. For one reason or another, they might not have left school with the GCSEs that we would want them to, so they might need to do three years at St Brendan’s. As I understand it, if they stay on for three years, the college gets less funding once they have passed 18. That might have been rectified because we have raised it with the Minister before, but perhaps he will address that point. As has been said, rectifying that would require only a short clause in the next education Bill.”
“Only the Catholic sixth-form colleges cannot, which is particularly unfair when schools that convert to academies can retain their current status. It seems completely anomalous, as has been said, that Catholic sixth-form colleges are treated differently from other sixth-form colleges, and differently from other Catholic schools. The hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) mentioned another issue. I was not expecting to speak in today’s debate, so I do not have the figures to hand, but there is an issue with pupils in sixth-form colleges receiving less funding than pupils in schools. There is also still an issue with third-year funding, whereby they get even less if the pupil stays on at the sixth form for three years.”
“There is also a real focus on international development, which links with the work of lots of churches in my constituency that do really good work with overseas communities, as does St Brendan’s as well. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West said, St Brendan’s and the other Catholic sixth-form colleges face double discrimination. Sixth-form academies do not have to pay VAT, but sixth-form colleges do. We have debated that before in Westminster Hall on numerous occasions in the broader context of how sixth-form colleges are treated, and we are all keen for the Minister to move forward on that. Other sixth-form colleges have the get-out clause that they can convert to academies and receive funding as a result.”
“I attended a session there once after some young pupils from elsewhere in the Bristol school system had led a nationwide campaign against female genital mutilation. The sixth form brought the young women to talk to a group of pupils about issues within the community and about FGM. It was a real eye-opener for the pupils and was a really good thing to do. I have also met the feminist society there. I had a meeting recently with the principal and a couple of student reps, one of whom said, “I identify as gender-neutral”, and not an eyelid was batted. Some people have real fears about what a faith-based organisation looks like, particularly a Catholic college, but St Brendan’s is as far from bigoted as we would want an educational establishment to be.”
“Catholic parents get the faith-based education that they want for their children, but children from all faiths feel comfortable there and the college is doing well. It has significant plans to expand, which presents some challenges, particularly in relation to traffic, because it is at the top of the most congested road in my constituency, but we can address that. There is also the challenge that school sixth forms are smaller and struggle to provide a broader curriculum. If St Brendan’s expands, will the school sixth forms be no longer viable? However, I still support its expansion because, as I have said, it provides an excellent service. When I have been to St Brendan’s I have always been impressed by how open-minded the college is and how receptive it is to discussing issues across all faiths and no faiths.”
“I have some reservations about it, although I think that a greater problem is where demographics in a particular area lead to a school being de facto one culture. I say this as someone who grew up in Luton and went to Luton Sixth Form College, which was very diverse, but some of the schools there, just because of where people live, tend not to be as diverse as they could be. We are fortunate in Bristol that all the schools, including St Brendan’s, have a healthy mix of pupils from different backgrounds. Although St Brendan’s is a Catholic sixth-form college and priority is given to students from Catholic schools, it is very diverse. St Brendan’s clearly has an ethical focus to its teaching, but the Catholicism is not too evident.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Davies. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) delivered an excellent and comprehensive speech, so I do not think that I need to add much. As he mentioned, I have a Catholic sixth-form college, St Brendan’s, in my constituency, although it serves a wide catchment area that stretches as far as Weston-super-Mare. My hon. Friends the Members for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) and for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) have all visited the college. They are great supporters of it and would have been here today to speak in its defence if they had been able to. I do not hold a particular torch for faith-based education.”
“My hon. Friend does amazing work on schools through the all-party parliamentary group, and through the children’s future food inquiry, which I am pleased to be involved in. She will know that there is real concern about children living in food poverty. Indeed, the Food Foundation assessed towards the end of last year that around 3.7 million children are living in households that would have to spend 42% of their annual income to meet the guidance of the “eatwell plate”. That is simply unaffordable and if food prices rocket because of Brexit, it will become even more so. Does she share my concern that we are reaching crisis point?”
“My hon. Friend is being very generous. I am involved in something called Feeding Bristol, which is an offshoot of Feeding Britain—an organisation that aims to eradicate food poverty. We were discussing this matter at a meeting last week. Food prices going up will create an affordability issue, and if people stockpile and panic-buy food and the supermarkets run dry, donated food to hostels and food banks will dry up completely. Not only will people be more likely to have to go to food banks because they will be unable to afford food—and they might not be getting such good quality food through public sector catering—but food banks will run out as well.”
“The point about perishable food being held up at ports is really important. I am vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for fruit and vegetable farmers. We have heard such scare stories, but they are not scare stories, because they are rooted in reality. This is a combination of two things. About 90% of our mushrooms now come from Poland because it is cheaper to grow them there, and those products will be held up at ports, and, obviously, they go off very quickly. There is also a real shortage of workers to pick the fresh fruit and veg in this country now. A crisis is looming—the fruit and veg farmers have been warning of it for a long time. We may find that even though food might be growing in plentiful quantities, it will still be rotting in the fields.”
“The Minister is appearing before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee tomorrow afternoon, so he can expect a little more of that treatment then.”
“17. This country’s public sector institutions spend £1 billion a year on food, and there have been many warnings that food price inflation in the event of a no-deal Brexit will make that unaffordable. What is the Minister doing to protect not just jobs in the food sector, but the people who depend on those meals?”
“On what was said about senior teachers, I had a meeting with governors from a number of infant and primary schools in my constituency on Friday, and they made the point that good schools manage to keep their teachers—teachers want to stay there because they love being there—but that means there is a higher wage bill. That puts the school in an invidious situation.”
“They provide such a valuable addition to the classroom, giving extra attention to the pupils who need it. Those might be pupils with SEND, but they might also be pupils who are just shy or for some reason lag behind and need that extra attention, perhaps even just on one particular day. Funding cuts have also meant that things such as reading recovery classes and forest schools have had to be cut. My sister was a TA and a forest school leader; the budget for that school was axed and it could no longer afford her. Kids absolutely thrive on such outdoor experiences.”
“The hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) was spot on about so many things in her speech. She spoke from her experience as a teacher and no doubt someone who keeps in close contact with her schools. In east Bristol, school funding has reduced by 7%, which is about £359 per pupil. Some people have spoken in headline terms about overall spending rising, but that is meaningless. It is the per-pupil spending that matters, and it has gone down by 7%. When the increase in school expenditure—which I am told is around 8%—is factored in, that is a real-time cut of 15% in per-pupil funding. It is pointless to have the debate unless we accept that situation. Colleagues have spoken about schools having to reduce staff numbers to accommodate that. At one point, teaching assistants were in most classes.”
“There is also a very good school food project, which looks particularly at holiday hunger, breakfast clubs and so on. It is not just a case of getting food to children. We can get donated food for breakfast clubs and holiday hunger schemes from excellent projects such as FareShare, but schools need to be able to afford the staff. That little bit of extra money that schools cannot come up with makes the difference—it means children do not have to start the school day hungry or go through the long school holidays hungry. This is about so much more than just providing education. We need to look at the whole picture. If we are to produce well-rounded, physically and mentally healthy children, which is what we should be doing, we need to be able to support them outside school as well as in school.”
“Over the past few years, the number of SEND pupils in Bristol has risen three times faster than SEND funding. Obviously, that has an impact. It means children with SEND are often diagnosed later, and that they miss out on early intervention during their first years at school. Early intervention is crucial for ensuring that a child thrives and often prevents problems from developing into something more serious. Services such as CAMHS and speech and language therapy, which have supported schools, have also been cut. That is leading to a crisis. If we do not have early intervention and cannot support children at an early stage, they will develop far more serious problems as they become older. I am involved in a project called Feeding Bristol, which aims to eradicate food poverty in the city.”
“We absolutely want a balance of newer and more experienced teachers in schools. However, it has been raised with me that schools have to pay the apprenticeship levy, which is about £10,000 per school, but they do not want to take on apprentices. That money could be spent on a teaching assistant. Schools do not need apprentices. That is a very quick way in which the Minister could help schools. In the limited time I have left, I want to focus on SEND. Since 2010, Bristol City Council has lost more than 40% of the funding it gets from the Government, and funds for early intervention have stopped being ring-fenced. That means the council’s high-needs budget has been in deficit for some time, and it has had to raid the mainstream education budget to compensate.”
“On a related issue, we talk a lot about the melting of the polar icecaps, but in the Himalayas, which are often known as the “third pole”, the permafrost is thawing and the ice is melting. That could have absolutely huge implications for water sources and for the water that flows down to a significant area. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we should be talking about that, as well as the polar regions?”
“The Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee is making an excellent speech, as would be expected. She mentions that very little progress has been made in agriculture. I know this is part of the planetary health inquiry to an extent, but nearly 10 years ago, on 25 March 2009, I had a debate—I think it was the first such debate in Parliament—on the impact of the livestock sector on the environment. I was laughed at and ridiculed by most people, but I still keep banging away at it. The public are now with us, and so many people are reducing their meat consumption for environmental reasons. Does she think it is time that politicians had the courage to grasp that nettle and make improvements?”
“Human rights defenders around the world are under attack. They are censored, imprisoned and sometimes even murdered for speaking out, and women who speak out in countries such as Saudi Arabia are particularly vulnerable. Does the Minister agree that we need to do more to support the women around the world who are brave enough to stand up for what they believe in?”
“I am glad that the Minister mentioned the need for expert advice. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, however, is incredibly stretched at the moment, so what assurances will she give on sufficient expert scientific or technical input before statutory instruments are brought before the House? It is one thing to say that Parliament gets to scrutinise, but we are not experts, and experts need to be involved.”
“That was going to be my question to the Minister. There is keen public interest in ensuring that we do not promote the fur trade in any way, shape or form. It is one thing to say that discussion at the European level does not have direct democratic oversight, but it is a big discussion, involving lots of countries and with a big political debate around it; if we are talking about a Committee such as this one, or perhaps the Secretary of State or an official exercising functions in an office somewhere in Whitehall, I worry that the policy agenda will move on without our realising that something we would not have accepted is happening.”
“I visited a school in my constituency, St Anne’s Infants School, which won the Marjorie Boxall Quality Mark Award for its nurture group in 2016. I appreciate the really good work it does. Yesterday, I was in a Westminster Hall debate on special educational needs. There are real concerns around the country about the lack of funding for that. The hon. Gentleman just mentioned integrating this into the education service. It should not just be excellent groups that are getting excellent provision in some schools. We need to ensure that children—whether they have emotional or physical needs, or just need a decent education—get support in a joined-up way.”
“I was going to mention teaching assistants in my last intervention, because they are so important. For a child who needs extra attention and one-to-one support, whether because of SEND or emotional difficulties, they can often be the difference between their being able to stay in the class or needing to go to a nurture group. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a false economy to slash schools’ funding so that they cannot employ teaching assistants any more?”
“This is such an important issue, and I am glad that my hon. Friend is raising it. He has said, quite rightly, that in many cases young carers are unidentified within the system. Does he agree that it is important that schools and GPs, who will have contact with the people the young carers are caring for, do all they can to try to make sure that young carers are flagged up in the system, so they get the support that they need?”
“4. What recent assessment his Department has made of the prevalence of human and labour rights abuses in the global supply chains of UK supermarkets.”
“I secured a debate last year on this issue, highlighting the shocking extent of modern slavery in our supermarket supply chain. Will the Minister tell me what action has been taken since then?”
“We were told that we would see the final report on anti-dumping duties on aluminium foil by Christmas; entirely predictably, we have not seen anything at all. The issue is very niche, but for a company in my constituency it is extremely important. It is one example of where businesses have been left in a state of hopeless uncertainty because of the Government’s failure to prepare for Brexit. Is it not time that, rather than letting businesses continue in this state, the Prime Minister announced that she will extend article 50?”
“Organisations such as St Mungo’s are doing a great job providing such places, but others are exploiting the system, and I know that the Minister agrees.”
“I hope that Bristol can be part of that, and that there will be more unannounced inspections. We also need legislative changes to help to resolve the situation. We need to upgrade the definition of support; currently, it just has to be “more than minimal”. The definition of supported housing has not changed since 1977. Ideally, everyone would have a home that they can call their own, and they would not be in halfway houses and temporary provision. However, if we are to get people off the streets, as a first measure we have to ensure that supported housing is fit for purpose. As I have said, it is costing local councils an awful lot of money, because providers can charge much higher rates for housing benefit properties than for ordinary accommodation.”
“Homeless people have actually said to me that they would not go there. They do not want to go there. They would be scared to go to Wick House, which is the name of the property in question. I have met with Lorna, the sister of Paul Way, who died in Wick House in 2017. It was meant to be supported accommodation, but it took support staff three days to knock on the door of his room and find his dead body. I also met with Catherine, the mother of George Mahoney, who died in 2016. There have been some changes. Local authorities are piloting multi-disciplinary teams looking at all the different agencies that could perhaps help to regulate the sector more: the housing benefit people, the environment agencies, and people who deal with antisocial behaviour.”