Speeches by Newbury.

“You mentioned that from a Government perspective the funding picture is quite constrained. Getting those multiple different benefits from nature restoration, which you alluded to earlier, Tony, is more important than ever. Do you think that, a couple of years in, BNG is showing signs that it is assisting other environm…”

“This is what worries me. As you mentioned, some local authorities are doing really good work and have the infrastructure. My local planning authority does not have an ecologist; we share staffing structures with a neighbouring council that does, so one ecologist is covering an area of around 350,000 people. The other l…”

“Does it worry you that you cannot quantify those wider benefits, given that BNG is being looked at as something that could be stripped out of park planning reforms?”

“The Chancellor has taken decisive action to bring down energy bills, but as she noted, those who rely on heating oil are often the most exposed to sudden price shocks. Even in my fairly urban constituency, there are hundreds of households in that position, and some of them have been on touch with me because the cost of…”

“It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate with you in the Chair, Sir Alec. I warmly welcome the Minister to her new role. Earlier this year, I was contacted by Michelle, the mum of a bright little boy called Toby who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was just 20 months old. Michelle told me that when she w…”

“I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) for securing this debate and, more importantly, for her work and advocacy on palliative care throughout her time in the House. Last August, I visited St Giles hospice in Whittington, just over the border in the Lichfield constituency; I am hu…”

“I want to raise the issue of the importation of illegal products, particularly those of animal origin. We have received data from the Ashford port health authority, which runs the Sevington SPS border control post, showing that in November last year, nearly a fifth of consignments that were told to make the journey fro…”

“It has not improved on animal origin; it has gone back up, so it is not a clear downward trend. That is what we are worried about.”

“Do you think it is a growing problem?”

“I realise that I have taken up quite a bit of time, Chair, so lastly, we do not yet know whether there is data on what happens after non-attendances at Sevington. We know, as you said, that there is a process of speaking to the local authority about the consignment’s destination, but we do not know how successful that …”

“Obviously, we do not know exactly what the detail of the SPS deal is going to be, but can you give us assurances that, post the deal coming into force, our checks at the border will not be weaker than they are now?”

“Absolutely. On that point, how effective do you feel DEFRA has been at influencing announcements from other Departments in the course of this Parliament so far? Do you think it is going well?”

“You have given some good examples, but there are some examples of rural interests perhaps not being well considered in otherwise well-intentioned policy announcements. I can give you an example: MHCLG’s Pride in Place funding is a massive part of local growth from the Government. It used the community needs index, whic…”

“Most of these illegal imports are not coming through legitimate routes and they are not coming through commercial channels either; they are coming through personal import lanes. So how does a deal on commercial products with the EU mean that we can take our foot off the gas when it comes to checks at the border?”

“Do you feel as though other Departments are willing to come on that journey? Have you had any resistance or difficulty in engaging with any Departments?”

“There have been some areas in which concern has been raised about how well we are doing in cross-governmental efforts on the environment. The OEP flagged what it feels is inconsistent engagement from senior officials and Ministers across Government, not just DEFRA, with the environmental principles policy statement. Re…”

“Another responsibility for DEFRA, from a cross-governmental perspective, is rural proofing, which I have heard the Secretary of State refer to several times. The last rural proofing annual report was published in March 2024. Could you tell us when the next report is going to be published? Will it cover the last two yea…”

“It is another publication that we are waiting for.”

“DEFRA is responsible for 89% of commitments within the new environmental improvement plan, which Charlie referred to. Do you think that that is fair, given that every sector has an environmental impact?”

“If the data is not available, does that not raise even greater concerns about the oversight that DEFRA has on this issue?”