Robert Goodwill: My first encounter with the subject of the marine environment came when I was a farmer member of the Yorkshire Water consumer consultative committee in the 1980s. The big issue was long sea outfalls. Yorkshire Water decided that that was the solution to the problems of sewage disposal in coastal towns such as Scarborough. It was only because of campaigns by local environmental groups, such as...
Robert Goodwill: I am a former Member of the European Parliament, so was obviously more involved in European legislation. If we can work together with our European partners, it has to be better than unilateral action, which will affect only a small proportion of the European environment. Furthermore, legislation on large combustion plants reduced the acid rain that went into our rivers and we had agreements...
Robert Goodwill: The areas with the highest bills are the areas that suffered from the lowest investment in the period when utilities were owned by the state. It is a catching-up operation. There is an awful lot of water in the world—in fact, there are 1.4 billion cu km of it. That is based on the US billion and is 1.4 x 10(21 )litres. In each litre of water, there are 330 x 10(23 )molecules. Hon. Members...
Robert Goodwill: I agree. If this is seen as just another stealth tax there will be tremendous resentment among recreational fishermen, but if they see that there are some concrete benefits their attitude might change. However, the people who might get genuine benefits will be those who regularly fish, but I am particularly concerned about those who might occasionally fish, such as when they go on a works...
Robert Goodwill: That might be one way out of the problem. Skippers are already under great pressure, but a suitable mechanism already exists: local fees for such activities could be collected as part of a skipper's harbour dues, and that money could be invested in improving the local marine environment. Moreover, the Government's failure to get an extended derogation on the marine fuels directive means that,...
Robert Goodwill: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the problem in relation to statemented children? Army personnel have to move around the country a great deal. They battle to get their child statemented in, say, Catterick, but when they move to Colchester they have to go through the whole process again. Would it be possible to have a passport that could be used for statementing?
Robert Goodwill: That is not the experience of my wife's cousin, who had a dog that would persistently jump up at people. She was at her wits' end: in fact, she was on the verge of getting rid of the dog. She tried one of these collars, and within about a week the dog stopped its behaviour, which was not only dangerous to small children but, in muddy weather, caused her deep embarrassment when other people's...
Robert Goodwill: Are not the majority of businesses in this country small businesses? It would not surprise me if there was widespread ignorance of the levels of fines. If the fines were doubled, quadrupled or multiplied by 10 it would not have any impact on those companies that are not aware of the fines that they face if they breach the regulations.
Robert Goodwill: First, I thank the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. David) for introducing the Bill. I would guess that he is pleasantly surprised that we have had the opportunity to debate it this morning, and I suspect that the fact that there was widespread speculation about what we might have been doing today had we not been discussing the Bill has meant that people who have a real interest in the...
Robert Goodwill: Yes, I accept that good employers and landlords already comply with the legislation. My concern is that, by and large, the level of the fines is not widely known. We all know that if we get caught speeding, we will get three points and a £60 fine, and we all know that if we get caught drink-driving, we will lose our licence for a year. Everyone is aware of those fines. The point that I made...
Robert Goodwill: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan) on securing a Second Reading of his Bill. That gives me my first opportunity to speak from the Dispatch Box, but I expect that it will be short-lived. There can be few people who have not noticed the plethora of signs that seem to proliferate around our cities, countryside and villages. In my village in north...
Robert Goodwill: We have discussed our streets being neat and uncluttered, and those words can also be used to describe my hon. Friend—I will not suggest which hon. Members could be used to describe the streets as they are at the moment. I commend the Bill to the House.
Robert Goodwill: Surely the whole point of the Bill is to remove swathes of legislation that place restrictions on the discretion of local authorities. The problem with parking is that the book is so thick that many local authorities do not always manage to comply with every letter of the law.
Robert Goodwill: My hon. Friend is making a valid point about whom the proposals will affect. However, does he agree that farming, where self-employment is rife, and the construction industry are among those sectors already hard hit by other economic factors that will be hit again by the proposed withdrawal of the measure?
Robert Goodwill: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman heard the actor Robert Carlyle on this morning's "Today" programme. He said that, as a lifelong Labour man, he was going to vote SNP, but that he did not favour an independent Scotland. He said that he was voting SNP only because it was his last chance to give the Prime Minister a kicking before he goes next week.
Robert Goodwill: Speaking as a former deputy leader of the Conservatives in the European Parliament, I can say that as a prerequisite to successfully negotiating accession to the EU, Scotland would have to join the euro. Devolution would mean joining the euro and therefore devolution not from London to Edinburgh, but from Edinburgh to Frankfurt, where important economic decisions affecting Scotland would be made.
Robert Goodwill: Is it not true that the Government signed up to the regulation on fluorinated gases, which will make a dramatic impact on the amount of other gases emitted? CO2 is increasingly rapidly, whereas most of the other greenhouse gases are being reduced and moderated by legislation and new technology.
Robert Goodwill: I thank the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) for picking this subject for debate on behalf of his party. I was a little disappointed by some of his comments at the start of his speech about the Conservatives in the European Parliament. Having been a colleague of his for five years, I recall working closely with the Liberal Democrats and their group in the European Parliament putting...
Robert Goodwill: Brazil is developing a market in biofuels, although some people refer to it as deforestation diesel. May we have an assurance that, although we are keen to develop such markets with Brazil, it will not be at the expense of environmental concerns?
Robert Goodwill: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the target time is for responses to queries referred to the Social Security Commissioners; and what the most recent figure is for the time taken to respond to such queries.