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Tag: Graham Stringer

  • Graham Stringer – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Graham Stringer – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Graham Stringer on 2015-02-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, with reference to the finding of the Evaluation of the Renewable Heat Premium Payment Scheme Phase Two, published by his Department on 28 January 2015, that 78 per cent of renewable heating installations in private homes were likely or very likely to have gone ahead in the absence of subsidy, what assessment he has made of the scope to revise that scheme to ensure better value for money.

    Amber Rudd

    The Renewable Heat Premium Payment (RHPP) scheme ran from August 2011 to the end of March 2014, when it closed to new applicants. Renewable heat installations in private homes are now supported through the domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI).

  • Graham Stringer – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Graham Stringer – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Graham Stringer on 2015-02-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, pursuant to the Answer of 28 January 2015 to Question 221753, whether his Department’s three fossil fuel price projections used in policy-making include a projection in which the recent change in fossil fuel prices resembling the recent worldwide fall in such prices.

    Matthew Hancock

    DECC’s projections for oil, gas and coal prices include scenarios to appraise the implications of sustained low prices. We will ensure we use the latest information to inform policy decisions.

  • Graham Stringer – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Graham Stringer – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Graham Stringer on 2014-05-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what amount of (a) large particulates (PM10), (b) small particulates (PM2.5) and (c) nitrogen dioxide were emitted to air in the UK by (i) domestic biomass generation of heat and (ii) biomass for power generation in the latest year for which figures are available; and what proportion of the annual national inventory of the respective emissions these represent.

    Dan Rogerson

    The most recent year for which historic emission estimates are available from the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory is 2012. This data was published in December 2013.

    The emissions from domestic combustion and their share of national total emissions are estimated to have been: (a) for large particles (PM10), 10.9 thousand tonnes and 9.6%; (b) for small particles (PM2.5), 10.6 thousand tonnes and 13.7%; (c) for nitrogen oxides, 0.96 thousand tonnes and 0.09%.

    The emissions from power generation and their share of national total emissions are estimated to have been: (a) for large particles (PM10), 0.65 thousand tonnes and 0.57%; (b) for small particles (PM2.5), 0.55 thousand tonnes and 0.72%; (c) for nitrogen oxides, 4.2 thousand tonnes and 0.4%.

    Emissions of nitrogen dioxide have not been separately estimated from those of nitrogen oxides.

  • Graham Stringer – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Graham Stringer – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Graham Stringer on 2014-06-04.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the Answer of 8 May 2014, Official Report, column 272W, on biofuels: air pollution, for what reasons estimated social costs of biomass emissions of fine particles contained in his Department’s Answer of 26 March 2009, Official Report, column 697W, on air pollution, were not reflected in that Answer; and for what reasons his Department no longer estimates the social costs of fine particles emitted by biomass combustion.

    Dan Rogerson

    The social (health) costs included in the answer of 26 March 2009 were calculated by Defra to evaluate specific scenarios of uptake of biomass heat in 2020. These costs were calculated for policy development purposes in accordance with Treasury Green Book guidance and methodologies developed with the support of the Interdepartmental Group on Costs and Benefits.

    Estimates of emissions by source (including biomass emissions) are updated annually and reported in the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory, but social (health) costs by emissions source are not routinely calculated.

    Estimates of the health burden due to total anthropogenic fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the UK are calculated as part of the Public Health Outcomes Framework indicator. This is based on modelled annual population weighted mean total anthropogenic PM2.5 levels in the UK.

  • Graham Stringer – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Graham Stringer – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Graham Stringer on 2014-06-04.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the conclusions of the Healthier Together review of health and care in Greater Manchester.

    Jane Ellison

    The reconfiguration of local health services is a matter for the local National Health Service.

    The Greater Manchester health economy is working to design services to improve quality and sustainability, and ensure improved outcomes for patients.

    Where major service change is proposed, we expect this to be subject to full public consultation.

  • Graham Stringer – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Graham Stringer – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Graham Stringer on 2014-05-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what information his Department holds on the (a) level of world deforestation and (b) growth in world biomass power generation over the last 10 years for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement.

    Dan Rogerson

    Latest figures, supported by recent publications from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, are that 13 million hectares of the world’s forest were converted to other uses or lost through natural causes each year in the last decade (2000–10), including 6 million hectares of primary forests.

    Defra does not hold information on the growth in world biomass power generation over the last ten years.

  • Graham Stringer – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Graham Stringer – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Graham Stringer on 2014-05-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the social costs caused by (a) large particulates (PM10), (b) small particulates (PM2.5) and (c) nitrogen dioxide emitted to air in the UK by (i) domestic biomass generation of heat and (ii) biomass for power generation in the latest year for which figures are available.

    Dan Rogerson

    Defra has not made any direct assessment of such social costs.

  • Graham Stringer – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Graham Stringer – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Graham Stringer on 2014-05-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the amount of (a) large particulates (PM10), (b) small particulates (PM2.5) and (c) nitrogen dioxide emitted to air in the UK by (i) domestic biomass generation of heat and (ii) biomass for power generation in each of the next five years; and what proportion of the annual national inventory of the respective emissions these represent.

    Dan Rogerson

    Projections of emissions have been made based on the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory released in December 2012 and the Department of Energy & Climate Change’s energy projections published in October 2013 for the year 2015.

    The emissions from domestic combustion in 2015 and their share of national total emissions are estimated to be: (a) for large particles (PM10), 10.1 thousand tonnes and 8.0%; (b) for small particles (PM2.5), 7.2 thousand tonnes and 9.8%; (c) for nitrogen oxides, 0.97 thousand tonnes and 0.087%.

    The emissions from power generation in 2015 and their share of national total emissions are estimated to be: (a) for large particles (PM10), 0.022 thousand tonnes and 0.017%; (b) for small particles (PM2.5), 0.011 thousand tonnes and 0.015%; (c) for nitrogen oxides, 1.5 thousand tonnes and 0.13%.

    Emissions of nitrogen dioxide have not been separately estimated from those of nitrogen oxides.

  • Graham Stringer – 2021 Speech on Covid-19 Restrictions

    Graham Stringer – 2021 Speech on Covid-19 Restrictions

    The speech made by Graham Stringer, the Labour MP for Blackley and Broughton, in the House of Commons on 14 December 2021.

    As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I was trying to help you with the intervention by withdrawing from the list, but I am grateful to be on top of the list for the Labour Benches.

    I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) the Leader of the Opposition when he says that the Prime Minister is a threat to public health. I think that that is absolutely right. I draw a different conclusion from my hon. Friends on the Labour Front Bench on how we should respond: not by being irresponsible but by taking a look at the way the Government have dealt with the whole of the covid crisis from the very beginning to what they continue to do.

    I am a member of the Science and Technology Committee. Together with the Health and Social Care Committee we produced a 150-page report. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members have had the time to read it. They may not agree with its conclusions, but it contains very valuable information. The key point, which a lot of the press missed, was not that the Government followed the science on the issue but that they got into a groupthink with the scientific advisers and did not challenge them. They assumed that science was something handed down on tablets of stone, whereas it is not. It is a process and it needs challenging by those of us who have responsibility in this House for making laws and policies, and by other scientists. We seem to be repeating that process.

    My Committee had as a witness this morning Susan Hopkins. Let me say that at best—if I can use a word somebody else used—the advice we were getting from her as an adviser was opaque. The information we were getting was opaque when it should be transparent. This time last week, the Deputy Prime Minister stood up and said there was no plan to go to plan B. Some 36 hours later, we were starting plan B. Why was that? What was the scientific advice given?

    We were told fairly definitively that no such advice was given to change the view. What changed the view was that the Prime Minister was in a state of crisis and under pressure from his own Back Benchers and everybody else. That is not a sensible way to make decisions. It is not a sensible way to make decisions to put forward statutory instruments that say—the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) was waving a sheet about, which may or may not have been the impact assessment—that no impact assessment has been done.

    Mr Steve Baker

    I have in my hand the impact assessment for vaccination as a condition of deployment in health and care providers—I was not able to get in earlier. I feel confident that the Front Benchers will know that the estimate is that 88,000 people will leave the health sector, 73,000 will leave the NHS, 15,000 will leave the independent health sector, and 35,000 workers will leave domiciliary care. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is reason enough to vote against imposing this on the nation?

    Graham Stringer

    That is very interesting. It is also interesting that papers circulated by the Vote Office said there was no impact assessment. That does not impress me.

    The point I was just about to make—I do not know if other hon. and right hon. Members have noticed this—is that the 355-page Act passed at the start of the epidemic, the Coronavirus Act 2020, is barely being used. The Government could have used the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 to bring in some of the restrictions that they have placed—maybe necessarily, maybe unnecessarily—on people’s freedoms. The difference between the 2004 Act and the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 is quite simply that much less scrutiny is available under the latter. Once regulations are passed, if there is not a sunset clause, they last. The Government should not be rewarded for unnecessarily using tough authoritarian legislation when other legislation was available that would have allowed more scrutiny.

    The Government have refused to give information. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) began his speech by saying that different people have different views and weigh the factors of civil liberties and health in different ways. That is absolutely right, but the Government will not tell us the costs and benefits of their policies. We now know that three quarters of a million people have failed to be tested for cancer. This is not a win-win situation. Cancer patients who are yet to be tested will eventually die because of the decisions being taken, because services are not available; some people will die of covid.

    To come to the right decisions, this House needs all the information available, but it is not coming from the NHS and it is not coming from Government Ministers. That is why I will not give the Prime Minister the benefit of my support for the way he has arranged to respond to this covid crisis.

  • Graham Stringer – 2020 Speech on Proceedings in Parliament

    Graham Stringer – 2020 Speech on Proceedings in Parliament

    Below is the text of the speech made by Graham Stringer, the Labour MP for Blackley and Broughton, in the House of Commons on 2 June 2020.

    Any right hon. or hon. Member who was in this House during our lengthy debates on our membership of the European Union after the referendum will be in no doubt that minds and votes were changed during those debates. I know that because, once or twice, mine were changed after a debate—sometimes with discussion. A Conservative Member who proposed an amendment actually voted against it after a debate. I suspect that there was a little arm twisting by the Whips. At the present time, we have, in this country, some of the most authoritarian legislation that we have ever had for reasons that are both understandable and credible. That means that, as a House, we have not been having that thorough full-blooded debate where people can change their mind and vote at the end of the debate. That means that the whole House has not been doing its job properly on this matter.

    It has been suggested that Members want their constituents to know which way they have voted. If they have not been part of the debate, I do not really see the distinction between pairing and voting via an iPhone. The only distinction at the moment is whether it is recorded in Hansard. I take the point of the Leader of the House that he will discuss this with the Whips. If a pairing is recorded in Hansard, there is really no difference: constituents know where Members stand on the issue, even though it is not the exact equivalent of a vote.

    The other matter I wish to raise in the brief time allowed is the number of people in the Chamber. The Government have said that they are following the science and the advice. Science is universal. The World Health Organisation recommends a distance of 1 metre. Other countries recommend 1.5 metres. We, together with a small number of countries, recommend 2 metres. There has been very little study on covid. The studies that lead to those distances, which are not universal, are on previous viruses, not this one. I urge the Government, partly for the sake of democracy and partly for the sake of getting the health issues right, to consider again and look to moving towards the recommendations of the World Health Organisation.