Latest news with #RobbieMoore
Daily Mirror
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
Criminal probes into water firms hit record high as Tory record blasted
The Government has announced 81 criminal investigations have been opened over sewage spills and other breachers since the general election A record number of criminal investigations have been launched into water firms since the general election - with a Labour frontbencher warning bosses could end up behind bars. An unprecedented 81 allegations of illegal sewage spills and other breaches are being probed, the Government said - a figure that has more than doubled since the general election. Thames Water has the highest number of investigations against it, with 31, while Anglian Water has 22, Government figures show. Severn Trent Water and United Utilities both have seven, the data shows. Company chiefs found to have broken the law could face millions of pounds in fines and jail terms of up to five years. Environment Secretary Steve Reed accused the Tories of trying to "cover up" the state of the crisis while they were in power. Labour claims former water minister Robbie Moore ordered Environment Agency officials not to put key data on oil spills on the front page of an online portal. Mr Reed said: 'Not only did the Conservatives oversee record levels of sewage dumping, they also shamelessly tried to cover it up. And Reform didn't even mention sewage in their manifesto, Nigel Farage simply doesn't care about our beautiful rivers, lakes and seas. "This Labour Government is cleaning up the foul mess the Tories left behind with a record number of criminal investigations into lawbreaking water companies - which could see bosses behind bars.' The Government has ramped up spot checks on water companies since July, with inspections quadrupling since July. The Environment Agency said it had uncovered "widespread law-breaking". Philip Duffy, chief Executive of the Environment Agency said: 'This milestone is testament to our determination to hold water companies to account and achieve a cleaner water environment. 'Our message to the industry is clear: we expect full compliance throughout the water system, and we will not hesitate to take robust enforcement action where we identify serious breaches." And he said the current wave of action is "just the beginning". James Wallace, chief executive of campaign group River Action, said: "It's good to see the Government finally taking water pollution seriously." But he was not convinced water bosses will end up in prison. He voiced concerns that Rachel Reeves ' forthcoming spending review could see the Environment Agency budget cut, stating: ""Tough talk needs backing with real resources." Ali Plummer, from the Wildlife and Countryside Link - which brings together conservation groups, said the number of investigations should "should set alarm bells ringing in every corner of Government". He said: "This isn't a case of isolated bad practice - it's evidence of systemic failure. For too long, pollution has been treated as a manageable cost rather than a criminal offence. What we need now is proper funding for regulators so they can investigate, enforce, and hold powerful polluters to account." A spokesperson for industry body Water UK said: "It is right that water companies are investigated and held to account when things go wrong. Almost 99% of sewage and water treatment works meet their permits and we are focused on getting to 100%." A Tory spokesman said: 'The Conservatives began the process of reforming Britain's water and sewage systems. In opposition, we have engaged with Labour's limited proposals and their rehashing of the former Conservative Government's policy, seeking to improve their ideas by putting forward amendments to the Water (Special Measures) Bill. 'While in government, we took action to ban bonuses for bosses of water companies that committed criminal breaches, we prosecuted water companies that illegally polluted our rivers and we delivered on our ambitious pledge to ensure 100 per cent of storm overflows are monitored. This was up from 7 per cent compared to when Labour left office in 2010. 'The Labour Government made big promises on water, and we will continue to hold them to account to ensure they continue the work of the previous Conservative Government to improve our water and sewage systems for billpayers.'
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
MP urges Government to 'step up' and hold 'full inquiry' into grooming gangs
A TORY MP has urged the Government to 'step up' and hold a 'full inquiry' into grooming gangs in the Bradford district. In January, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said there would be 'victim-centred, locally-led inquiries' in five areas, including Oldham in Greater Manchester - but the other locations are yet to be announced. Addressing the Government in the House of Commons yesterday, Robbie Moore, Conservative MP for Keighley and Ilkley, complained that 'no real progress whatsoever has been made on their promise to launch five local rape gang inquiries before Easter'. He added: 'It gets worse: for more than five years, leaders at the very top of Bradford Council in my constituency have denied, refused and covered up, every single time I and victims, survivors and their families have called for a full rape gang inquiry across Keighley and the wider Bradford district. 'When will this Government step up, use their statutory powers and give the victims and survivors in areas such as Keighley and the wider Bradford district the full inquiry that they have wanted for almost two decades?' Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips said local authorities would be able to access a £5 million national fund to 'support locally-led work on grooming gangs'. She added: 'Following feedback from local authorities, the fund will adopt a flexible approach to support both full independent local inquiries and more bespoke work, including local victims' panels or locally-led audits of the handling of historical cases.' Mr Moore said: 'Bradford's leadership simply will not act by itself, so why are this Government letting the very Councils that failed victims decide whether they want to be investigated?' Ms Phillips said: 'Absolutely nothing that I have said today suggests that Bradford would not be able to access funding from the Home Office, just as Oldham has, to undertake the work that might be needed there.' Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, leader of Bradford Council, said: 'We're very clear: child sexual exploitation (CSE) is an appalling crime that blights victims' lives. Perpetrators face the full force of the law. No matter who you are or when the crime took place, you will be prosecuted. 'We're very open about how we tackle CSE. 'We have published more than 50 reports in recent years, including to cross-party committees, where councillors have asked questions and discussed CSE. 'These committees are open to the public and the media to attend. 'An independently authored review into historic CSE cases in the Bradford district between 2001 and 2021 has been published. 'We also referred ourselves to the national inquiry into CSE chaired by Dame Alexis Jay. 'All our data was shared with the inquiry, and we provided evidence to this as well as hosting the Truth Project which invited victims from Bradford to come forward in confidence to tell their story. 'We have worked as a partnership to implement the reviews' findings along with national best practice so we can better protect children. 'The new Government is taking swift action to implement the findings of the national inquiry into CSE, which Bradford took part in. 'This was an inquiry completed in 2022 which took seven years and cost over £185 million. 'The last Government never implemented any of its recommendations. 'This new focus from a fresh Government on actions, not just words, is welcome. 'In the latest statement the Government talks about funding meaningful work beyond inquiries and reports and that's what we need here in Bradford and within West Yorkshire. 'We've done reports, published them and worked to implement the findings. 'If there's more money available that we can spend on practical programmes and actions that further protect our children, we'd welcome that, rather than paying someone to write another report.'
The Guardian
14-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
That new land use policy that the Tories call ‘national suicide'? It's urgent, essential – and their idea
Last week saw the launch of what could be – if done right – the most important political policy in a generation. You may not have heard about the new land use framework, but if you did hear something, chances are it wasn't good. 'National suicide!' declared the shadow farming minister, Robbie Moore, who described the policy for good measure as 'food lunacy'. I should confess that I am the original author of this lunacy. It was one of the key recommendations of the 2021 National Food Strategy – an independent review I was commissioned to write by the then Tory government. The purpose of the land use framework was – is – sane enough. It is intended to inform and streamline planning decisions and steer other government incentives, to ensure that areas of land are used in ways they are naturally well suited to. It will be, in essence, a map: one that contains multiple levels of data about the natural and human geography of England. Anyone – planning official, farmer, developer, householder, renter or merely interested citizen – will be able to use this map. By clicking on a given area, you'll be able to access detailed information on, for example, local soil health, agricultural productivity, the risk of flooding or drought, carbon sequestration potential, biodiversity, land ownership and tenure, planning records and infrastructure suitability, water resources and pollution levels, or economic land use trends. A huge amount of this information already exists, but it is squirrelled away in discrete and inaccessible pockets of local or national government. Bringing it together in one place like this will, for the first time, enable every English citizen to get high-quality data about the land they live on, and its potential uses. It will also be – astonishingly – the first time every government department has had access to the same data. And this brings us to its second purpose. The data will be used to better inform and align government policy, across all departments, at a time when using our land wisely matters more than ever. For most of human history, everything we needed – water, food, trees to burn or build with – was on the surface of the Earth, created by the direct action of sunlight on land and sea. Then we discovered millions of years of stored sunlight buried deep underground, in the form of coal, gas and oil. For the past two centuries, cheap energy, synthetic materials and industrial agriculture have driven an unprecedented expansion of human prosperity, and population. But we can no longer afford this dependence on fossil fuels. The climate crisis, geopolitical instability, and the depletion of easily accessible fuel reserves mean we must once again turn to the land to meet our needs. Not only for food and housing, but also for cheap, secure, sustainable energy. We need to grow trees to soak up some of the carbon we have already released into the atmosphere. And we need to reverse the collapse in biodiversity, before it threatens our own survival. Without pollinators or healthy soil micro-organisms, we won't be able to grow enough food to feed ourselves. All this makes it vital that we use every area of land cleverly, maximising its natural potential. The English landscape is wonderful in its variety: a mosaic of rolling hills, flat fenlands, chalk downs, limestone dales, peat bogs and wetlands, not to mention our huge urban conurbations. Different landscapes are suited to different uses. For example, there is no point building solar farms or housing estates on fertile land that would be ideally suited to farming. Likewise, there are areas of land that are too rugged or infertile to make farming productive. But existing farmers in these areas can't be expected to diversify into, say, restoring biodiversity or eco-tourism if they can't get planning permission to convert barns into leisure facilities. The need for joined-up thinking is both obvious and urgent. The Tories began work on the land use framework before the last election, and Labour has picked up where they left off. Such rare continuity is reminiscent of the 2010 coalition government's embrace of Labour's education reforms: an attempt to set aside ideological flip-flopping and do the right thing for the country. Contrary to Moore's nightmares, this is not some radical leftwing plot to dictate what farmers must do with their land. It is an attempt to bring coherence to land use decisions, which are currently fragmented across multiple government departments, leading to contradictory policies, sclerotic planning processes and widespread inefficiency. At a time when funds are limited, it also makes sense to ensure that agricultural grants and other government incentives are based on the best, most granular information. The problem is that this policy has been launched into the febrile atmosphere caused by the mishandled inheritance tax changes for farmers. This has created huge uncertainty and anger, with many farmers afraid that they won't be able to pass their farms on to the next generation. Given the relatively small amount of money this measure is expected to raise, it is hard to justify the level of anxiety and political backlash it has caused. People are spooked, so they are seeing monsters everywhere. But the land use framework is not a Stalinist five-year plan. It won't force landowners to do anything. It will merely create better information and wiser incentives, enabling farmers to make more profitable and sustainable choices about how to use their land. Done right, it should also improve and speed up planning decisions, making it easier for farmers to build new agricultural buildings, renewable energy projects or tourism and leisure facilities. In short, it creates a smarter, more joined-up approach to land management, rather than imposing top-down diktats. This is a moment for pragmatism, not polarisation. The land use framework could be the most important reimagining of how we use our land since the second world war. Back then, the question was stark: how do we feed ourselves in the face of the U-boat threat? Today, the challenge is just as existential: how do we feed ourselves in the face of climate and biodiversity collapse, while boosting economic growth and using the land we have wisely? Without this framework, we will remain mired in contradictory regulations, tangled bureaucracy and reactive decision-making, all of which fail to address our long-term challenges. Success will depend on collaboration, evidence-based policy and long-term cross-party commitment – not political point-scoring. We have to get this right, to secure a sustainable, prosperous future for generations to come. Henry Dimbleby is managing partner of Bramble Partners, which invests in and advises businesses that are creating a sustainable food system
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
MP seeks 'united voice' against windfarm plan
A West Yorkshire MP has written to other members of parliament calling for a cross-party "united voice" against proposals for a wind farm in Calderdale which would be England's biggest. Robbie Moore, Conservative MP for Keighley and Ilkley, said he was concerned by Calder Wind Farm Ltd's plans for a 65-turbine wind farm on about 5,680 acres (2,300 hectares) of land at Walshaw Moor, above Hebden Bridge. Moore said he believed that if the project was approved, it would have "huge negative impacts" across the region. Calder Wind Farm Ltd argued that the development would bring benefits and it had submitted a scoping report to Calderdale Council to help identify the significant effects it might have. According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Moore had written to Labour MPs Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley), Kate Dearden (Halifax), Oliver Ryan (Burnley) and Jonathan Hinder (Pendle and Clitheroe) as well as fellow Conservative MP Sir Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon). They were invited by Moore to join a cross-party caucus to "provide a united voice in Parliament against the development". In his letter, Moore outlined his concerns about the plans, including the disruption of protected peatland which acted as a natural carbon store and flood defence; the threat to endangered bird species; issues around transportation of materials to the site; and potential damage to the cultural heritage of the area known as Bronte Country. He also highlighted the potential impact on tourism and local businesses, adding that he hoped the MPs would support the Stop Calderdale Wind Farm campaign. "These proposals are completely inappropriate for Walshaw Moor," he wrote. "We now know the Walshaw Moor Wind farm has the potential to completely devastate crucial carbon stores, creating lasting environmental damage and putting communities in the Calder and Worth Valleys at greater risk of flooding. "While I support efforts to expand energy, we must ensure developments are in the right places and do not cause more harm than good." Calder Wind Farm Ltd said the proposed development would bring benefits, not least in terms of renewable energy. If constructed, it could generate enough renewable energy to power up to 286,491 homes per year, according to the firm. Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here. Opposition over England's biggest wind farm plan England's biggest wind farm plan unveiled Wind is main source of electricity for first time Calderdale Wind Stop Calderdale Wind Farm Calderdale Council Local Democracy Reporting Service
