PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Topical Questions - 4 June 2026 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

I congratulate David Attenborough, a national treasure, on his recent 100th birthday. I also congratulate Hawkstone Farmers’ Choir on winning “Britain’s Got Talent”.

Since the last oral questions, the Farming and Food Partnership Board has met twice to commission sector growth plans for horticulture and poultry. Our landmark trade deal with the Gulf Co-operation Council is cutting tariffs for farmers and British producers. I am sure that others will be doing the same as me this weekend and visiting a local farm for the 20th anniversary of Open Farm Sunday. I recently visited the Balmoral agricultural show in Northern Ireland, and met local businesses to discuss the sanitary and phytosanitary deal. Our clean water Bill was announced in the King’s Speech. Finally, I am proud that we have reintroduced white-tailed eagles to southern England for the first time in centuries. As you know, Mr Speaker, the British people love nature and love rewilding.

Hear, hear!

The Secretary of State may know that I am a passionate white water kayaker and a firm believer in the healing power of time spent in, on and around water. England and Wales have some of the most restrictive rights of access anywhere in the world; less than 4% of inland waterways have an uncontested public right of navigation. Can the Secretary of State say a bit more about when her Department will bring forward the Green Paper on access to nature?

I was aware of my hon. Friend’s love of kayaking. I am not a kayaker, but I am passionate about improving people’s access to nature. Earlier this year I was with the King when we opened the King Charles III coastal path, and last month we launched the first national river walk. As my hon. Friend says, we are also committed to publishing an access to nature Green Paper soon.

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

May I, too, wish Sir David Attenborough a belated happy 100th birthday and congratulate Hawkstone Farmers’ Choir on winning “Britain’s Got Talent”? They are both best in show.

After a year of dither, delay and record farm closures, the new sustainable farming incentive scheme will finally start at the end of this month. How much money has the Secretary of State budgeted for the June and September phases of her scheme?

We will make that clear at the time of opening.

Sorry—the Government have just published the documentation for a scheme that starts in the three weeks’ time, but the Secretary of State cannot tell us how much of her budget is being spent on it. Then again, we know that Labour is the party of

“Who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others?”.

From the family farm and the family business taxes to the fertiliser tax, business rates and national insurance hikes, why should hard-working farmers, pub landlords, rural businesses and communities be pushed to the brink to pay for Labour’s ballooning benefits bill?

I will take no lectures from the right hon. Lady, given that the Conservatives could not even be bothered to spend their own farming budget. We have a record farming budget during this Parliament, and we have protected our farmers in trade deals, whereas they sold them down the river with their trade deals with New Zealand and Australia. We have simplified the SFI, in co-operation with the National Farmers Union, and farmers have welcomed that.

I think “robust” would probably be my summary. To help with the pressure on food prices, we are planning to cut tariffs on over 100 everyday food products such as olive oil, biscuits and chocolate, saving consumers more than a £150 million a year. We have ensured that the items selected for tariff suspension have little to no production in the UK, so protecting and securing our vital domestic production.

I call Katie Lam—not here.

The farming and food partnership board is looking at profitability, and the sector growth plans for horticulture and poultry have already been announced. We have reduced red diesel duty, we will open the reformed SFI and will shortly publish our 25-year farming road map, our response to the Batters farming profitability review.

In Dewsbury and Batley, Yorkshire Water has dumped sewage for more than 1,597 hours so far this year, exceeding the confirmed total sewage pollution for 2025. Yet the Environment Agency has not completed any prosecutions against water companies for sewage dumping committed in the past five years. What exactly in this system constitutes effective enforcement and accountability, and what are this Government doing right now to strengthen it?

The answer is a huge amount. The EA has carried out over 10,000 inspections of water company sites in 2025-26, compared with the 4,000 before Labour came to power, and we have provided a record £189 million to fund hundreds of enforcement officers, because this Government are actually taking action on this issue.

I am really proud that our country has world-leading drinking water quality—in fact, our PFAS standard of 0.1 micrograms per litre is among the tightest in the whole world. I completely accept the “polluter pays” principle, although that is quite challenging for PFAS, because much of it is historical contamination. We are now working through that to make the principle work effectively in practice, while acknowledging that it is sometimes very difficult to identify the original source of PFAS.

Agriculture offers enormous growth opportunities in the UK, and when it comes to precision breeding and plant protection, it is vital that the SPS deal maintains the UK’s right to diverge on the basis of its own scientific assessments, particularly in those sectors. What reassurance can the Secretary of State give such growth sectors in agriculture that that autonomy will be retained in any future deal?

We are well aware of the concerns of the farming sector, and I can reassure the right hon. Gentleman that we are taking its very strong views and concerns into account. As I am sure he understands, I cannot give him a running commentary on the negotiations.

It is estimated that illegal waste dumping costs the taxpayer over £1 billion. Given that this activity can and does happen at permitted sites, can the Minister assure the House that the waste crime unit has access to both the permit return data to the Environment Agency and the landfill tax returns to His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, so that that fraudulent activity can be identified? Will she meet me to discuss the Hespin Wood landfill site in my constituency?

I am always happy to meet my hon. Friend. She is right to draw attention to the loss to the Exchequer from landfill tax fraud and evasion. Our Joint Unit for Waste Crime is made up of EA and HMRC staff, as well as other arms of law enforcement, to ensure that all intelligence sources are tapped in to disrupt waste criminals. The waste crime action plan I mentioned earlier will see the unit strengthened by £45 million over the next three years: more boots on the ground and more drones in the air.

Following the brilliant news that the River Thames at Ham and Kingston is to be designated as a bathing water area, does the Secretary of State think that Thames Water’s proposals to pump treated sewage into the river just a few metres further downstream at Teddington are compatible?

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and for her excitement at having the first ever bathing water designation in the city of London. There will obviously be extremely high standards when it comes to any waste water that comes from any treatment plant. One thing we are doing through the White Paper—in fact, I met Sir Chris Whitty yesterday—is to look really seriously at public health and waste water, and what we can do to ensure the highest possible standards so that it is safe for people to enjoy all designated bathing areas.

Some 80% of the world’s cut daffodils come from Cornwall. The horticultural industry is totally reliant on the seasonal worker scheme, but the numbers for that are only announced annually at the end of the year, whereas the daffodil harvest begins in Cornwall in January. Can Ministers help me to lobby the Home Office for a rolling two-year scheme announced no later than October each year?

I lobby the Home Office constantly on quite a lot of things; I will certainly make sure that daffodils are also taken into account.

Given that an estimated 1,446 species in our chalk streams will become extinct without conservation efforts, will the Minister outline what steps the Department is taking to protect against biodiversity loss?

We have just announced our largest budget ever for species protection and restoration. We have lots of exciting plans to introduce and reintroduce iconic species. I am particularly excited about the glutinous snail. It is extinct in England, but exists in Lake Bala in Wales. There will be all sorts of exciting reintroductions, from rare sea grasses to exciting snails.

The great work by my hon. Friends to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas risks being undermined, particularly in the eastern region, where a biomass-fuelled power station is at risk of closure due to the end of Government support. More than half a million tonnes of poultry litter risks being spread on to the land, impacting our water networks. Will my hon. Friend meet me to discuss how we can prevent that from happening?

We are working on successor schemes to the green gas scheme. It is imperative that that poultry litter is not spread on land and that an alternative is found. I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this topic.

Does the Minister want to respond?

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. May I take this opportunity to apologise to the right hon. Gentleman for the lack of response? I will follow it up immediately with the Department. I am happy to meet him personally and will ensure that this happens within the next couple of weeks. I am sorry for the lack of response, which is not acceptable. We will make changes to put it right.

That completes questions to the Secretary of State.

Before we come to questions to the Solicitor General, I note that the Fordingbridge rape cases have been referred to the Court of Appeal. The matter is therefore sub judice. I am granting a limited waiver so that the case can be discussed, but Members should not speculate about sentencing issues, and they should not criticise judges, except on a substantive motion.