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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“If we can get 100% on gender pay gap reporting, we ought to do an awful lot better on modern slavery reporting. The Home Office review of the Modern Slavery Act is welcome, and I hope it will result in much-needed measures to strengthen it and its implementation. I welcome the appointment as chairs of the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), who unfortunately has had to go back to his constituency, where “Songs of Praise” is being recorded, otherwise he would be here. If the Government want to lead on this issue internationally, a law of due diligence, whereby companies need to demonstrate they are actively seeking to end slavery in supply chains, would be a good place to start.”
“Some 13 million people were captured and sold as slaves from the 15th century to the 19th century while slavery was legal, but the “Global Slavery Index” estimates that more than 40 million people live as slaves today. When the current Prime Minister came to office, she vowed to personally work to eradicate this “barbaric evil” and “great human rights issue of our time”. But as with many promises, I fear that the Government’s ambition may be slipping. I hope the Minister can provide some reassurance today that that is not the case.”
“In conclusion, I represent a city, Bristol, that was built on the back of the slave trade, the hideous and now unimaginable trade in Africans and in slave-produced commodities such as sugar, chocolate, coffee, cotton and tobacco. Bristol is now one of the leading fair trade cities in the world and at the forefront of efforts to stamp out modern slavery. Our city is home to anti-slavery organisations such as Unseen and TISCreport that are, like Mayor Marvin Rees, committed to stamping out this horrendous crime, making the commitment to be the world’s first transparent city at a time when most did not even know what that meant. Slavery is not just a terrible episode in history.”
“Food bank use is driven by low pay and insecure work, benefit freezes, sanctions and delays, and spiralling housing costs. Something has gone very wrong when a local advice centre tells me it has been helping a client who could not afford to eat, but she could not get to the food bank because it was only open when she was at work—at Tesco. We also need to be cautious, as I mentioned at DEFRA questions this morning, about Government plans to bring in seasonal migrant workers to fill labour shortfalls after Brexit. Focus on Labour Exploitation—FLEX—has warned that temporary migration programmes that tie workers to a single employer would mean workers are unable to defend themselves if they are paid less than promised or if they are expected to work longer hours and in worse conditions than initially agreed.”
“Another step the Government can take is to support the adoption of a binding UN treaty on business and human rights that holds companies legally accountable for human rights violations along their supply chain. There is another reason for holding this debate now. There are too many in this place who enthusiastically extol the opportunities of getting our hands on even cheaper food in the post-Brexit world, but that would come at a terrible price: a race to the bottom on food standards, food safety, animal welfare and environmental protections, and the continued exploitation of workers around the globe. The key message I want to get across today is that cheap food comes at a cost, and the cost is often met by the workers. Cheap food is not the solution to food insecurity.”
“I also asked the Farming Minister in Select Committee whether he would support the EU’s unfair trading practices directive, covering the whole of the supply chain, which will extend to producers selling into the EU from overseas. Naturally, the Minister told me that the Government would prefer to deal with this on a national basis, but we do need a firm commitment that the Government will follow the EU’s lead and establish themselves as a good and responsible customer so that we do not end up losing the preference of suppliers post Brexit—why would they sell to us when they do not get the same protection they would get from selling elsewhere?”
“Having been a member of the Public Bill Committee, I hope we can change that. I raised this issue this morning at Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions and I got a response from the Farming Minister about the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, but I am slightly concerned that he did not seem to link it in with discussions about modern slavery. I would hope that as a result of this debate he and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), can have a conversation. The International Labour Organisation has said that the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector is the fourth largest sector for the incidence of slavery, so it certainly needs to be on DEFRA’s radar.”
“I certainly think that. At the all-party group yesterday, we heard from someone from ASOS, the online clothes firm, who talked about all the measures it takes. It has really complex supply chains, sourcing products from all around the world—not just finished garments, but material, zips and buttons—yet it seems to be able to do it, so I do not see why supermarkets cannot. They should be doing it on food safety and on other issues as well, so they ought to be doing it on modern slavery. The Agriculture Bill will require more data from the agri-food sector on supply chain fairness. That will get some information out there that can be used, like the Oxfam scorecard, to put pressure on the supermarkets to change their practices. However, there is nothing in the Bill about such data being used for a legally enforced purpose.”
“Food waste is not just about the food that has been bought; the issue exists throughout the supply chain. From farm gate to fork, between 30% and 50% of food is estimated to be wasted. A lot of it never even gets on to supermarket shelves, and that is an absolute scandal. If food waste was a country, it would have the third highest carbon footprint in the world.”
“All today’s speeches have been excellent and I thank Members who have attended the debate. We can draw a comparison with the clothes sector. We reached a point some years ago when people started realising that if we can buy a pair of jeans for £3 in a supermarket, something must be wrong, with somebody somewhere down the line being exploited if that product could be produced so cheaply. Does the hon. Lady agree that we need to do the same with our food and start questioning why it is so cheap?”
“Perhaps I am pre-empting what my hon. Friend is about to say, but is it not also a problem that the companies’ statements sometimes say virtually nothing? They just have to tick a box to say that they have made a statement. They do not have to show that they are actually doing something to root out slavery in their supply chains.”
“Question put and agreed to. Resolved , That this House is concerned about the practice of modern slavery and the exploitation of labour in the supply chains of supermarkets in the UK; notes this week marks world food day and anti-slavery day; recognises the global leadership that the Government has shown in tackling modern slavery in supply chains in the Modern Slavery Act 2015; and calls on the Government to help ensure that steps are taken to protect the workers and farmers who produce food.”
“I am also grateful to have had the opportunity to speak at far more length than I am usually able to in this place, in that we often end up being called when a seven or six-minute limit has become a three-minute limit. The food sector is a particular problem because of some issues that have been outlined today, and I urge the Minister to speak to her colleagues, particularly those in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy who are responsible for the supermarket sector. We need to discuss this not just in the context of modern slavery and trafficking issues in general, but with a specific focus on how the food sector operates and how that gives rise to some of the horrific abuses we heard of today. I would be grateful if she did that.”
“I will be brief. I thank the Minister for her response. She covered most of the points that were raised and I am sure she will go away and check whether there are any other points to which she could respond in writing. I have sometimes seen Ministers come along to the House and read from a piece of paper, showing no sign of having listened to the debate that they have just heard, so I thank her for not taking that approach and for giving a thoughtful and considered response. I also thank everyone else who has contributed. As people have said, there might not have been a huge number of speakers, but everyone who contributed spoke with great passion and clearly felt very strongly about the issue.”
“My mother has six daughters, the eldest of whom turns 55 tomorrow—happy birthday, Claire. The youngest turns 44 at the end of the month—happy birthday Aimi. I am clearly intervening just so that I can say happy birthday to my sisters in the House. I get plenty of discussion about this issue at home, but I want to thank my hon. Friend for making the point that men need to talk about it, too. He has been brave in bringing this debate forward today.”
“The hon. Lady has been very brave in speaking out. So far our focus has been on dealing with the symptoms and the problems. Has she had the opportunity to look into whether diet-related changes could help to alleviate some of those symptoms rather than just medical solutions? In Japan and China, for example, there seems to be much lower incidence of things such as hot flushes, and some suggest that that might be because of the consumption of soya, which has oestrogen in it, although I am not quite sure how it works. Has she looked at that at all?”
“As an electric car driver myself, I would point out to the Minister that the growth of electric cars means it is more imperative to invest in charging infrastructure, because it is pretty difficult at the moment to find a charging point that is not already being used. However, on the broader point, we are now talking about trying to move from a target of 80% in 2050 to net zero. Can she name one new thing she is doing, rather than going backwards, that will help us to meet that goal?”
“In the timeline that was published this morning, it says that higher animal welfare standards will be defined in 2020. Will the Secretary of State assure me that the bar for those will not be set any lower than they are at present? Ideally, they should be considerably higher.”
“Without such a commitment, even the most generous and sensitively structured support that emerges from the legislation could be fatally undermined.”
“It would drive out higher-welfare and smaller-scale UK farmers, who would be unable to compete on price, and make it more difficult for us to export to the EU. There are also food safety issues. One in seven people in the US contracts a food-borne illness every year, compared with just over one in 70 in the UK, which must have something to do with US food production system standards. The Secretary of State has repeatedly said he has no intention of reducing standards, and I think he is entirely sincere, but I am not convinced that all his colleagues agree. We often hear them say that there will be no drop in British standards, but that does not mean that goods produced to a lower standard in other countries will not make it into this country under a trade deal, and I want reassurance about that.”
“I gather that dairy will be the priority because the existing voluntary code of practice is not deemed to have worked well, but fruit and veg farmers need protection, too. The Bill alone will not be enough to safeguard farming in this country. The real battle and the real danger come from the global Britain Brexiteers and their enthusiasm for cheap food imports and the scrapping of standards post-Brexit. The US Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, made it clear that any post-Brexit trade deal will hinge on the UK ditching its higher, EU-derived food safety laws, which currently prohibit chlorinated chicken, hormone-pumped beef, ractopamine growth promoters in pork and much more. The implications of that would be huge for UK food and farming.”
“The Government clearly accept, with the new fair dealing measures in the Bill, that they were wrong not to extend the remit of the Groceries Code Adjudicator to cover indirect suppliers, but they need to go further to ensure the fair treatment of all those who produce our food, along the whole supply chain. I have just been told that I have a Back-Bench business debate next Thursday on ending modern slavery, human rights abuses and the exploitation of workers in the supermarket food supply chain, and I urge as many Members as possible to come along to support it. Cheap food in our supermarkets often comes at the cost of worker exploitation. The fair dealing measures in clause 25 must apply to all sectors and to all stages of the supply chain.”
“There have been calls to amend the Bill to include food production as a public good—this is basically about maintaining direct payments under another name—but we are talking about a limited pot of public money. Food production is ultimately rewarded by the market, or it certainly should be. We need to ensure that the market is fair and that farmers get what the president of the Country Land and Business Association, Tim Breitmeyer, describes as “a fairer share of the food pound”, along with the security that comes from a longer-term funding settlement.”
“It sounds promising, but we need to see measures in the Bill to increase the availability, affordability and accessibility of healthy food, including UK-grown fruit, vegetables and pulses. Also, as the Chair of the Health Committee said, we urgently need to act to address the public health crisis of growing antimicrobial resistance, and the associated rise in superbugs, by eliminating the overuse of antibiotics in farming and rewarding good animal husbandry. As I said to the Secretary of State earlier, I will be keen to hear where the bar for animal welfare will be set when it is defined in 2020. At the moment, we are too complacent about animal welfare standards in this country, and I would like to see far more ambitious targets and a more ambitious definition.”
“This has already been mentioned, and all I will say at this point is that I would like to see a goal in the Bill for agricultural emissions to reach net zero by 2050, in line with the Paris agreement. That is absolutely necessary following Monday’s report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Bill is also missing an opportunity to link farm payments to public health goals. It is predicted that diet-related ill health will overtake smoking as the biggest cause of preventable death before too long. We spend more on the treatment of obesity and diabetes than we spend on the police, the fire service and the judicial system combined. I am quite excited by what I have heard so far about DEFRA’s future food strategy.”
“The Minister will no doubt tell us that this will be determined by Dame Glenys Stacey’s review, which is due to report by the end of December, and that it might then be included in the environment Bill, but that would be the wrong place for it. Cross-compliance is a fundamental part of the common agricultural policy. It underpins taxpayer investment, and this Bill is setting out a replacement for the CAP. Can the Minister therefore assure us that the Government will introduce amendments to this legislation, most likely by the time it is in the other place, on the basis of Dame Glenys Stacey’s review? It is also time that we looked far more seriously at reducing farming’s carbon footprint.”
“There are fundamental weaknesses in the Bill, however, including the uncertainty around funding beyond 2022, the emphasis on powers rather than duties, and the absence of any information on how the money will be split between productivity payments and environmental payments. The Bill needs to set a multiannual budgetary framework under clause 33 to provide more certainty for farmers. I would endorse Greener UK’s recommendation for a duty on Ministers to introduce an environmental land management scheme by a set date, and its call for targets and benchmarks for public goods. We also need clarity that the public goods listed in clause 1 are the priority for funding, and that any payments for productivity must contribute to their delivery. I am concerned that there is no regulatory baseline in the Bill.”
“I believe that the Bill, with its emphasis on public money for public goods, could provide an ideal opportunity to support that sort of farming, through rewarding farmers for what they do as custodians of the land for future generations, and not simply on the basis of how much land they own. Public money should be used not to subsidise market failure but to reward behaviour, which the market does not do. That means farming in a way that addresses the serious environmental challenges facing us, such as biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, disappearing pollinators, soil degradation, polluted rivers, water run-off and much more. It is vital that we get this right.”
“No matter what our views on Brexit are, there is near-universal consensus that the common agricultural policy is in dire need of reform. I want a farming system that is both economically viable and environmentally sustainable, with the highest possible animal welfare standards. I chair the all-party parliamentary group on agro-ecology for sustainable food and farming, and we have long called for more support for organic farming, agroforestry, pasture-based livestock systems, integrated pest management and low-input mixed farming—mixed farming is very important—as well as for a move away from unsustainable intensification and an over-reliance on agrochemicals and cheap fossil fuels. We want to see whole-farm systems that support nature-friendly farming.”
“The President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, reiterated last year that no Brexit is still an option for the UK Government, and the author of article 50, Lord Kerr, has said that the UK can still opt to stay in the EU. He said: “At any stage we can change our minds if we want to, and if we did we know that our partners would actually be very pleased indeed.””
“This was after article 50 had been triggered. The conversations that needed to be had with industry, with important sectors and with the much derided experts had barely started, so triggering article 50 was reckless in the extreme. The Prime Minister was not doing it because Brussels insisted we move to a trigger, or in an attempt to unite our divided country after the difficult referendum campaign. She was doing it in a futile attempt to keep her warring Cabinet together. We can all see now how well that has been going. There is little serious doubt that article 50 is revocable, although I know that was not envisaged when it was drafted.”
“It was an incredibly serious decision that should not have been taken lightly. Once the Prime Minister’s letter reached President Tusk’s desk in Brussels, it strictly limited the time for negotiations to two years. The clock is ticking down, and it feels as though it is ticking down ever faster. Even with a coherent Brexit plan in place, it would be a challenging deadline to meet, but the Government were totally and utterly unprepared. They simply had not done their homework, which was painfully obvious when Ministers came before Select Committees such as the Environmental Audit Committee, on which I sit. We conducted an inquiry into chemicals regulation post-Brexit. When the Minister came in front of us, it became clear that the Government were only just starting to ask the chemicals industry what Brexit would mean for it.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Roger. I want to pay tribute to my long-standing friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), for a sterling introduction to the debate on the petition. I am sure my colleagues will be pleased to know that my contribution will be brief: he said a lot of what I would have said. I also want to thank my 555 constituents in east Bristol who put their names to the petition. I was one of the 122 MPs, 57 of them Labour, who voted against triggering article 50 in February last year. Every day that goes by vindicates in my mind that I was right to do so. The Government had no plan for Brexit then and have no realistic Brexit plan now. Triggering article 50 began the countdown to the biggest changes our country has faced in peacetime.”
“We have gone from being told that Brexit would be “the easiest deal in human history”, to the Prime Minister saying, “it wouldn’t be the end of the world” if we left with no deal. The promises have evaporated. As I said, I would rather not turn the clock back and look to scrap article 50, but we certainly need to hold to account the people responsible for illegal actions during the referendum campaign. They should not be allowed to get away with it with impunity, but the important thing now is to look at the deal—if it is possible to scrutinise it, given what an absolute mess it is at the moment. It is important to focus on the here and now and make sure that we either get the absolute best deal—a soft Brexit for this country—or we think again, extend or rescind article 50 and go back to the drawing board.”
“Nor are the arguments put forward about a lack of information, or indeed the deluge of misleading information when voters made their choice in 2016, a valid reason to call for a rematch. Democracy is never perfect. We can never really second-guess why people voted the way they did. I would prefer not to turn the clock back and talk about rerunning the 2016 referendum, but I very much support the need to properly scrutinise any deal that the Government put forward, possibly with a people’s vote if the Government do not put forward a deal acceptable to Parliament. Some of us spent the campaign warning that the Brexit process was much more complicated than some would have it.”
“I was glad to be a signatory to a letter he organised to the Metropolitan police and the National Crime Agency urging them to investigate the links between Vote Leave and Leave.EU. It has been reported that Arron Banks met Russian officials multiple times—on one occasion it was reported that he had met them 11 times before the Brexit vote. There are reports now of an investigation by the National Crime Agency. We are seeing the destruction of our democracy by foreign funding, by fake news and by very wealthy individuals prepared to play fast and loose with our electoral law and get away with it with impunity. I do not believe that such law breaking alone is reason to rescind article 50, if the intention in calling for article 50 to be revoked is to rerun the 2016 referendum campaign.”
“Although Vote Leave has been held to account, a fine of £60,000 is pitiful and no deterrent at all when we consider that so much was at stake during the referendum campaign and when the people involved are so wealthy and can easily access the funds needed to pay the fine. I support the Electoral Commission’s call for greater fines to be levied on those who break the law in such a way and the call for a judge-led inquiry into the conduct of the referendum that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) called for. My right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) has led the way in investigating the Russian connections of Arron Banks’s Leave.EU campaign.”
“I absolutely agree. We are discussing all the options available to us at the moment—from no deal to the option that some of us advocate: that we ought to think better and do all we can to try to stay in the EU. Clearly, looking at the legalities around article 50 is in everyone’s interest so that we know which options are still on the table and which are not. Today’s debate is not really about the rights and wrongs of triggering article 50, although that is something that the petitioners put forward as part of their call. It is about Vote Leave’s illegal activities during the referendum.”
“The Creative Industries Federation is advising its members to prepare for what it describes as the “catastrophic” consequences of no deal, which will mean higher costs, delays, barriers to trading in Europe and, potentially, the loss of employees and access to funding, too. The Prime Minister might think that no deal is not the end of the world, but for many creative industries it could mean the end of their businesses. What will the Minister do to help them?”
“I welcome the fact that the number of prosecutions has gone up, I think by 27%. Is the Solicitor General having discussions about how we treat young people who are involved in county lines? Will they be treated as criminals, or as the victims of, in many cases, modern slavery?”
“I thank the Minister for that response and for his tribute to Peter Melchett who, as well as serving in the Northern Ireland Office, was a good friend of mine, a lovely man and a passionate environmentalist. Is it not the case that the backstop proposal is now just dead in the water? The Government are not going to get anywhere with it. A poll this week said that people in Northern Ireland would vote for a united Ireland if a hard border was put in place. Are not the Government sacrificing the Union on this altar? Would not the best solution be to move forward with plans to stay in the single market, stay in the customs union, avoid a hard border, and protect the people of Northern Ireland from Brexit?”
“T8. Last week, I visited a family-run company in my constituency that sells extreme sports goods to more than 80 countries. People there told me that reverting to World Trade Organisation rules would cost the company more than £1.6 million in tariffs alone. They also told me they had had overtures made to them by the International Trade Secretary and by the Secretary of State’s predecessor, on condition that when they met they did not talk about Brexit. When is the Secretary of State going to start listening to such family-run companies and hear about the impact that a no deal would have?”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I very much welcome this statement. It is important that we reflect on the fact that this is not just about providing protection for possible victims of sexual abuse, exploitation, bullying and unhealthy relationships, but about reaching out to potential perpetrators, which is why it is important that as many young people as possible are part of this programme. I want to ask about physical health education, particularly education about food. May I urge the Secretary of State to look at the work of the children’s future food inquiry? It is being carried out by two all-party groups, and it will report early next year. It is one thing to teach children what healthy food looks like, but if they are living in food poverty and do not have access to healthy food, that will not go very far.”
“Will the Secretary of State support the recommendations of the agroforestry review by the Soil Association and the Woodland Trust and put on-farm tree planting at the centre of any environmental land management scheme?”
“I do not know whether the Environment Secretary has had a chance to look at Oxfam’s excellent new report, “Behind the Barcode”, which looks at modern slavery and human rights abuses in the food supply chain. I know that it is not his primary responsibility to consider issues such as modern slavery, but given that it is so prevalent in our food system, what conversations has he had with his colleagues about trying to stamp it out?”
“The Minister just mentioned the Peninsula Rail Task Force. In the Government’s response to the recommendations in February, they said: “we will look at improving connectivity between the Peninsula, Bristol and beyond”. However, as we have just heard, that does not sound like it is happening, particularly with the CrossCountry franchise. Can the Minister explain what is meant by “improving connectivity”?”
“Will the Secretary of State explain the logic behind retaining the existing system of fixed quota allocations for the current quota? As he will know, there has been a great deal of unhappiness about that. Three multimillion-pound companies currently control nearly two thirds of our fishing stock. If he wants to take back control, should we not be reviewing something that is now more than 20 years out of date?”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her references to my contribution in Committee. Let me also express my admiration for her elephant-patterned dress. On the question whether another Bill will be introduced, is it not the case that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which does not normally handle an awful lot of legislation, has so much on its plate at the moment, what with the agriculture Bill, the fisheries Bill and so many other strategies—the need to consider agriculture subsidies, for instance—that the chances are that this will get pushed to the bottom of the pile if it is not dealt with soon?”
“The right hon. Gentleman mentioned a whole list of animals that might be included, and we also had a full discussion about this in Committee. It was only when the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds spoke to me this week that I realised that one species that had not been mentioned was the helmeted hornbill. I had no idea that there was a market in red ivory from the hornbill. Has that species come up in any of his considerations, and does he think that it should be put forward for protection as well? It is protected under CITES.”
“In Bristol, we have a chronic fatigue syndrome/ME centre, but it has no doctors and focuses primarily on training in activity management. One of my constituents who received treatment there was highly complimentary about the staff, but she echoes the view of many other patients that occupational therapy is an inadequate approach for people with a highly disabling, multi-systemic disease. The current National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guideline recommends treatment consisting of graded exercise therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy, but it has been criticised by all ME charities, patient organisations and representatives registered with NICE as stakeholders. We have already heard from a few people today about that.”