Barry Gardiner
MP for Brent West · Labour · United Kingdom
“Sir Desmond, imagine that the top brains in the country’s security and intelligence community produced a report that told you how to save the world. You would want to see it, right? Well, the report we are discussing is not about how to save the world; it is about what happens if we do not.”
“The nuclear threat will rise as clashes between nuclear powers become more frequent. Those are the cold assessments of the Joint Intelligence Committee. The Government were right to think that those assessments might scare people—they scare me—but they were wrong to think that they could hide them from the public.”
“The Minister will know that the grant structure on which UKRI is based gives out grants for a maximum of three to five years. Very few are for five years—most are for three years or under—yet the sort of long-term scientific development that my hon.”
“My hon. Friend is making a superb case for the importance of funding for her deep earth facility. I had the privilege of going to the National Oceanography Centre’s deep oceans facility, and the innovative science there on carbon sequestration is superb.”
“The Prime Minister has spoken powerfully about the devolution of power and giving back control. Will he therefore ensure that the proposals for commonhold and leasehold reform, for which 5 million leaseholders in this country are waiting with bated breath, do give that power and control back to those people, through the right to enfranchi…”
“We know how much land there is in the UK, and we know the extent of our inland waters and seas, so we can know how much we have to do to protect them, as we are required to do by target 3 of the global biodiversity framework.”
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“The overall achievements by 2014 were that 657 apprentices received an average of 73 weeks’ employment; 501 other new entrant trainees obtained an average of 22 weeks’ employment; a total of 60,000 person-weeks of employment for new entrant trainees were delivered—11.4% of all person-weeks utilised on the contracts; and 48% of new entrant trainee opportunities went to residents of the most disadvantaged areas of Glasgow. That counts as a great success by any standard, as I am sure the Minister would agree. The outcomes demonstrate the benefits of getting senior management buy-in and staff resources from the outset. Targeted recruitment and training then become a normal part of commissioning, procurement and contract management.”
“A 2014 Glasgow University study that covered 24 contracts identified 1,000 people recruited from priority groups, of whom 38% were recruited as a result of the contract requirements; 200 apprentices recruited, of whom 73% were as a result of the contract conditions and all were still in employment; and 6,700 individuals who had received training, of whom 31% would not have done so without those contract conditions. Glasgow housing association—the stock transfer recipient for roughly 100,000 social homes in the city council area—incorporated new entrant trainee requirements into its regeneration contracts at the outset.”
“Later, the Labour Government published the first UK guidance, “Social issues in purchasing”, in 2006. That was followed by the Scottish Government’s “Community benefits in public procurement” document, which included policy, a methodology and model clauses, and remains widely used today. Similar toolkits were adopted in other areas. Those included the targeted recruitment and training toolkit produced by the north-east improvement and efficiency partnership, the Can Do toolkit adopted by Welsh housing associations, and the west midlands procurement framework for jobs and skills. As a proud Glaswegian, I am pleased to say that Scotland was an early adopter of targeted recruitment and training through procurement.”
“The Act sets clear objectives that, in effect, call for targeted recruitment and training, and local initiatives for small and medium-sized enterprises. The current position builds on an approach that evolved during the last Labour Government, when a range of local and regional initiatives were developed to target jobs and training opportunities at disadvantaged local communities. The term “community” could refer to people living in a specific geographic area or people who share disadvantages in the labour market, such as the long-term unemployed, young people, ex-offenders or care leavers. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s influential 2002 report, “Achieving community benefits through contracts: law, policy and practice” kick-started this whole approach.”
“That aligns well with section 12 of the Procurement Act 2023 and the national procurement policy statement, which connects procurement with the Government’s core missions—for example, “encouraging suppliers to recruit from groups that struggle to access employment opportunities” as part of the “Take back our streets” mission; “removing barriers to entry for young people and under-represented groups” as part of the “Break down barriers to opportunity” mission; “encouraging suppliers to recruit from economically inactive cohorts” as part of the health mission; and “opportunities for small businesses and social enterprises across the country” as part of the “Kickstart economic growth” mission.”
“On 1 October, it became mandatory for Government contracting authorities to include social issues like jobs and skills in their procurement processes. That in itself is a good thing, but the social value model they have prepared is flawed. I welcome the consultation on further reforms to public procurement issued by the Cabinet Office in June. In his related press release, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster made an explicit connection between the consultation and the Government’s proposals for obtaining social value benefits that are specific to the needs of a community.”
“The hon. Gentleman is right, of course: cheapest is not always best. That is partly what the social value model is all about; it is designed to ensure that there is genuine social value, not simply the cheapest model. The 2025 version of the social value model extends the scope to all contracts of central Government Departments, Executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies that fall within the scope of the Procurement Act 2023. It then encourages other contracting authorities to apply that approach. As a result, the social value model must now be used on most infrastructure and building contracts as well.”
“That puts a heavy burden on potential contractors and is a huge barrier to small businesses bidding for contracts, which is perverse when breaking down barriers to SME engagement is one of the Procurement Act principles and a core mission of the Government.”
“That may be possible with a services contract, but it is really not workable in a large, complex building and infrastructure development. What are my concerns? First, apart from the way outputs are recorded, no specific elements of the social value model are mandatory for contracting authorities, so the provision of opportunities for people who are currently disadvantaged in the labour market is not mandatory. Contracting authorities can choose to focus on other activities contained in the social value model. Secondly, the approach for every social value option is to require bidders for the contract to provide a comprehensive method statement at tender stage.”
“Herein lies the problem. These monitoring requirements will influence how social value requirements are described in tenders and contracts. A contracting authority using a targeted recruitment and training toolkit would struggle to comply with the standard reporting metrics, as they would not relate to the tried and tested specifications that are used. Many of the options in the social value model are related to the jobs, skills and SME opportunities that are contemplated in the national procurement policy statement. However, the model appears to be expecting procurement officials to create tender requirements whereby potential contractors will identify labour shortages and community needs and then propose ways to fill these gaps in the delivery of the contract.”
“My hon. Friend gives an apposite example of some of the problems that can arise. I will not be so bold as to say I have the solution, but I will at least try to set out the problem with clarity, so that the Minister can ensure that his officers are able to provide a proper solution. The model details eight types of social value, each with several areas of activity. Those cover fair work, training to address skills gaps, support for small business and community business, action for sustainability, crime reduction, overcoming barriers to work, and support for health and wellbeing. Contracting authorities can choose which of those are relevant to a particular procurement, but one element is mandatory: where a type of social value is selected, the standard reporting metric set out in the model must then be used for monitoring and reporting.”
“The annex to procurement policy note 2, from February this year, states that employment opportunities arising from a contract must be advertised via the Department for Work and Pensions’ “Find a job” website, as well as local jobcentres. In the past, the website has offered the employer suitable candidates from anywhere in the UK, often within hours. That creates additional barriers for local new entrants, as they are competing with candidates from a very wide area. If the requirement is still applicable, this issue needs to be addressed by the Department for Work and Pensions.”
“In the toolkits to which I have referred, the focus of attention is on local people’s need for employment and for in-work training and support. Often months or years of employment is needed if new entrants are to become fully productive and embedded in their trade. Targeting comes by recruiting from training and support organisations that work with the target communities, especially local organisations. Fifthly, the term “community” may have widely different meanings. Where there is a locality element in the model’s mandatory standard reporting metrics, “community” is defined as a UK region, but people living close to a major infrastructure development probably see their community as having much narrower boundaries. These more targeted benefits seem closer to the Government’s missions as described. There is an additional question.”
“The current social value model demonstrates no awareness of those issues. If it feels impractical to achieve jobs and training on a particular project, procurement teams may opt for alternative social value outputs or opt out altogether. That could undermine the high priority given to providing opportunities for disadvantaged groups in the delivery of major projects. Fourthly, the social value model uses terms such as “people under-represented in the labour market” and “disabled people”. Most applicants from these groups will not be identified on any register or easily categorised for recruitment and monitoring purposes. Indeed, they may not want to be labelled in this way, whatever the standard metrics require.”
“My third concern is that the social value requirements may not be deliverable in large construction contracts. These have many layers of employer involved in delivering the contract and a significant turnover of employers and workforces at different stages of the contract. That is very different from the majority of service contracts. Key issues arising from this could include: ensuring that the subcontractors who employ most of the workforce deliver the social value requirements and provide the necessary monitoring information; getting highly mobile subcontractors to recruit and train locally based people; and ensuring continuity of employment and training for new entrants when subcontractors have limited engagement with the project and the training requires one or two years of on-site support.”
“I am heartened. When some hon. Members approached me about this Adjournment debate, I said, “Look, it’s extremely boring—you won’t want to be in it,” but to have had three interventions that have been so apposite is really gratifying. An alternative approach would be for most social value requirements to be included in the tender and contract documents as conditions relating to the delivery of the contract, rather than an item that is scored at the tender stage. Here, a method statement would be required shortly after the award of the contract, but only the winning contractor would have to prepare it. I hope that that goes some way to answering the questions from my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) and for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards).”
“Secondly, will the Government, perhaps working with the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, commission urgent work to develop a targeted recruitment and training approach for large works contracts, using the experiences gained through the toolkits elsewhere in the UK? Thirdly, will the Government clarify whether all vacancies on works contracts have to be listed on the DWP “Find a job” website, and if so whether employers are able to exercise a local preference when delivering a social value obligation?”
“As a result, there are concerns that the original purpose of social value and the nuanced social dynamics involved in measuring its impact may be lost to bureaucracy and rigid frameworks.” I think that sums it up perfectly. In my view, the current social value model will bring a bonanza for consultants. Both contracting authorities and contractors will feel that they need to seek help to engage with these relatively new requirements. It would be far more efficient to simplify the requirements and equip procurement teams with the tools, systems and training to put these into contracts and monitor delivery. I have three urgent questions for the Minister to consider. First, will the Government review the social value model to reduce the negative impact on small businesses seeking services contracts?”
“Many combined authorities have a role to play in promoting good practice, on a shared basis, in their regions. Finally, I am concerned that the current model provides a complex shopping list of what social value might be sought. It leaves procurement teams to unpack what each will involve and then turn that into a tender requirement. This is in a context in which many of the procurement staff involved, especially in works contracts, will be new to social value. I am struck by the critique of the social value approach that was made in the 2024 report published by the Centre for Local Economic Strategies, one of the leading organisations in the field. It says that “an entire industry has grown up around the demand for methods, measures and consultancy time to help understand and measure social value.”
“Goodness me! It is very rare that I stand in this Chamber and get such immediate results from the Government. If this is a precedent, it is one that I wholeheartedly welcome. I am delighted to hear what my hon. Friend has just reported is the new Government policy. As I was saying about the Department for Work and Pensions, defining some job vacancies as “new entrant trainee opportunities” and naming local organisations as potential recruitment partners can increase opportunities for local people without damaging competition, and he has just mentioned a very good example. This is especially important in the context of the youth guarantee announced by the Government in September. Likewise, local business support organisations can help increase opportunities for local SMEs.”
“That would be the just and equal society I came into the Labour party to create.”
“The Chief Secretary quoted the OBR review, which said: “The ultimate responsibility for the circumstances in which this vulnerability occurred” was “with the leadership of the OBR.” Has anyone in the OBR leadership offered their resignation, or has that gone out of fashion?”
“I joined the Labour party because I believe in equality and justice, and those are two of the values that I use to judge any Budget. Does it create a more equal society, and is the society that it creates more just? Therefore, there are aspects of the Budget that I welcome, such as the removal of policy costs from household energy bills, saving families £150. It is welcome that the parents of 3,730 children in my constituency will be helped by the abolition of the two-child benefit cap and the expansion of free school meals. I welcome the rise in the minimum wage and the living wage.”
“That may sound a lot; in fact, it is only 13 years of emissions at their current rate. The budget to stay within 1.5°C is a lot worse: just 130 billion metric tonnes, which is just three years of emissions at today’s level.”
“It means the systematic collapse of our economy. It means refugees fleeing parts of the world where life has become impossible because of temperatures persistently above 40°C, drought and failing crops. It means unprecedented societal chaos as supply chains fail and competition for food turns to violence. It means war. What the Government have failed to understand is that they cannot weigh up the cost of addressing climate change against the cost to the economy, when the whole economy depends on keeping climate change under control, so the first budget we need is a global carbon budget that sets the quantity of CO 2 that we can emit if we are to meet our Paris temperature agreements. If we are to stay below the 2°C threshold, we have only 530 billion metric tonnes of CO 2 that we can release into the atmosphere.”
“Let me talk about the figures that matter and about the budgets that are actually going to change our lives. Over the past 800,000 years, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has varied between 180 and 300 parts per million. During the last 10,000 years—the period of human civilisation—it has varied between 260 and 280 parts per million, which has given us humans a relatively stable temperature and climate. When we started the significant use of fossil fuels in the 19th century, the concentration of CO 2 was at 280 parts per million; today, it is at 424 parts per million. As a result of those emissions, global mean temperatures have risen by nearly 1.5°C. That is the level that we know gives us only a 50% chance of avoiding dangerous climate change. What does dangerous climate change actually mean?”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. He is absolutely right, and that money gets recycled throughout our economy. I think it is a scandal that more than 60% of people in receipt of universal credit are actually in work—often working two jobs to make ends meet. That is a scandal because it means that those employers are not paying their workforce at a level that we, the rest of society, consider to be enough to live on. We, the taxpayer, are subsidising those companies’ wage bills so that they can pay their shareholders higher profits. The Budget does not reverse structural inequality or shift the dial on growth. It is also a Budget that whispers when it should be screaming about the catastrophe that will collapse our economy within the next 25 years.”
“If growth truly is our ambition, it is in that clean, affordable and secure future that we should be investing. People often talk of a just transition. I prefer to talk of a bloody marvellous one. What’s not to like about warm homes with affordable energy; comfortable, efficient, speedy and reliable public transport; the creation of thousands of new jobs; decent air quality; a secure food system with reliable supply chains; and a stable geopolitical world? We live in an age of public sufficiency and private luxury, as Professor Kevin Anderson said last week at the national emergency briefing. A Budget that was adequate to the challenge we face would have turned that on its head, creating a society where every private home had what was sufficient and every public domain was one of luxury.”
“I will not. Parliament is supposed to be a gathering of the leaders of our community: rational and intelligent human beings capable of horizon scanning and guiding our country to a safe and sustainable future. Instead, it acts like the frog in the pan of gradually boiling water, delaying its escape until too late. The Budget should have been bold. It should have put our country on a wartime footing with a national programme of retrofit, no new build that is not net zero in its embodied and operational carbon, a huge roll-out of public transport and a major programme of electrification. We have a huge majority, yet we act as though we are afraid of the power that we spent 14 years seeking. Today, the green economy is growing three times faster than the rest of the UK economy.”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for the leadership he has shown internationally and nationally over the past 20 years—it has been quite remarkable. I thank him for his statement today. He will have seen over the time that has elapsed since COP26 in Glasgow the change in the language that is used. In Glasgow, when discussing the Glasgow climate pact, we talked about “phasing out” coal and fossil fuel subsidies. We then moved to “phasing down” and then to “transitioning away”. Now we have a “plan” or “pathway” to transitioning away. That, I am sure, causes alarm bells to ring in his head, as it does in mine. Can he tell us what he sees as the role of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance? He spoke about the need to work with other countries for a really ambitious future. How does he propose to do that?”
“The speedy passage of environmental legislation through this House is not often a feature, so I thank the Leader of the House for the speedy way in which the biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction treaty was dealt with by the Government. In contrast, I remind him that in 2023 our party said that we would bring forward legislation for a new clean air Act. I have no doubt that the Leader of the House is thinking about what may be going into the King’s Speech next year. Given that it will be the 70th anniversary of the original Clean Air Act 1956, could he put this forward as something to be looked at to ensure that we meet World Health Organisation standards?”
“I welcome the assurance the Home Secretary has given to those who have achieved indefinite leave to remain and have settled status in this country. That certainty is really important. She will know that in my constituency I have many families from Syria and Afghanistan, who came under the Syrian programme and Operation Pitting. They have limited leave to remain and are deeply worried, from what the Home Secretary has said, as to whether they will ultimately be deported from this country. Can she give an assurance to those who are currently seeking ILR and who came on those programmes that they will be able to follow the path that was set out for them when they arrived? Will she give that assurance and ensure that this country will never do a deal with the Taliban to deport women and children from this country?”
“Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one of the most important things the Government can do at COP1 when it meets next year is to establish a regime with the other members of the conference of the parties on how enforcement of the new treaty will take place?”
“If we carry on as normal, seeking to do just about enough, we risk overshooting our carbon budgets. In doing so, we fail future generations, and we fail those in the global majority for whom the planet has already warmed too much—whose crops are failing through drought, whose homes are already under floodwater, and whose forests are already burning. Let us all be clear; the costs of inaction on climate change are far greater than the costs of action. That is why the carbon budgets are so important. It is all our responsibility to ensure that we have adequate policies in place to deliver them.”
“That smacks to me of the committee dodging the tough advice where it thinks the Government might find it politically unwelcome. My advice to the committee is to grow a pair. Over-optimistic reliance on future technofixes is not a solid policy basis to achieve the carbon budgets and reductions that we have set. The projection for carbon budget 6 is that we will be just 2 megatonnes within the 965-megatonne limit for that period. That takes me right back to where I started: these budgets are not targets to scrape under as narrowly as possible while trying to change as little about our way of life as we can. We did not carry on as normal during the covid pandemic, just waiting for the vaccine to come and save us. Instead, we acted urgently to fundamentally change the way we operated to protect the most vulnerable.”
“I believe its independence and forthright advice have been why we managed to achieve such enormous bipartisan progress in tackling climate change. I commend the previous Conservative Government on all the progress they made on that, and I think we need to restore that bipartisanship. However, Professor Anderson rightly warns: “Major societal transformations, such as moving from private car to public transport, are largely absent from the CCC’s recommendations.” Instead, the CCC proposes that the UK should capture and store 36 megatonnes of CO 2 annually by 2050, triple the current rate of the entire planet—I will say that again: triple the current rate of the entire planet—to avoid making that recommendation to a modal shift from private vehicles to public transport.”
“I remain sceptical at best about the Government’s approach to aviation, and it surely has to be seen as one of the biggest potential pitfalls in their net zero plans, relying so heavily as they do on technology that is not currently readily available. The fourth warning is one voiced by many climate scientists, such as Kevin Anderson, professor of energy and climate change at the University of Manchester. It is that the Climate Change Committee appears to have changed its mandate from advising Government on what they must do to meet the scientific realities, to advising the Government only what they consider the Government will find politically acceptable and be willing to accept. I have been a champion of the Climate Change Committee.”
“I note that the committee clearly states that “the aviation industry adopting the cost of aviation decarbonisation will help manage demand”. Both the CCC and the recently published Whitehead review are very clear that the aviation sector must pay for the carbon that it pollutes in accordance with the polluter-pays principle. The Whitehead review recommends that the sector should be required to pay for the greenhouse gas removals it needs to reach net zero, and that Government should ensure that they do so. A fossil-free sector will drive competition between SAF technologies and the new greenhouse gas removal technologies, which is a good thing and to be welcomed, but getting those technologies up and running with far greater urgency is an imperative, given the Government’s desire to go ahead with airport expansion.”
“The Environmental Audit Committee has recently published its report on warning No. 3, aviation. The final hearing of our inquiry was told that demand management would not be one of the measures to reduce emissions in the sector. Shockingly, that was despite the fact that in its advice on carbon budget 7, the Climate Change Committee said that demand management should account for 54% of emissions reductions in the sector by 2040. SAF only accounted for 33%, and efficiency improvements of technology were a paltry 13%. The Department for Transport says that aviation can be fossil fuel-free by 2050 without demand management. Will the Minister ensure that the Government publish that unlikely analysis so that we can properly examine it? I am in no doubt that the Climate Change Committee will be keen to do so.”
“Warning No. 2 concerns what the plan terms “wider factors”. That principally means the adoption of technologies, such as artificial intelligence, that are likely to improve energy efficiency, help integrate renewable energy generation and support sustainable practices, according to the technical annexe. The Government’s analysis finds that those wider factors, which also include consumer behaviour, could reduce emissions by an average of 20 megatonnes of CO 2 equivalent a year over the period of CB6, from 2033 to 2037. The annexe admits that there is “the potential for not all of these reductions to be realised”, before saying that it “reflects a cautious approach”. I will await the CCC’s full assessment of whether these wider savings are realistic in its 2026 progress report.”
“It does not say that they are confident or give a percentage of probability, as we find in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The excellent people at Carbon Brief note that by counting all the various policies—past, present and future—alongside other modelling adjustments, the baseline for carbon budget 6 is already reduced by 46.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. The policies assume the success of the zero emission vehicle mandate and the SAF mandate—policies that are still very much in the pipeline. The SAF mandate Bill is still only on Second Reading in the House of Lords. The first warning I give, then, is that the first tranche of policies—at table 3 in the plan—cannot be taken as a given, even though they have been incorporated into the lowering of the baseline for how we measure CB6.”
“They are expected to deliver more than 100% of the emissions reductions to meet carbon budgets 4 and 5, but are projected to contribute only 76% of the savings needed for carbon budget 6. Over the summer, the Climate Change Committee examined 163 of those plans for reducing emissions. Fewer than half were considered to be fully credible, and more than a third were considered to be insufficient or to have significant risk of failure. On its top recommendation—to make electricity cheaper—the committee said that it had “not…seen any progress” in the past year. It is good that the plans are improving and becoming more credible year on year, but the delivery plan states only that the Government “expect” the energy and emissions projections to deliver the requisite emissions reductions.”
“The plan highlights where decarbonisation will be the hardest, and shows us those sectors that need to be prioritised if we are to achieve a totally clean, secure and affordable energy system by 2050. Our homes and buildings’ operational and embodied carbon need to be addressed, and our heavy industries, such as steel, glass and ceramics, need to find high-energy, low-cost solutions. The aviation sector must show how it can meet the Government’s expansion expectations without an over-optimistic reliance on the production of sustainable aviation fuel or a dependence on greenhouse gas removal technologies that are still not proven at commercial scale. First, let us examine the energy and emissions projections that undergird the plan. The emissions projections include all planned, adopted, implemented and expired climate change policies.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) on securing the debate and introducing it in the way she did. To misquote Bill Clinton, “It’s a limit, not a target, stupid!” The carbon budgets we set represent a threshold we should not breach, not a target we should aim for or just dip under. We are having this debate now because our courts ruled that the original carbon budget delivery plan was unlawful; it lacked credible plans to meet our obligations. Published just two days before the legal deadline, the Government’s new plan states that they have sufficient policies to achieve their sixth carbon budget, which required a 77% reduction in emissions from the 1990 baseline. So, do they? Remember that carbon budget 6 is the first to include international aviation and shipping.”
“Does the Minister recognise that the policy costs mentioned by the shadow Minister are a regressive tax, and that it may be better to put those on to general taxation? Of course, the energy company obligations and other policy costs were introduced by the Conservative Government. Will the Minister give consideration to where they may best lie to ensure that what he said in response to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is realised?”
“In fact, by passing it to a person not authorised to receive it, friend or foe, they had allowed it to circulate outside of the UK Government’s control, where it could then be obtained and used by an enemy—surely that is what the Act sought to criminalise. If the Minister agrees, is he satisfied that the wording of the Act is as it should be, or does he think that the prosecution was dropped erroneously?”
“May I take the Minister back to the wording of the Act? It says that it is an offence to pass information that would be “directly or indirectly useful to an enemy”. It does not say that it is an offence to directly or indirectly pass to an enemy information that would be useful. The difference is that in the first, it is the usefulness of the information that constitutes the offence—it might be passed to any unauthorised person. In the second, it is the passing of it to an enemy that constitutes the offence. By using the second interpretation, it is therefore possible to argue that unless the person the information was passed to was an enemy, no offence was committed. That, it would seem to me, is how the two men had the case dropped.”
“The long-awaited report by the Joint Intelligence Committee on the link between biodiversity, sustainability and national security is still not with us. Lord Dannatt and other senior military figures have increasingly expressed concerns about the threat the collapse of global biodiversity poses to our food security and the security risks arising from climate change. Can my right hon. Friend assure us that, contrary to recent press stories, the JIC report has not been blocked, and can he tell the House when it will be published?”
“If we do not ratify the treaty at least 40 days before the first COP, the UK will not have a seat at the table; we will merely be a spectator as others set the ambition, or the lack of it, as they roll out the implementation of the treaty. I congratulate the Minister on bringing the Bill to the House for its Second Reading, and trust that we are able to see the whole ratification process completed in time for the UK to make strong proposals at COP1 next year.”
“I ask for the same assurance in relation to the issue of deep seabed mining—I trust that the Government will continue to oppose any developments of this on the high seas. The Bill before us is excellent. It will delight the now Professor Alex Rogers, who I suspect is not at his desk either in Oxford or at the National Oceanography Centre, where he is now the science director. Most probably, he is out somewhere in the Antarctic ocean in a submersible exploring the deep ocean, as he has been doing for more than 30 years. If he were to take a break from his mission to discover 100,000 new marine species in the deep ocean in this decade and send us a message, I suspect that it would emphasise the importance of getting this Bill enacted quickly.”