Speeches by Reed.

“Last week, the Minister for Water and Flooding and I attended the United Nations ocean conference in Nice. We announced that the Government will introduce a Bill by the end of the year to ratify the high seas treaty, delivering on our commitment to protect 30% of the ocean by 2030. This agreement will provide the first…”

“As the hon. Member says, I do know of this situation because the facility is adjacent to my constituency as well. He will know that I cannot comment on what the Environment Agency is intending to do, because it is its decision. None the less, I certainly agree with him that the EA must listen to constituents and people…”

“First, I remind the hon. Gentleman that I attended the Royal Cornwall Show with him just a few days ago. I am surprised he has forgotten that, because we sat together in the same tent and enjoyed a very pleasant lunch. I do not know what is wrong with his memory, but anyway. The funding for ELM schemes paid to farmers …”

“I am happy to send the shadow Minister the list of media coverage I got from the Royal Cornwall Show. He does not seem to be any better at googling than remembering who he sat down with at lunch. I am delighted that the spending review was welcomed by the environmental NGOs and the National Farmers Union as it funds ac…”

“My hon. Friend is of course an outstanding champion for his constituents in Stoke-on-Trent North. During 2024-25, more than 800 compliance inspections were conducted at Severn Trent Water sites. The Environment Agency will be attending more minor pollution incidents and will continue to attend all serious pollution inc…”

“My hon. Friend will be aware that we inherited record levels of sewage pollution in our waterways from the previous Government. Since the election, we have launched the biggest crackdown on water pollution in history: unfair bonuses have been banned for water company executives, and water bosses who cover up pollution …”

“That is particularly true at particular times of the year. Once the weather starts to improve, people are going out more and they discover that a local beauty spot is horrifically polluted. They then contact the MP, among other things, and the MP puts the questions to us. We are dealing with that, but probably not mana…”

“I recognise the stat, but I have not been in any other Department, so I do not have anything to compare it with. Becky, do you think there is anything structural that would lead to that?”

“It is more with the policy teams. We only have a very small central processing team. We have put in place more senior management, and I will let Becky come in in a moment, because she knows a lot more of the detail than I do, but we have a relatively small team receiving the PQs, which are distributed to the policy tea…”

“There is a lot to unpack, because it is a process, and there are bullet points at various elements of the process, but can I first thank you for inviting me here? It is important that we welcome scrutiny and challenge. It is a very important part of the democratic process, so we were more than happy to come here to exp…”

“I am Steve Reed, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.”

“I am satisfied, but as we were saying earlier, over the last three days we have had 250 PQs, so that is quite a challenge. I suspect that if I look at the tracking on those 250 the stats will not be good, but hopefully that is not a new normal, and the number will go down again. I think you probably need to give it a f…”

“Which Department is doing well on them? Do we know?”

“I don’t want the full table, but who should we look to?”

“Okay. The Home Office is in the same building, so—”

“I am very in favour of self-service in that sense. That is a very good point. The Department’s IT is quite poor. We have lacked investment in IT over many years. I think we are the second worst in Government for digitising things. Just in this one Department, we inherited over 300 different websites when we came in. If…”

“Thank you for your comments and question. Becky is now, as a director, in charge of the process and the teams. It now has more senior leadership, which is very important and increases its status within the Department. We are relying on the policy teams to provide the responses, and there is a reduction in numbers overa…”

“Fewer questions! What do you think, Becky?”

“To add to that, I think it is about the prioritisation that we give it in the Department, because within organisations there is either clarity about what the priority is or there isn’t, and then people will make up their own priorities. By setting up this new team with a director as the head of it and much clearer expe…”

“Yes, that is helpful; thank you.”