Speeches by Creagh.

“Local authorities have those powers already, but they are not very confident at using them, so I have issued guidance to local authorities to say, “Come on—you’ve got these powers. Why don’t you use them?”. One of the things I hear back is that local authorities have to store the vehicles, pay for a pound, and make sur…”

“Understood. We are talking about Knowsley, and I am not the canals Minister, but I will take that back to the Department. I am sorry to do the DEFRA silos, but this is not the first time I have heard that. My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I was talking about tyres, scrap metal and end-of-life vehicles. We are ti…”

“It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I have slightly more time than normal, so I hope that we can have a bit of discussion because I am absolutely passionate about tackling waste crime. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Anneliese Midgley) for securing this debate a…”

“It aligns as a foundation document. The LNRSs were set in progress by the previous Government, and when we came in we had a choice whether to stop them or carry on with work that is in flight. My belief is that no good work should go to waste and we do not want to stop good work. They are a really powerful convening to…”

“We are not making those decisions: we do not own the land. We have about 10% of the country that is managed land—we call it the public estate—such as Salisbury Plain. We are never going to be farming there because it is MOD land and we need it for training exercises and things like that. We are working with that part o…”

“We saw some of that yesterday with the announcement about the seven new towns; again, you can start overlaying it. Pulling all these complex bits together is incredibly powerful. We are setting up a new unit in DEFRA and there is a new website—luff.gov.uk—but it needs to be constantly updated because things are constan…”

“Yes.”

“One of the sectors that we are looking at is horticulture because we import an awful lot of our broccoli, tomatoes and fruits, so there is the opportunity there to innovate; I do not know if innovation and more greenhouses count as intensification. There will be some land use changes. If you look at the rain maps and t…”

“It is £200 million through the Farming Innovation Programme up to 2030.”

“On productivity.”

“I am the Nature Minister.”

“I think it is for the next five years.”

“Whose map is that?”

“Yes, and it is the beginning.”

“Yes, that is capital grants just through one programme: the Farming Innovation Programme. Of course, agroforestry is an innovation because if you are planting trees and shading your crops, the answer is that you actually shelter the early wheat from the winds and the hottest sun, which in some cases can be in May. So t…”

“I am not the Farms Minister so I am not sighted yet.”

“I don’t think so. We have Minette Batters’s farming roadmap.”

“That is a great question. We cannot overstate the importance of the land use framework. It is the first time we have published a blueprint of how we want to make use of our limited land to both grow the food we need and power the economy, build homes and restore nature. The good news from the framework is that we have …”

“I do. What I would say is that early indications from Angela Eagle, my colleague who is the Farms Minister, are that we are keen to see more smaller farms coming into our nature schemes. We are trying to simplify, to crowd in more of those small farmers. Given there have been some historical underspends of the budget a…”

“The process has taken a long time: 18 months.”