Mary Creagh MP: speeches

Speeches

• 5 Sept 2024 · Waste Crime: Staffordshire · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) on securing this debate and on his ongoing work for his constituents. I extend my best wishes to his father and wish him a speedy recovery. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work he did on this issue before coming to this place, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West and Islwyn (Ruth Jones). Everybody’s environment starts outside their front door. We have heard today of issues outside the front doors and on the school playing fields and sports grounds of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire more widely. We have heard some powerful speeches and interventions, in particular from my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), whom I am delighted to see back in this place. The Government will ensure that those who illegally dump their waste are brought to justice. Waste crime and poor-performing waste sites threaten our environment and, in some cases—as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme said—our health. The truth is that the system we inherited is broken. We have heard of the perfect storm of cuts to councils, police officers and the Environment Agency, and a system that has had no new policy for 14 years and is based on paper-based notes kept in people’s drawers. That is an anachronism in the 21st century and, as we have heard, it is being exploited by waste criminals up and down the country. Waste crime costs this country £1 billion a year. We know that 18% of waste may be handled illegally at some point in the waste supply chain. We have to plug the gaps and fix the system—we pretty much have to rebuild it. At the end of March 2024, there were 320 known active illegal waste sites, and 141 of them are high risk. Waste crime is hugely under-reported: only 25% is reported. The Environment Agency deals with a huge number of reports of waste—it received 9,000 in 2022—and has only 240 officials to process them. We do not need to do the maths—we have some young people in the Public Gallery, and I am sure they are better at maths than me anyway. It is impossible for the agency to follow up every single crime. We need to start tightening up the system and seeing the patterns, and we need different agencies to work together. This situation cannot continue. In our manifesto, as part of our crackdown on antisocial behaviour, we committed to forcing fly-tippers and vandals to clean up the mess they have created. We will take our country back from the fly-tippers and waste criminals who disgrace and despoil our communities, damage our environment and undermine legitimate businesses that do the right thing, play their part and fully comply with the regulations. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme asked me whether the system is fit for purpose. My answer is that it is not, and we will take action at pace to tackle this. As a mission-led Government, we will achieve our aims by focusing on ambitious, measurable and long-term objectives that will provide our driving sense of purpose. We will be publishing a circular economy strategy to move us to a future in which we keep our resources in use for longer and reduce waste. That will increase investment in critical infrastructure and green jobs. Of course, waste crime, whether in Staffordshire or elsewhere, threatens that circular economy because it takes out resources and undermines businesses that are doing the right thing. There is an important distinction to be made between waste crime, which is often associated with serious and organised crime and organised crime groups, and permitted but poorly performing waste sites, of which Walleys Quarry is the pre-eminent example in this country. The approaches to mitigating the impacts are very different. Over the past four years in Staffordshire, the Environment Agency has ensured that four illegal, high-risk fire sites have been cleared of waste—more than 40,000 tonnes of baled waste—which was sent to suitably permitted facilities, reducing the fire risk and protecting more than 12,000 properties from the impact. I must also say something about batteries. Every supermarket has a battery collection point, but the little lithium-ion batteries are tiny, and we cannot be bothered, we do not want to collect them or we just forget to take them to the supermarket; it is very easy just to chuck them in the bin. The problem, however, is that when the waste is crushed in the machinery, the battery can spark. When thinking about such issues, it is incumbent on every single person in this room or watching at home online to ensure that we do not put our batteries into our household waste. There is a big education piece to be done on that. I pay tribute to the councils that have taken that to heart. I was reflecting as I was listening to the speech about Stoke-on-Trent Central and what had happened there. I asked for fixed penalty notice stats from all the authorities in Staffordshire. In 2022-23, Newcastle-under-Lyme borough council issued only three fixed penalty notices for fly-tipping, with zero prosecutions, but under Stoke-on-Trent city council’s “Don’t be an IDIOT” campaign, there were 875 fixed penalty notices for fly-tipping and nine prosecutions. That probably puts that city council at the top—certainly in the top half, maybe the top 10%—among local authorities in the country. I pay tribute to the work of that Labour-led council.

• 5 Sept 2024 · Waste Crime: Staffordshire · Hansard source

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  We all have a lot to learn from each other. I offer those statistics in the spirit of co-operation and encouraging good practice. Between January 2023 and 2 August 2024, there were 21 substantiated illegal waste sites in the Staffordshire area, and all 21 of them have been stopped from operating, the vast majority within three months of being reported to the Environment Agency. Five have been fully cleaned up, while the risks posed by the remaining sites are being managed and monitored. The Environment Agency regulates more than 10,000 waste permits, the majority of which are in the top compliance bands. However, I am aware that 3%, or about 300, of those permits attract public interest because they are not in compliance. Those disproportionately take up resource, energy and regulatory activity. I stressed to the Environment Agency officials whom I spent time with today ahead of this debate that my top priority is to take action to bring those sites back into compliance and, where necessary, to embark on criminal investigations. Walleys Quarry, one such non-compliant site, has been a source of concern for residents over several years, as we have heard. This morning, I was informed that it is the worst-performing waste site in the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme asked for a meeting with me, and I am only too happy to meet him. I shall ask Environment Agency and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs officials to be in the room for that meeting, so that we can have a full discussion and get to the bottom and the heart of what is going on. The Environment Agency has carried out significant activity since 2021—more than for any other regulated site—and a criminal investigation is also under way, about which I cannot say more for fear of prejudicing those inquiries. However, the local residents and councillors who are in the Public Gallery today have had to put up with unacceptable levels of hydrogen sulphide. Interestingly, that substance comes from the plasterboard that we all have; it happens when it is broken down and smashed up. As we try to design in a circular economy, we must think about what materials we use in our home and what happens to them, because there is no such place as “away” at their end of life. It is not acceptable for odours to reach a level that causes serious offence to local communities. I am pressing the Environment Agency to keep all regulatory options under review and look at its enforcement and sanctions policy.

• 3 Sept 2024 · Fly-tipping · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I want to correct the record on what the shadow Minister said about the waste figures, because the methodology changed in 2019-20. In that year, there were 980,000 incidents of fly-tipping. The numbers to 2022-23 increased by 10.5% to 1.08 million incidents, so the numbers and the trend lines are all going in the wrong direction. My hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Shaun Davies) made an absolutely valid point. Far too often, when people come to collect stuff from households, we are hiring Messrs Bodgit and Scarper. We need to make sure that the carrier number is printed on the side. On the point about the DVLA, we all have access to DVLA tax and MOT information on our phones. It cannot be beyond the wit of officials to make sure that the databases are joined up. It does introduce complexity, but we are actively looking at that. Whether someone lives in the countryside or in a city, they should be able to take pride in their place. The story told by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Erdington (Paulette Hamilton) of people climbing over rubbish to get out of their house in an emergency is simply intolerable in the sixth richest country in the world. Local authorities have reported over 1 million incidents, and the cost to local authorities was £392 million in 2018-19. That is why our manifesto committed to taking back our streets from the fly-tippers and vandals and forcing them to clear up the mess they have created as part of a crackdown to tackle antisocial behaviour. The National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group has produced guidance to help councils to present robust cases to court, but where the gain is not worth the candle because the fines are too low or the fly-tippers are allegedly too poor, we need to get a little cannier about what we do and how we get back to the principle of polluter pays. As the shadow Minister said, fixed penalty notices can be issued, as can notices of up to £1,000 or £600 to the householder who passes on their waste to someone without a proper licence, but we need to educate the public about their responsibilities as well. We recognise the efforts made by the London borough of Ealing to tackle the issue. It is in the top 10% of councils for issuing fixed penalty notices and I hope it will continue to do that good work. There are lessons to be learned from throughout the country. According to our statistics, the council did not carry out any prosecutions, so we encourage it to use its powers to the full.

• 3 Sept 2024 · Fly-tipping · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution and agree that if we are to create a zero-waste economy, which is the stated aim of this Labour Government, we have to start by ensuring that we increase collection and follow the environmental principles that ensure that the polluter pays. It comes back to some of the points about full-cost recovery and the fact that it is not in the interests of councils to enforce prosecution. The shadow Minister raised the issue of Bradford council, but I can tell him that I intend to write to all 13 councils that reported zero enforcement actions in the past reporting year. They are Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council, which is Lib Dem and Tory-run; Colchester, which is Tory-run; East Devon, which has no overall control; Exeter, which is Labour; Fylde, which is Tory; Isles of Scilly, which is independent; Lewes, which is Lib Dem and Tory; Sedgemoor, which is not clear; Somerset West and Taunton, which, again, was Conservative; South Hams, which is Lib Dem; South Somerset, which no longer exists—there are a few that have merged; Uttlesford; and West Devon. All those reported zero enforcement actions in the past year. That is not good enough. Looking at the tally, I see that it is not Labour councils that are doing nothing. The shadow Minister was quick to criticise Bradford council, but 86 fixed penalty notices is actually not a bad record given where some local authorities find themselves. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Southall, as the former Chair of West London Waste, knows only too well about what happens at the very end of this long pipeline of waste and recycling. I pay tribute to Members in this debate. Fly-tipping is a crime that blights local communities and, indeed, poses a great difficulty to landowners. We heard some comments about whether we can have a whole-nation policy, but this policy is devolved. As the granddaughter of a Fermanagh farmer, I know all too well about the issues of fly-tipping around Rosslea. It is a devolved matter and responsibility for addressing and managing fly-tipping lies with each devolved Administration. As we have seen through the debate, approaches to tackling fly-tipping change and need to be responsive to local needs, not least because what works in inner-city Newham will not necessarily work in Strangford.

• 3 Sept 2024 · Fly-tipping · Hansard source

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  I really have to make progress because I will run out of time. On the waste carrier, broker and dealer regime, who gets to carry the licences? We heard of a dead dog called Oscar signing up for a waste permitting licence. Over the last 14 years the scheme has been wide open for criminals and abuse. We need to make reforms and make it easier for regulators to enforce against non-compliant operators—for example, by requiring the permit numbers to be displayed on their advertising. We want to make waste digital—we want to track waste and to know where it goes—and we will lay legislation next year to provide transparency in the waste system. Whether it is with councils, individuals or businesses, we must continue to work together. In rural areas, we must work with the National Farmers Union and the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group, using toolkits and helping to spread best practice. Some 80% of farmers in rural areas have said that they have been affected by fly-tipping. To come back to where my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Southall finished, we have to reduce waste in the first place. There is no such place as away. We will move to a circular economy. Everything that is not put back into the system through a deposit return scheme—I hope we will see legislation on that very soon—is a waste to our economy. We will convene a taskforce of experts from industry, academia, civil society and beyond to develop a circular economy strategy.

• 3 Sept 2024 · Fly-tipping · Hansard source

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  What a pleasure it is to be back and serving under your esteemed chairmanship, Mr Efford. I thank all honourable colleagues for their kind words on my return to the House after my short enforced sabbatical. Can I say how thrilled I am to respond to this debate? As an Environment Minister, I know that everyone’s environment starts outside their own front door. It is clear from the passion in this room that those on all sides of the House care deeply about the need to educate people on the fact that there is no such place as “away”. There is no throwing away. There are only materials that come into our possession, get used and are then disposed of, and the disposal and collection of those materials is essential if we are to create a circular economy. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan) for securing this debate and pay tribute to LAGER Can, who are here, and the many community groups up and down the country, including my local Ball Hill residents’ association in Coventry East, that organise litter picks and are stepping in to fill the gap left by 14 years of devastating cuts—two-thirds cuts—to local authority spending power caused by the Conservatives.

• 25 Jul 2024 · Convention on Biological Diversity · Hansard source

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  I am in passionate agreement with my hon. Friend. I assure him that it is one of the first submissions that I have seen as a Minister. We will absolutely do our best, and I will write to him should there be any issues around publication. We need to mobilise finance from all sources and align global financial flows with the global biodiversity framework. Working with other donors, we have collectively pledged over £250 million to the new global biodiversity framework fund. The UK is contributing an initial £10 million. We are working with the multilateral development banks to mainstream—

• 25 Jul 2024 · Convention on Biological Diversity · Hansard source

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  I congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your election, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) for his very kind words to me, and for securing today’s debate. What an incredible privilege it is to stand here as the Minister for nature in a Labour Government who will put this at the front and centre of our national missions. My hon. Friend is a true champion of nature at home and abroad, and as a distinguished former Minister for biodiversity he has made tireless efforts to hold us, the UK, and all parties to the convention on biological diversity to the very highest standards. He deserves our thanks and commendation for that work. I also thank him for hosting the introduction to the International Conservation Caucus Foundation on Tuesday, where I had the chance to meet both the Colombian ambassador to the UK and representatives from Canada house. It was an important reminder of the fact that reversing nature loss is a global priority—one that we can achieve only by working in partnership with our friends around the world. We will need leadership, participation and commitment in equal measure to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and climate change. As the MP for Coventry East, I am delighted to have the opportunity to listen and learn today on the UK’s approach to the next meeting on the convention on biological diversity, COP16, which, as my hon. Friend said, takes place in Colombia this October. It is a unique opportunity to begin to re-establish the UK as a global leader on nature and climate co-operation. Protecting and restoring biodiversity begins at home. Almost half our bird species and a quarter of our mammal species that have been assessed are at risk of extinction here in the UK. Precious landscapes in our national parks are in decline, with rivers, lakes and seas awash with sewage and chemical pollution. We feel that loss and destruction of nature wherever we live. We remember our childhoods, looking out of the window at murmurations of starlings—across the Warwickshire countryside, in my case—and we think about how rare it is now to hear the cheeping of a sparrow in our gardens. More of our land is underwater, with our children getting sick after swimming in our seas and rivers. This Labour Government are laser focused on restoring and protecting nature. In England, we will deliver a plan to hit the Environment Act targets, halting the decline of species by 2030. We will honour our international agreements to protect 30% of our land and seas by the same date, and we will ensure that England’s environmental improvement plan is fit for purpose. We will work collaboratively with our colleagues in the devolved Administrations on the shared challenges and opportunities that restoring nature brings. We will do that in partnership with civil society, communities, businesses and volunteers, to harness their creativity and insights.

• 25 Jul 2024 · Convention on Biological Diversity · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for the intervention. The Secretary of State is today visiting the Purple Horizons project in the west midlands, an example of a huge nature recovery project extending across 10,000 hectares of vital heathlands, wetlands, woodlands and grasslands. That is an example of the partnership working that the hon. Gentleman talks about, with the local Wildlife Trust there, the council, the University of Birmingham and Lichfield district council. It is my firm intention, as we move towards the autumn statement and the spending reviews next year, that nature should take its place firmly at the heart of those discussions. Nature is central to each of the missions that define this new Government. We know that being in nature promotes wellbeing and tackles poor mental health. Clean air helps to cut hospital emissions. Protecting landscapes that capture and store carbon helps us to meet our net zero targets, and training people for new jobs in new industries, restoring and protecting the natural world, will protect our economic growth. Nature is the monopoly provider of everything we need to exist, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West has already said, but we stand at a moment in history where nature needs us to defend it. Without it there is no economy, no food, no health, no society. We are not merely observers; we are an integral part of nature and our future depends on protecting it. I look forward to working with my brilliant team of officials and my new ministerial colleagues at DEFRA to tackle the nature crisis. At COP15 in Montreal, 196 countries agreed the landmark Global Biodiversity Framework to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. We look forward to COP16 and there is much on the agenda. My hon. Friend asked about attendance. Four Ministers from three different Departments attended the last conference on biodiversity. We do not yet have a detailed programme of events in Cali, which is completely normal at this stage, but once we do we will confirm precisely who will attend, and we will of course make that information available to the House. Hon. Members can rest assured, however, that this Government will send a very senior delegation from across Government so that the rest of the world will be in no doubt as to the crucial importance we place on the summit and on global co-operation on nature loss. There are 33 items on the agenda for this COP, covering everything from marine protected areas to plant conservation. UK teams will be active on all of them, driving consensus and finding ambitious agreements to help to deliver the goals and targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework. We must speed up and scale up action at home and abroad. However, there are three priorities we are following closely. First, the negotiations on digital sequence information, or DSI, aim to ensure that those communities that make available genetic data from biodiversity—trees, plants and fungi—receive benefits from doing so. This is a unique opportunity for global science and nature conservation: payments for using genetic information could unlock billions of dollars of finance for nature every year and ensure that nature is protected for future generations of not just scientists, but forest dwellers. UK negotiators are chairing the negotiations on this complex issue, and are making good progress towards ensuring that this COP will be able to take the exciting step of launching a new global fund for nature action. On implementation, all parties need to take domestic action to fully implement the GBF. The first step is to publish the national biodiversity strategies and action plans, or NBSAPs. We have been working hard with the devolved Administrations to prepare a UK-wide plan—a single document—to show the policies and strategies that are in place. We will aim to publish that NBSAP as soon as possible ahead of COP16.