Dame Angela Eagle

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

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6,416 held · 5,899 searchable for Dame Angela Eagle. The searchable lines are below in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 7 of 10.

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1. “We will therefore consider introducing a closed season, which should reduce the number of adult hares shot during the breeding season. We are giving farm animals greater freedom and dignity. The Government value the excellent work of British farmers who produce high-quality food to some of the highest welfare standards in the world, which we are rightly proud of. Ending the use of intensive confinement systems such as cages and crates is a key priority. We have launched a consultation on phasing out colony cages for laying hens and plan to consult on transitioning away from farrowing crates for pigs, but we will do that in conjunction with the industry, because we understand the nature of the costs and the transition time required to move to higher welfare standards.”

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2. “There are no current plans for that, but I am happy to consider it given my hon. Friend has raised it. I now turn to how we protect our precious wildlife. As our understanding of animal welfare continues to evolve, the law must keep pace with the latest evidence to prevent wild animals from suffering cruelty, pain or distress. Therefore, we will ban trail hunting. The nature of trail hunting makes it difficult to ensure that wild mammals are not put at risk, and we intend to launch a consultation very soon. We will end the use of snare traps because they are indiscriminate, can catch pets and protected wildlife, and cause terrible suffering. We are also among the only European countries without a closed season for hares, which means that young hares can be left motherless and vulnerable.”

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3. “It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms McVey. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tristan Osborne) on securing the debate and on his work in championing the UK’s growing wine industry. It is particularly good that he has managed to get it in dry January.”

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4. “It is about far more than bottles sold or medals won, although they are very important and we celebrate them; it is about skilled jobs, thriving rural economies and the confidence that comes when communities seek growth and opportunity on their doorstep. This Labour Government believe in backing British industry, supporting working people and building an economy that works for every part of the country. That is why, as a Minister, I am committed to working closely with the sector to drive innovation, expand exports and ensure that rural communities across the UK fully share the benefits of this success story. Question put and agreed to.”

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5. “The Government recognise the pressures that alcohol producers face, and we want to assist in any way we can. The Government committed to upskilling the workforce, and we are working closely with Skills England and the Department for Education on the growth and skills levy, which includes apprenticeships. If my hon. Friend wants to convene the industry to talk about how that might be applied with respect to viticulture, I am more than happy to hear what he has to say when he has done that work. The growth of the UK wine industry is impressive, but we are only just beginning to realise its full potential.”

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6. “Friend gets in touch with the wine-growing bodies so that they can present it to us and we can consider it. My hon. Friend mentioned packaging reforms. The Government are committed to moving towards a circular economy that delivers sustainable growth and reduces waste. Our collection and packaging reforms, including extended producer responsibility and the deposit return scheme, are designed to drive investment in modern recycling infrastructure. Extended producer responsibility is already used successfully across more than 30 countries and is a proven way to increase reusable packaging in the market and improve long-term environmental issues. I understand my hon. Friend’s point, but we have to move forward and try to get to a place where we can recycle much more packaging to ensure it does not go to landfill.”

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7. “Wine tourism is a vital part of the success, as my hon. Friend pointed out. In 2023, about 1.5 million visits were made to vineyards and wineries, and tourism accounted for roughly a quarter of income for many estates. This is about jobs, economic opportunity and resilient rural economies. The Government are committed to supporting that vision, including by backing regional identity initiatives. Our ongoing efforts will ensure that regions gain the recognition that they deserve, both at home and abroad. My hon. Friend mentioned cellar door relief. I would certainly welcome any data that he and the industry can provide me with so that we can see how we might deal with that. We have to get evidence before we can make changes to the way that such relief is given. If evidence exists out there, I strongly suggest that my hon.”

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8. “With more than 1,100 vineyards, and production exceeding 10 million bottles, viticulture is one of the fastest-growing agricultural sectors in the country, and the Government are committed to supporting that growth. Through the farming innovation programme, we have committed at least £200 million through to 2030 to support viticulture. That will help producers invest, innovate and plan with confidence. On whether we can change the regulations on single-serve wine portions, there has not yet been a decision on reforms, but we are keen to engage on ideas about innovation, including on that issue. I ask my hon. Friend to please keep in touch with me and the Department on that innovation and others so that we can see whether it is worth our while changing regulations that may have become out of date.”

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9. “Our trade deals have enabled greater access to international markets for UK wines, whether through simplified customs procedures under our recently announced free trade agreement with the Republic of Korea or the approval of a greater range of winemaking practices for exports to Australia and New Zealand. The Government are working to make it easier and less costly for UK wine producers to do business abroad. The success story of the UK wine sector does not start overseas; it begins at home. Industry forecasts suggest that the retail value of English and Welsh wines could reach £1 billion by 2040, but I wonder whether we can get there faster.”

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10. “Yet through working in partnership with the industry, we intend to help it seize opportunities and ensure growth is felt by farmers and communities alike. Exports of domestic wines are gaining real momentum. English and Welsh wines now ship to 45 countries, with exports more than doubling their share of total sales from 2021 to 2024. The 16 agrifood attachés from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs play a key role in this success by promoting UK wine, removing market access barriers and helping businesses navigate consumer demand and import procedures. The Government are supporting WineGB to boost the global profile of English and Welsh sparkling wine at Wine Paris in February. We want to ensure that British producers have a strong, confident presence in key global markets.”

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11. “She was the first person outside Champagne to win the award, thereby giving some credence to my hon. Friend’s claim that the only champagne to drink at the moment, even if we cannot call it that, is English sparkling wine. Such achievements show the quality that British producers can attain when talent, innovation and investment come together and are applied to British viticulture. Across the country at fantastic vineyards such as Chapel Down’s Kit’s Coty in the constituency of my hon. Friend, the production of award-winning wines is translating into good jobs, as he pointed out, as well as tourism growth and renewed confidence in local, often rural, economies. We recognise the challenges the industry faces: a tougher trading environment, rising costs and tariffs.”

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12. “Yes, nearly over. The UK has always been a major trade hub for wine. We are the world’s second largest importer of wine by value and volume, bringing in an estimated 1.7 billion bottles every year. The UK is also the 11th largest exporter of wine, so it is very much a two-way trade. The scale and connectivity matter. The UK’s role as a global hub anchors expertise and investment across bottling, logistics, retail and export, and increasingly, as we have heard from my hon. Friend today, in viticulture. Our domestic wines have earned a reputation for exceptional quality, as demonstrated by the nine gold medals awarded to English wines at the 2025 International Wine and Spirit Competition in London. Nyetimber’s head winemaker, Cherie Spriggs, was named sparkling winemaker of the year for a second time, which is an exceptional achievement.”

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13. “He perceived this issue and how much it was growing, and in his usual way he decided that he was going to do something practical and see what he could do to help. He did, and Feeding Britain now makes an important and interesting contribution to the work we are all doing to bring about this Labour Government’s manifesto commitment to ending the mass use of emergency food parcels by the end of this Parliament.”

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14. “Food poverty is not an abstract issue, as many of us who visit food banks in our constituencies know; nor is food insecurity, which now touches more than 14 million people in our country—not a small number, and a very sobering one when we think about it. In my constituency, I see parents skipping meals so that their children can eat. I see many others relying on food banks to get by. When I was first elected, we did not have any food banks in Wallasey; we now have too many. All are doing a fantastic job; I pay tribute to the work that Wirral food bank does, and to the many volunteers who run social supermarkets and food clubs in the constituency, which have grown up to meet need as it has arisen. I also pay tribute to Feeding Britain, which was started by Frank Field, who was my constituency neighbour.”

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15. “There is no single cause for the fact that, in the UK, food inflation for the last period has been running about 1% above CPI inflation rates. Many Members, from all parts of the House, have talked about the effect that that has had on their constituents. This debate reflects real concerns about food inflation and cost of living pressures that are affecting millions of households across our country. Those pressures have been building for years, and too many families were left to face them alone under the previous Government. Tackling the cost of living remains at the heart of what this Labour Government hope to achieve in our time in office.”

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16. “It is a pleasure to serve under your excellent chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I too enjoyed being a member of the Treasury Committee—as the right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) still does—to which you always make a trenchant and relevant contribution. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (Catherine West) on successfully securing this debate—I think she is on the Treasury Committee as well. There seems to be a preponderance of current or ex-Treasury Committee members in this debate, which perhaps suggests that the issue before us, food inflation, is, as anyone who has listened with an open mind to all the excellent contributions will realise, quite a complex issue.”

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17. “Analysis demonstrates that that difficulty particularly affects those with children and those who have disabilities or other issues around being able to earn a reasonable amount of money if they are in work, so that they can cover basic costs. The Trussell Trust demonstrated, as my hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) said, that a third of those who attend food banks for emergency food parcels are in work. I found it interesting to hear Opposition Members say that increases in the national minimum wage or in the money that people earn for working were actually part of the problem. Those who do low-wage work also have to eat. Although the increases add a cost, we have to appreciate that maintaining a very low-pay society will not help us get out of this problem.”

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18. “I was thinking, when I attended his funeral a few years ago, what an effect he had at a grassroots level with his vision for getting stuff done. There are many hundreds of thousands of people up and down the country who, even though they might not know it, owe him a debt of gratitude. The actions we have taken start with easing cost of living pressures and raising living standards. It is obvious, as many colleagues on the Government side of this Chamber have said, that one of the basic causes of food insecurity is the price of food, but it is also people’s inability to have enough income to do one of the most basic things in life: putting food on their family’s plates—or their own.”

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19. “I am also acutely aware of the pressures that farmers face, which is why we are looking to see what we can do—as the Batters report suggested—to strengthen the fair dealing regulations for farmers to ensure that they get a fair price for the food they produce. Building on the Food Strategy Advisory Board established by my predecessor, we are collaborating across the entire food chain to deliver a system that works for everyone. We have a great deal of work to do. It is not simple, but we are determined to get on with it.”

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20. “That is why this Government are taking action on all fronts: raising the minimum wage—I recognise that we and the Opposition have a bit of a political disagreement about the effect of that—extending the £3 bus fare cap to keep transport affordable, ensuring that Best Start in Life family hubs can be present in every local authority, backed by £500 million of funding, and removing the cruel and ideological two-child limit on universal credit to ensure that families receive support for all children, thereby helping to lift an estimated 450,000 children out of poverty. That is a serious and ambitious series of actions to tackle the pressures that families face.”

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21. “Opposition Members have been through some of the issues that they worry about with respect to that—none at greater length than the hon. Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam). The food inflation gateway is there to ensure that the impact of regulation on food prices is properly assessed before implementation and is looked at cumulatively. Together, those actions are preventing the chaotic and unsequenced policymaking that characterised a lot of the chaos of our predecessor Governments. We know that food price inflation is just part of a wider challenge on the cost of living, and our approach goes beyond tackling the cost of food alone—from energy bills to childcare.”

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22. “The expansion of free school meals will benefit about half a million more pupils, save families up to £495 per child per year and lift about 100,000 children out of relative poverty by the end of this Parliament. We are extending the holiday activities and food programme, with £600 million to support children during school holidays. That was particularly welcomed by the local activists at the food poverty conference that I attended this morning. Our free breakfast clubs will be rolled out nationally, starting with 750 schools, ensuring that no child starts the day hungry for food. I have visited some of those breakfast clubs in my constituency; seeing children eating, playing naturally and being ready to learn as school starts is a real boost. At DEFRA, we are introducing the food inflation gateway to ensure the impact of regulation.”

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23. “Friend the Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet said, there is a poverty premium on getting to good nutritious food, and we have to work with the industry to try to deal with that. We are co-ordinating across Government to deliver real change and to break the cycle of sticking-plaster politics that preceded us. From April, the value of Healthy Start will increase by 10%. The weekly value will increase from £4.25 to £4.65 for pregnant women and children aged one to four, and from £8.50 to £9.30 for children under one. We will continue to work with retailers to expand access to healthy, affordable food, which we at DEFRA are particularly interested in bringing about.”

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24. “We are working together across Government to tackle this issue head on. That includes the child poverty strategy to boost family incomes and cut essential costs. It also includes the 10-year plan from the Department of Health and Social Care to tackle the link between poverty and obesity, which is an extremely important aspect of these debates; and the expansion and improvement of free school meals by the Department for Education. I personally believe that we must break the link between poverty and obesity, and get good nutritional food to everybody in the country. It is often cheaper to eat good nutritional food, but many people live in constituencies where there are food deserts or where, as my hon.”

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25. “Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) that we are joining up across Government and it is not just DEFRA talking about this. Just this morning, I joined my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy) at a food poverty conference hosted by the Department for Work and Pensions, which brought together representatives from local authorities, the third sector and civil society. That is where we can forge local, practical solutions to some of the problems that we have all perceived in our constituencies. The Government’s job in that circumstance is to try to facilitate and empower those things to happen, rather than have a top-down approach that mandates what to do. There are certain things that we can have an effect on, and there are others that we need to use empowerment to bring about.”

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26. “The right hon. Gentleman is correct at the margins, but I am also correct that having a very low-wage economy and not increasing the national living wage does not have a positive effect. As with all economic analysis, some of this is about the balance and which effect comes out top. We have tried many years with chronic low pay and very few rights at work, so we are now going to try something different. On the Government Benches, we think that people deserve a living wage for doing a full-time job. That is how we will get out of this situation. The Government are taking a strategic, joined-up approach to tackling the cost of food to build a more resilient and fairer food system for the long term. I hope to reassure the hon.”

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27. “While Conservative Members continue to protest, we will get on with clearing up their mess.”

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28. “Interestingly, some of it turned up abroad, so there is clearly an organised crime element that needs tackling properly.”

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29. “The very Members sat opposite me presided over the first Parliament in modern history where living standards were lower at the end than they were at the beginning, and rural communities were some of the hardest hit by their incompetence. The Conservatives are the party that oversaw the shambolic Brexit deal that hit farming communities hard. That was happening alongside the sleaze that countless people across the country will no doubt remember so well: £1.4 billion of wasted taxpayer money on dodgy covid contracts given to Tory mates over WhatsApp, and partying while the country was in lockdown. Rural communities gave their damning verdict on those 14 years at the general election, sending Conservatives to the Opposition Benches and returning more rural Labour MPs than ever before.”

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30. “I apologise in advance to the House and to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I will not be able to stay for the whole debate. [Hon. Members: “Oh, no!”] I am sure hon. Members will miss me. We are committed to improving the quality of life for all people across the country. To achieve that, we are putting the needs of people and businesses in rural areas at the heart of policymaking. I am baffled, quite frankly, that the Opposition think they have any right to speak on behalf of rural communities after the 14 years of chaos and corruption that they put this country through. I am astounded that they are now trying to present themselves as the solution to the problems that rural communities face, when they were the architects of many of those very same problems.”

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31. “I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add: “welcomes the support that the Government is providing for rural people, communities and businesses; commends the continued support for farmers through investment in Environmental Land Management schemes which will boost nature and sustainable food production; recognises that the Government has listened on the subject of Agricultural Property Relief and made changes to support family farms; further welcomes the Bus Services Act 2025, which includes provision to support the protection of socially necessary bus services in rural areas; further recognises that the Government continues to invest in Project Gigabit with £2.4 billion available to ensure over one million premises have access to gigabit-capable broadband; and supports the joined-up approach with the weight of Government behind tackling rural crimes such as the theft of high value farm equipment and livestock.” I welcome the chance to open the debate on behalf of the Government and to highlight what we are doing to support rural people, businesses and communities to realise their full potential.”

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32. “The plan will make a real difference to the day-to-day trading operations of small businesses. That includes a new business growth service and a massive £4 billion finance boost to increase access to finance for entrepreneurs and make Britain the best place to start and grow a business. A prosperous rural economy requires effective transport as well as digital infrastructure, the availability of affordable housing and energy, and access to a healthy, skilled workforce. We are tackling those issues. We know that rural residents often have to travel further to access work, education, training, healthcare and other essential services. The Conservatives made that worse by slashing local bus routes in England by 50%, with more than 8,000 services slashed in their time in office.”

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33. “No, I will not give way. The rural economy already contributes £259 billion to gross value added in England alone, and we know that rural areas offer significant potential for further growth. The Government are committed to harnessing this potential to ensure that we can fully realise the opportunities that exist in the rural economy across the whole country. Small and medium-sized businesses are the engine room of the Government’s No. 1 mission, which is growth, and there are half a million registered SMEs in rural areas—the vast majority of them not having anything to do with agriculture or farming. The SME plan, which was launched by the Prime Minister last summer, represents the most comprehensive package of support for small and medium-sized businesses in a generation.”

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34. “No, I am getting on with my speech. [ Interruption. ] There are many Opposition Members who wish to speak, and I do not want to take their time up. Rural transport under the Conservatives became a postcode lottery—”

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35. “Perhaps the hon. Lady will let me make my point before she gets up to ask me a question. Rural transport under the Tories became a postcode lottery, and the price that many communities paid was to have no reliable bus service at all. Under Labour, the Bus Services Act 2025 places passenger needs, reliable services and local accountability at the heart of the industry by putting power over local bus services back into the hands of local leaders across England. We are reconnecting our local communities by protecting socially necessary bus services and the most vulnerable. We are rebuilding connectivity and confidence in our countryside—”

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36. “We are not working against the private sector. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recognise the Conservative record in this area. They presided over a 50% cut in the availability of bus services across the country, and that was often worse for rural areas as some lost their buses completely. We know that rural areas are benefiting from Labour’s changes—for example, York and North Yorkshire.”

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37. “First, I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman’s record on animal welfare; I think everyone across the House respects it. Secondly, I was in the House when we voted to ban hunting in the first place. I was actually in the Chamber when it was invaded by hunt protesters, who did not show much attention to the law when they ran into this place—they were so surprised that they had arrived here that they did not quite know what to do. I therefore take no lessons on any of that. The ban on trail hunting was in our manifesto, and we are consulting on how to put it into effect. I certainly hope that the right hon. Gentleman will take part in that consultation.”

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38. “The right hon. Gentleman may vote any way he likes, but I hope that he will take part in the consultation so that we can have a proper debate about these things.”

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39. “Certainly, the animal welfare strategy is very comprehensive. As hon. Members will know, it encompasses farm animals, wild animals and pets, as well as international trade and all those aspects. It also looks at what can be done to enforce the ban on hare coursing, which is particularly brutal. I was happy that the right hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) supported that element. [ Interruption. ] But it happens all the time—that is the point. I said, “enforce the ban”; I did not say “banning”. We can have the best laws in the world, but if none of them is enforced we might as well not bother.”

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40. “Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should be patient and let me finish my sentence. He should be well aware that the Conservative Government’s record on enforcement was dire, because a lot of enforcement activities were decimated by the cuts they enacted in the period of austerity.”

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41. “That is exactly right. The cuts that were made to enforcement activities and enforcement muscle have caused many huge problems that we are attempting to clear up, such as the 20% rise in waste crime. Many of the benefits we expect and the requirements to keep our rivers free and our wildlife healthy were, in effect, not properly enforced during the austerity years. I am a fair person, so I will give way to the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans).”

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42. “That is one bus per week, Madam Deputy Speaker. That is the kind of legacy that we have from the Conservative party in the areas it purports to support. We know that bus services in rural areas can be a lifeline for many, providing the only means of getting around. That is why, in our multi-year allocations for local authorities, we have revised the formula to include a rurality element for the first time, ensuring that the additional challenges of running services in rural areas are taken into account. The Conservatives slashed local bus routes; we are putting them back, protecting them and promoting them.”

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43. “I know a few people at the Home Office; in fact, when I was there before the reshuffle we launched the rural crime taskforce, which is doing great work and will carry on doing so. I agree, and the hon. Gentleman is right, that enforcement needs to be properly funded and not slashed as it was under the Conservative party. I was talking about improving local transport links and pointing out that we have a multi-year investment, working with local authorities to provide a much better service in our rural areas. We know that those areas are already benefiting from the changes in the Bus Services Act 2025. For example, in York and North Yorkshire, the Labour combined authority is developing a rural bus franchising model to improve connectivity for villages that currently see only one bus per week.”

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44. “I am happy to pass on the hon. Lady’s comments to the appropriate Ministers. Access to digital services is crucial for rural areas. We are delivering high speed-capable broadband to UK premises that are not included in suppliers’ commercial plans. Our aim is to achieve 99% coverage of a reliable, superfast, high-speed broadband by 2032. Over 1 million further premises have been—”

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45. “Will the hon. Gentleman please let me develop my point? Over 1 million further premises have been included within contracts to provide access to superfast broadband, with funding of over £1.8 billion allocated in the latest spending review to support the project. That helps end social isolation, provides access to healthcare and turbocharges rural businesses. Our focus on rural hard-to-reach areas ensures that the benefits of superfast broadband reach every corner of the UK, breaking down barriers that the Conservative Government failed to address. I must say—”

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46. “The problem is that we inherited a system in which all the hardest-to-reach bits had been left till last. We are trying now, by investing £1.8 billion, to get that sorted, but I understand the hon. Gentleman’s frustration.”

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47. “Well-designed and well-managed solar farms have the potential to deliver a range of environmental benefits, with some solar farms delivering significantly more than the mandatory 10% increase in habitats required by biodiversity net gain.”

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48. “If the hon. Lady gets me the information, I will pass it on to the relevant Minister. I will make sure that we cover the point that she makes. I was astonished to see that the Conservatives had pledged to scrap the Climate Change Act 2008 in the face of opposition from one of their own former Prime Ministers, Baroness May, who called their plans a “catastrophic mistake”. This Government are committed to achieving clean power by 2030, while the Conservatives would leave us dangerously reliant on Putin’s oil. Labour’s ambitious clean power mission will create good jobs in rural areas, protect bill payers and ensure our energy security.”

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49. “I have given way quite a lot, so I am going to carry on with my speech. We know that the roll-out of solar generation does not pose a risk to food security. Planning guidance makes it clear that developers should utilise brownfield land wherever possible. Where agricultural land must be used, lower quality land should be preferred. We also encourage multifunctional land use and are encouraged to see plenty of farmers ignoring the hysteria of the Conservatives and combining sustainable energy generation with arable and livestock farmers—”

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50. “In addition, the Government have already announced bill discounts for communities living nearest to new electricity transmission infrastructure and published guidance on community funds for electricity transmission infrastructure and onshore wind in England. After a decade of Tory cuts to frontline policing, this Government are also committed to driving down rural crime—”

    House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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