Maggie Jones calls on the government to show some leadership on the critical issue of marine pollution

Marine litter is a huge and growing problem globally. There are over 5 trillion pieces of plastic afloat in the world’s oceans and an extra 8 million tonnes of waste plastic is dumped each year. As plastic doesn’t biodegrade, the density continues to swell. It is frequently toxic and destructive to the marine ecosystem. It ends up being eaten by fish, marine mammals and seabirds, increasingly working its way through the food chain to human consumption. So we all have an interest in tackling this pollution at source.

Ultimately, action is needed on a global level and there are International and European initiatives to improve plastics recycling and reduce marine dumping. But there is also a great deal more that we could do at a UK level where the problem is getting worse. The Marine Conservation Society has calculated that plastic litter on beaches has increased 140% since 1994. There are now nearly 2,500 items of rubbish for every kilometre of beach, with much of it plastic.

Meanwhile, there has been an increased use of plastic microbeads in cosmetic products such as body scrubs and toothpastes that are designed to be flushed away and end up in our oceans. Up to 100,000 can be used in a single application. Once in the ocean they resemble fish eggs and are often eaten by marine life, before being passed through the food chain. Scientists have estimated that in Europe, microbeads add up to 8,627 tonnes of plastic to the ocean each year, with consumers ingesting up to 11,000 each year from seafood.

The US and Canada has already taken steps to ban microbeads and a number of European countries are following suit. It’s an easy and effective step to take, which is why I’m calling on Defra Ministers to ban the production and sale of microbeads.

More generally, Labour is calling on the government to take action on the growing mountain of discarded plastic bottles finding their way into our seas. Evidence from the ‘Great British Beach clean’ found almost 100 such bottles on every kilometre of our shoreline – a new record. One way of tackling this would be to introduce a Deposit Return Scheme for single use drinks containers. That could help reduce littering, increase recycling and cut back on illegal dumping.

When this was considered by the government as part of its waste strategy in 2011, they concluded that whilst it might increase recycling it may also add costs to consumers, businesses and local authorities. But we believe the advantages of reducing plastic waste increasingly outweigh those costs. That’s why the government should revisit the decision as part of their national litter strategy and launch an open consultation on the opportunities and challenges of a Deposit Return Scheme.

These are all small but important steps in tackling a much bigger problem. They can – and would – however make a difference. This is why I’m urging Ministers in the Lords today to show some leadership on marine pollution.

Baroness Maggie Jones of Whitchurch is Shadow Defra Minister in the House of Lords. She tweets @WhitchurchGirl

Published 14^th April 2016

Jeremy Beecham on the incompetence and misjudgement of those promoting the Housing and Planning Bill

There are only two things wrong with the Housing and Planning Bill – much of what it contains, and also what it doesn’t. Faced with a shortage of affordable housing to rent, the Bill concentrates on measures which will do little or nothing to meet growing need, focusing instead on an expensive Starter Homes scheme. A section of the Bill that suffered the wrath of Peers earlier this week.

The Bill extends the ‘Right to Buy’ (which has seen almost 40% of former council houses bought by former tenants now under the ownership of private landlords) to housing associations under a “voluntary” scheme. This will be financed by the forced sale of so-called ‘high value’ council homes when they become vacant. Rather incredibly, payments will be required on the basis of estimated vacancies, i.e. before they occur. So unless amendments are forthcoming that lead – at the very least – to one for one replacements, a significant reduction in available stock is inevitable.

The effects of the Right to Buy and high value sales provisions in both London and rural areas are likely to be particularly devastating. It will lead to still more private lettings, at ever higher rents and with minimal security for tenants. Paradoxically, this could cost the taxpayer due to the inevitable rise of housing benefit.

Just as the Conservative government is removing councils from a role in education, the Bill substantially erodes their capacity to ensure proper local balance of genuinely affordable housing for rent as well as purchase. Plus it also weakens local authorities’ capacity to require developers to provide affordable homes as part of planning agreements.

The handling, to date, of this Bill – both in the Commons and the Lords – is just as scandalous as what it is seeks to achieve. Primary legislation more often than not comes with an Impact Assessment, which is supposed to give details of how it would work. The one relating to this Bill is woefully short on detail of the anticipated effects on tenants and other residents, councils, communities and the taxpayer.

The Secretary of State will have ample opportunities to implement the Bill’s provisions by regulations which, even if requiring parliamentary approval, cannot be amended. Drafts of those regulations have not been made available during the Bill’s progress. Even worse, the various consultations that are supposed to precede them have either not yet started or not been completed. And in any event, the government’s responses won’t be available before the Bill becomes law.

Peers across the House have been compelled to express sympathy with the Lords Minister, Baroness Williams of Trafford, as she has struggled to defend the indefensible. Even some on her own side have expressed significant misgivings. So much that one congratulated me recently on keeping my sanity “in the light of this terrible, terrible Bill”, adding that it was “a disgrace”. Indeed it is, and serious questions arise as to the competence and judgement of those responsible for promoting such damaging legislation.

Lord Jeremy Beecham is a member of the Shadow Housing team in the House of Lords. He tweets @jeremybeecham

Published 12^th April 2016

Roy Kennedy on the first of five tricky days for the government at Lords Report of the Housing and Planning Bill 

Opposition parties often find something to object to and oppose in government legislation. But I would suggest that any commentator or observer would be hard pressed to find proposals put forward by Ministers at any point during the past few decades that is more badly thought through, technically deficient and lacking in basic building blocks than the Housing and Planning Bill that today begins five days of Report in the Lords.

It has been suggested that the Conservatives never expected to win last year’s general election. But having done so, they quickly pulled the Bill together from a series of half-baked manifesto promises and think tank ideas that they never thought they would implement.  Ministerial ill preparedness aside, there is also an arrogance that they believe it acceptable to pass legislation in such a sorry state. And at the same time, tell Parliament, local authorities and all other interested parties that many of the regulations that would normally accompany the Bill will not be ready until the autumn at the earliest.

Virtually everyone agrees that the UK is in the middle of a housing crisis and we need to dramatically increase the number of homes being built across all tenures. Agreeing with this view, the government have however taken the bizarre and unfair decision to focus almost exclusively on its ‘Starter Homes’ policy to the exclusion of all others. This is a programme that offers a one off discount to a select group of people, with no ability for it to be preserved for others to get onto the home ownership ladder in the future.

A primary aim of the Opposition in the Lords will be to make improvements to the Bill that mitigate its worst effects. So we will support amendments today that give discretion to councils to decide on the best mix of housing tenure for their local area, along with introducing a taper that requires a percentage of the discount for each year less than 20 if the property is sold. We will also back amendments to allow local authorities to exclude rural exception sites from the ‘Starter Homes’ programme, to ensure such sites remain available for affordable housing and are not bought up to the detriment of the countryside.

Today’s deliberations will also consider the Private Rented Sector, and we will continue to press Ministers to accept an amendment to the Bill that ensure homes that are let are fit for human habitation and remain so during the tenancy. The effect on people’s health of living in damp properties with condensation and poor heating is both well documented and generally not disputed. In that context therefore, the government’s unwillingness to shift on the issue is frankly a disgrace. All we are seeking to do is give tenants a more up to date way of enforcing their rights.

We have seen some movement from Ministers on Labour’s calls – both in the Commons and Lords – to require landlords to carry out electrical safely checks every five years. Although it is worrying that the government’s own amendment still leaves it to the Secretary of State who ‘may’ issue such regulations and we will look to change this to ‘must’.

As we reach the final few weeks of the opening session of the new Parliament, Labour Peers and many others across the Lords will be using our powers of scrutiny and persuasion to improve a very badly conceived Bill that as it stands will do far more harm than good. We can only hope that the government wakes up to the problems it is creating both for itself and everyone in the UK affected by the current housing crisis. 

Lord Roy Kennedy of Southwark is Shadow Housing Minister in the House of Lords. He tweets @LordRoyKennedy

Published 11^th April 2016