Labour will embrace the Circular Economy - Rachael Maskell MP

***CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY***

Labour will embrace the Circular Economy - Rachael Maskell MP

Rachael Maskell MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, speaking at Labour Party Conference 2016, said:

Economic certainty and security forms the bedrock of delivering food security and a strong agricultural and fishing sector.

Since 23 June, we’ve learnt that the Government made no analysis of the depth of its relationship with the EU, had no understanding of the capacity needed to re-negotiate hundreds of regulations protecting our food safety and wider environment, and has no plan for the future of the sector which employs three point nine million people and where 75 per cent of our food exports go to the EU.

A Government totally irresponsible, totally reckless, totally inept.

Since, we have seen nothing more than warm words and dithering. They’re not a think tank, or a policy forum, but meant to be a Government leading our nation.

The sector needs answers now. While the Government may not understand strategic business planning, the agricultural and food sectors do. Crucially, how we trade will determine if rural Britain thrives or survives.

Labour will work with the food and agricultural sector to underpin trade with the right financial drivers to grow production, while protecting our natural world.

Labour will back British Farming – plough to plate.

Ready now to revive rural communities, revive coastal communities, revive urban communities and revive our nation from the wreckage this Government has created.

Labour’s ambition to revive urban communities starts by reconnecting urban to rural Britain.

Not only do we want to see city farms, environment centres and schemes like Edible York in my constituency where communities grow veg on street corners together, but ensure everyone can access the countryside.

That’s why Labour Governments created our National Parks and the ‘right to roam’.

With Labour, schools will take children out to get to know the wonders of rural life and through social prescribing, we’ll use the environment to help improve people’s health.

Labour will clean our air, develop clean and renewable energy sources, manufacture clean transport, plant millions of trees and we will introduce emission zones for major towns and cities to end the invisible smog which is killing 50,000 people a year.

Unlike the Government, Labour will embrace the Circular Economy – reducing our consumption, recycling and generating energy from our waste, not turning it over to landfill. We all have our part to play in Labour’s recycling revolution.

We also have a poor relationship with food – where it comes from, what we eat, how much it really costs to produce, how much we need, how much we waste. A quarter of adults are overweight or obese, families put £470 per year of food straight into the bin.

We will change that relationship with education and labelling, better health interventions and a new food framework.

And this is how Labour will revive rural communities. Rural Britain is aging fast. We need people to work the land and in food production.

Labour will expose all to the opportunities of rural life in high skilled farming jobs, technology, science and research, as well as the unbeatable privilege and yet skilled work of rearing stock and growing crops.

Labour will protect rural communities by ensuring long term settlements hit the right balance between farming and environmental measures – not segregating these agendas, but integrating them, and never forgetting the smaller producers. We will defend and extend environmental protections but will not compromise production.

And we will ensure that all the risks in food production doesn’t fall on farmers, with Labour the Grocery Code Adjudicator will have extended powers to provide protections right through the food production chain.

Today, I give a clear commitment to farmers and food manufacturers. Under Labour the workforce you have recruited, invested in and trained from the EU will have the right to stay and keep their jobs, giving you security, giving them security and giving their children security.

We will also establish a new Agricultural Sector Council, to underpin all issues of employment standards, including wages, across the sector.

Labour will revive rural communities through digitalisation, reaching all with broadband and mobile coverage so businesses are no longer restricted to urban settings, and a mobile workforce can relocate.

And Labour will revive rural communities by addressing the rural transport crisis, building the homes that local people need with better rural policing and public services.

At the front of many of our minds: floods. I know the harm and cost that flooding brings. Hundreds of residents and businesses in my constituency were devastated when Storm Eva struck. Many are still recovering.

We will not stand by when it comes to climate change. Labour will do everything we can to reverse the impact on the world stage and here at home.

Unlike the Government, we’ll be getting on with implementing whole river catchment management. Farmers, residents and businesses deserve better.

And while on floods, yes the Fire and Rescue Service will have a statutory duty to deal with flooding.

And the same goes to revive coastal communities.

I grew up in a coastal, semi-rural community and I know the importance of fishing to local economies.

Through ensuring our fish stock is sustainable and through maritime regeneration, we will secure a fair distribution of quotas to revive fishing communities.

We need to harness the natural resources of the sea and coast.

As an island nation, Labour will develop tidal power generation, adding this to further renewable energy.

As a country, we have forgotten the wealth that living by the coast brings us.

Governments have let coastal communities fade.

No longer. Labour will put you back on the map again.

Oh, and another community that needs Labour: badgers.

When every shred of evidence says bovine TB will be beaten with better testing, vaccination, better biosecurity and animal husbandry.

A Government that ignores scientists, academics, its own experts and many farmers too and instead turns its frustration on a badger, is giving false hope.

Labour will end the badger cull and prioritise ending bovine TB.

Animal welfare is at the heart of what we all care about, whether our wildlife, domestically, commercially or internationally, protecting endangered species.

With Labour launching our consultation on animal welfare, we want you to shape our policy for the future.

But whether animals, birds or our plant life, Labour will work to ensure that our whole biodiversity system thrives again.

For too long Government has made its starting point rules and regulations. Labour’s starting place is people, communities and our amazing natural world.

Labour has listened and learnt, and Labour is now the Party with a fresh vision to revive our rural, coastal and urban communities.

Labour now the Party for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

ENDS