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 Home Secretary has indicated that Fiona Woolf made her letter of disclosure available to the Department for review in order to ensure that she fulfilled her obligation for transparency. The problem the Department has is that, in the seven successive reiterations of that letter, it became less rather than more transparent. Will the Home Secretary ask the permanent secretary to interview the senior official in the Department who effected and initiated those changes in consultation with Fiona Woolf, and ensure that that civil servant can explain why those changes were suggested at each stage to Fiona Woolf and whether they did in fact increase or reduce transparency?”
“The answer to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), which the Minister failed to give, is £403,000 out of the £10 million that the Government promised—less than 5%. That applied at the beginning of the summer recess. Tomorrow is 31 October, the day on which the Government promised that all the 890 flood defences damaged last year and in need of urgent repair would have that work completed. Will the Minister assure us that the 49% of those repairs that had not been completed by last month will be finished by tomorrow, as promised? The people at risk from those 437 unfinished schemes would really like to know.”
“In all my years in academic philosophy, I never heard such sophistry as I have heard from the Minister today. The solution is of course on the north African coast, but if that is the case, that solution must be implemented so that people do not leave in droves before the safety net is taken up. Why is the Minister taking the safety net away while people are still falling out of a burning building?”
“May we have a debate on wildlife crime? The Leader of the House will know that two days ago Natural England published a report showing that of the 47 hen harriers that it has tagged with transmitters over the past seven years, only four are thought still to be alive. That shows that there are serious problems and I think that the House should debate them.”
“This is a very short piece of legislation, but it has been a very long time in coming: 21 years on from the Priests (Ordination of Women) Measure 1993, the Church of England has finally come of age by admitting women for consecration as bishops. Those 21 years of delay have occasioned enormous pain—they have impaired the mission of the Church in the world by rejecting the leadership of half our population—and that is now to be put right. Given that this is without doubt the shortest speech I have ever made in this House, I suspect all my colleagues will find it doubly within their hearts to say, “Hallelujah”.”
“I understand what the right hon. Gentleman is saying about listening to the British people, but does he understand that if the British people are to speak with clarity of voice, they need the clarity of choice of the Prime Minister’s red lines, and those have not been revealed? Until they are, how can that possibly be the case?”
“Does my right hon. Friend agree that the obscurity that we have just seen displayed is deeply concerning given the time scale set out in the Bill? If within 19 months after May next year the British public are to have an in/out vote on this issue, there are not 19 months to negotiate but a much shorter time, if the matter is to be debated realistically among the British people.”
“I understand that my hon. Friend is a passionate and insistent voice on these matters. Does he believe that the timing that has been set out in the Bill is sensible? Will it allow the people of this country to have the necessary debate with full information about what any renegotiation might involve?”
“Is my hon. Friend aware of the work that Commissioner Damanaki has done for the renegotiation of the EU fisheries policy, and of the benefit that that is bringing to small fishermen in the UK? The UK quota can now be divided up, bringing greater advantage to the under-10 metre fleets.”
“Because the Prime Minister has been unwilling to provide clarity over the red lines and because the Conservative party has been unwilling to set out what a revised European Union would look like after a renegotiation, within 19 months of next May, there would have to be clarity on those issues. I do not think that that is a reasonable time scale. The hon. Gentleman who often speaks for his wife and whose constituency I have forgotten—”
“What we have not had from the Conservative party or the Prime Minister is clarity about what a renegotiated Europe would look like or about the red lines as we go into the negotiations. Neither have we had clarity about a time scale within which to enable the British people to make the informed and common-sense judgments—I certainly trust the British people are able to do so, as many Conservative Members have claimed they do—that are needed. A common-sense judgment demands having some real questions on the table to look at, examine and then to decide on.”
“I have in the past been a great supporter of Friday morning debates on private Members’ business. We often get some very straight talking on a Friday morning, and I gained that impression this morning. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), who has had a tradition of opposition to the European Union going back many years, as have many Conservative Members. I do think, however, that it would have been better if this motion had been made more clearly one about getting out of Europe, rather than hiding behind the pretence that it was a motion about giving choice to the British people. We should beware of politicians calling for common sense without telling us what that common sense actually is.”
“Wellingborough: of course it is. The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) said that the end of 2017 was a backstop, but, as he knows full well, in the last six months of 2017 Britain will be chairing the European Union, and it is inconceivable that we could hold the referendum within those six months. The hon. Gentleman drew the date forward, saying that there could be a referendum during the first six months of the year, but that would shorten the time that the British people would have in which to look at what was on offer. I do not think that the Bill is lacking in disingenuity. It is disingenuous because it claims to rely on the good wisdom of the British people to make a judgment without giving them the basis on which to make that judgment, and without giving them a time scale that will allow them to exercise it.”
“When I was a child, my mother used to pay me half a crown to wash her car each week—you, Mr Speaker, will probably remember it as 12 and a half pence, as half a crown is probably before your time. I used to wash every bit of the car, except for one particular piece at the front, which was about 1 foot square. I kept that as a before and after shot to show my mother what a good job I had done, and I chose that particular spot at the front of the car because it was always covered in thousands of dead insects.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) on securing this important debate. She spoke with eminent good sense and with what I would characterise as quiet passion. Other Members who have contributed to this debate have made really telling points. I am talking about my hon. Friends the Members for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) and for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), the hon. Members for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams), and for Hendon (Dr Offord) and my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz). It has been an excellent debate.”
“My mother was certainly very frugal, but she did need her car washing every week, and it was, every week, covered in dead insects. Sadly, the cars are no longer covered in thousands of dead insects. We have cleaner cars today, but the insects are gone.”
“The hon. Gentleman is indicating only how much older he is than I am, and also perhaps that he had more of a penchant for things that my mother certainly would not have allowed me. I was not in any way allowed half a gallon of Somerset cider; half a pint of carrot juice was more like it. As the insects have disappeared, so have the birds. As the insects continue to disappear, so will the yield from our crops.”
“An ecological network must be comprehensive enough to hold a suite of high-quality sites that collectively contain the diversity and amount of habitat needed to support species. There must be ecological connections between those sites to enable species—or, in the case of plants, their genes—to move.”
“This Government have acted with absolute consistency against the science and failed to adopt a fully ecosystem-based way of working that displays the true value of the natural capital upon which all growth depends. There are three key decisions that they could have taken: the decision to adopt a science-based policy on insecticides; the decision to acquire new evidence on pollinator decline; and the decision to create space for nature in precisely the way that John Lawton set out in his report. We need to embrace a new, restorative approach that rebuilds nature and creates a more resilient natural environment for the benefit of wildlife and ourselves. We need coherent ecological networks if we are to conserve wildlife and landscapes that have become fragmented as a result of human activity.”
“They said that a ban could cripple the economy, thus ignoring the direct value of pollination services to UK farmers and the natural environment. That was proof, if anyone still needed it, that for this Government the environment and the economy are always seen as being in conflict, although they are not. The Government’s decision to withdraw from a pan-European research project on honey bee decline was further evidence of their allergy to sound science. They failed to include pollinator-specific measures in their so-called greening of agricultural subsidy in the CAP. There seems to be a dangerous idea—clung to by some in the Government—that they have to sacrifice our environment and well-being for the sake of achieving short-term economic growth. In fact, economists now tell us that economic growth depends upon natural capital.”
“They have spoken clearly about how changes in land management over the past century represent one of the major causes of pollinator loss. The Government should do more than pay them lip service, as they did in their response to the Select Committee’s report. Many of the groups have a larger membership than all the political parties represented in the Chamber put together, and their bee campaigns have involved hundreds of thousands of people devoting their time for our natural environment. That is marvellous, so the Government need to respond positively. The Government have the power to halt the decline of our natural environment. Delivering a pollinator strategy is a critical part of that, so we should ask what this Government’s record has been. They opposed the European ban on neonicotinoids and supported efforts to undermine it.”
“Yes, colony collapse disorder is serious and, yes, the varroa mite is a problem, as are the acarine mite and nosema apis, and fungal diseases such as chalkbrood and stonebrood, but the fundamental problems that have resulted in the decline of pollinators across the board are much more plain and simple. Since the 1930s, 97% of our wild flower meadows have been lost. If one of the fundamental habitats providing a food source to pollinators is taken away, is it any wonder that we see a decline in butterflies, moths, beetles and other pollinators? I congratulate the whole NGO coalition, especially Buglife and Friends of the Earth, on campaigning extensively for a national pollinator strategy. The NGOs understand this, as does the Environmental Audit Committee in its excellent report.”
“My hon. Friend makes a good point. He will know my penchant for whistling around the place, emulating those very birds he wants to return. The impact on our crops of the insects continuing to disappear has been calculated at more than £600 million a year. Some insecticides that farmers use to increase yield kill not only the insects that destroy the crops, but those that pollinate them. I would welcome a pollinator strategy from the Government—we have a draft strategy—if it is understood that the decline in the ecosystem services that pollinators provide cannot be dealt with unless that is done on an ecosystem-wide basis. Popular though the campaign may be, this is not just all about the bees, as Members have said.”
“The Minister must accept that his draft pollinator strategy is neither adequate nor deliverable. The EAC’s report correctly criticised the Government’s reliance on industry-funded research and voluntary measures. In fact, what it said was damning. It talked of “excessive reliance on the commercial (rather than scientific) research priorities”—”
“Under this Government, with a Lib Dem responsible for the natural environment, essential work to improve our natural environment has become “green crap”, and we have seen the extraordinary spectacle of a former Secretary of State trawling around the broadcast studios telling all and sundry that he does not believe in half the policies that, as a member of the Cabinet, he was previously responsible for delivering. Unfortunately, this Government’s record on the environment does not lead anyone to trust them. The report, “State of Nature”, and Wildlife and Countryside Link’s report, “Nature Check”, show that the decline in biodiversity is getting worse. That is how we should judge this Minister’s party when it promises to give us a legal target for biodiversity.”
“In 2010, the country did not vote for continuity, except in one thing: Labour’s approach to our environment. The coalition said that it was signed up to Labour’s Climate Change Act 2008. The Tories and the Liberal Democrats committed themselves to delivering on the Lawton report and the national ecosystems assessment that we commissioned on the back of it. They even said that they were committed to the Pitt review that Labour had commissioned after the 2007 floods. Well, we saw last winter what had happened to that. The Environmental Audit Committee has an in-built majority for the Government parties, but on the basis of its environmental scorecard it looked carefully at what this Government have done and gave them a red card on biodiversity.”
“These are local examples on one small part of the planet, of the growing, global ‘biodiversity crisis’.” In their response to the Environment Audit Committee, the Government basically set out a voluntarist approach that asked the House to trust them. They now have a draft of a pollinator strategy. There is an election coming and people want to be seen to be doing something positive. The 2015 general election is unprecedented. For the first time, people will be able to judge all the major parties on what they have recently achieved in government as well as on what they promise in their manifestos. I am confident that there will be a triumph of experience over hope—what Labour actually achieved in government against what the Conservatives and Lib Dems promised and then failed to deliver.”
“The Lawton report summarised the step change that the previous Labour Government made in 2006 when we moved to an ecosystem-based approach, which was essential to mainstreaming our conservation priorities across Government. Sir John’s report spoke about the role of insects in the following way. It states that they are “the little things that make the world work… vital components of natural food chains (as food for larger organisms and as pollinators for example) and many deliver other vital ecosystem services… It would be unwise to assume we can do without them. Basically, what we are doing is unravelling the fabric of nature.”
“I respect the right hon. Lady, and she will know that I have always tried to give credit where it is due in the Department. I have given credit to her, in particular, for the way she advanced the natural capital approach. However, I think that there are severe lacunas in the Department’s approach and that we need a much more joined-up approach, in relation to implementing an ecosystem-based way of working in the Department and to joining up across Government. I am sure that is a problem she has faced many times in trying to persuade colleagues across Government. The hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) talked about the importance of planning, for example, and I am sure that the right hon. Lady will have had her own run-ins with DCLG. I hope that she does not feel that the criticisms I am making are unfair.”
“A Labour Secretary of State in DEFRA would set out clearly the need to establish baseline data on the health of our pollinator population and use those data to target a series of measures to reverse the declines in our ecosystem services capacity.”
“I am certainly approaching my conclusion, Mr Speaker—thank you for your guidance. The Committee talked of “excessive reliance on the commercial (rather than scientific) research priorities” of the industry bodies and said that that was “symptomatic of a loss of DEFRA’s capacity to deliver its environmental protection obligations”. There is no point in DEFRA’s merely reviewing the research that the agro-chemicals industry decides it wants to carry out when that is not the research that the public need. DEFRA must set out the type of data it requires and the parameters of such research in order to safeguard the environment.”
“What assessment have the Government made of the warning by the Royal United Services Institute that “limited air strikes could serve to further legitimise ISIS?” Finally, what demands has the UK placed on Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states about cutting off funding for Wahabist jihadi groups around the globe? The Prime Minister says that we are fighting for democratic values, but those we are fighting with are not democracies. In joining them, we are not protecting democracy. They are the last absolute theocratic monarchies on the planet, and we join them at our peril.”
“Britain could have exerted real influence on the Maliki Government, but we turned a blind eye as the Iraqi Government ruled as faction and thug. Where was our Government’s attention? It was on Syria, but who did we want to degrade there? It was not ISIL, but Bashar al-Assad. The Government have made foolish alliances and alienated countries such as Russia that could have helped. They have been pathetically weak in bringing our so-called friends to book, and they are deluding themselves—or, worse, the public—with any suggestion that air strikes against ISIL are a sufficient response to the wider hell that is the Sunni-Shi’a conflict. I have three questions. What demands about inclusive government, and what potential sanctions, has the UK placed upon Prime Minister al-Abadi in Iraq as preconditions of our involvement?”
“The Government were too busy trying to clinch the £4.4 billion deal for the 72 Eurofighter Typhoon jets to Saudi Arabia. That was our Government’s priority. It should have been otherwise. Now that ISIL are regarded by its former paymasters as too big for its boots, we are joining forces with them to degrade ISIL’s capacity and to cut it back down to size, but we are told that there is no intention to have boots on the ground. What an assurance that is. Of course there will be no boots on the ground. The Sunni states in the middle east do not want to destroy ISIL. They want it to remain as a thorn in the flesh of the Iraqi Government. This Government is not America’s poodle; it is the poodle of the Sunni states.”
“The motion is the result of our failure to develop a sustained, coherent and strategic policy in the middle east. ISIL has a 10-year track record both in Iraq and in Syria, but the question we should ask is how has it become so strong. Jane’s World Insurgency and Terrorism assessed that ISIL was funded from the very countries with which we now propose to ally ourselves—Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait—and whose refusal to put in place any serious financial controls has seen hundreds of millions of dollars siphoned off to ISIL and other jihadists. What pressure did the UK Government put on those Governments to tighten the noose around that flow of funds? Did we talk of sanctions or of freezing accounts in London? Of course not.”
“It has deployed 30,000 troops for rescue and relief operations, the vast majority of them—244 columns—deployed in the Srinagar region and the Kashmir valley. Eighty transport aircraft and helicopters have been mobilised, and almost 1,000 helicopter sorties have taken place, dropping almost 1,000 tonnes of relief materials. Eighteen relief camps have been established to deal with the appalling aftermath of this natural disaster. Perhaps those who have shown themselves so keen to decry the actions—”
“With that in mind, it is ill-judged for British politicians to be debating the history and status of people who are currently facing the most devastating floods in 50 years. Our attention should surely be on the human plight of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and the humanitarian crisis of the people affected by the bursting of the banks of the Jhelum river. At least 200 people are known to have died and thousands have been stranded. Against that background and while politicians here have been raising questions alleging human rights abuses by the Indian army, the Indian army itself has mounted an enormous relief operation that has already saved the lives of 76,500 people in the flood-affected area.”
“I welcome the fact that Prime Minister Modi’s first intervention after his election to office was to ask Nawaz Sharif to come from Pakistan to attend his inauguration. I welcome the fact that, as Prime Minister, he visited Jammu and Kashmir just last month, not to engage in political rhetoric against Pakistan’s continuing border violations, but to inaugurate a new hydroelectric power project. To my mind, he seems to be doing as he did in Gujarat and focusing on bringing prosperity and development to people in the belief that votes will follow. It is right that peace in the subcontinent over the issue of Jammu and Kashmir will come only when people living on both sides of the line of control see their quality of life and standard of living improve.”
“It is there to guarantee the country’s border integrity, nothing more. Many of the victims of the cross-border terror have been Muslims. That is, of course, particularly so in the Kashmir valley, where by far the overwhelming majority of people are followers of Islam. I welcome the fact that on his recent visit Prime Minister Modi spoke of the need to give specific help to those bereaved families. Another group from the Kashmir valley who deserve specific attention is, of course, the Kashmiri Pandits, who for so long have been displaced from their homes because of the fighting and live in the sort of refugee camps that, were they elsewhere in the world, would be a constant item in our evening news.”
“Members here in this Chamber of all places condemning the radicalisation of young Muslim men in their own constituencies, while ignoring the fact that those young men are trained in the terror camps that are operating on the Pakistan border with Jammu and Kashmir. Those who continue to argue to undermine the legitimate sovereignty of India might do better to reflect that the people of India live in a relatively transparent and well-functioning democracy where the economy is growing. Those who point to the presence of the Indian army in the state of Jammu and Kashmir might reflect that it is not Indians who have seen successive Governments overthrown by military coups, and that if it were not for the constant cross-border attacks the Indian army would not need to be there with such a strong presence.”
“The Bharatiya Janata party—the Hindu nationalist party, led by Narendra Modi—is regarded as the no-nonsense scourge of cross-border Pakistani-sponsored terrorism and topped the poll in Jammu and Kashmir. What should that tell the world? Perhaps that the people of Jammu and Kashmir want the constant cross-border interference from Pakistan to stop. The border between India and Pakistan that lies along the state of Jammu and Kashmir is 1,125 km long. Jihadi terrorists have been infiltrating along that length for more than 40 years and the construction of underground tunnels and the cover fire provided by the Pakistan military has been a constant means of undermining India’s security and integrity. More than 20,000 people have already been killed by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir, and it is no use hon.”
“In the general election earlier this year, three of the six Lok Sabah seats from Jammu and Kashmir were won not by the traditional parties of power, but by the Bharatiya Janata party, which actually took the largest share of the vote in Jammu and Kashmir despite having promised to scrap article 370, which gives Jammu and Kashmir special status under the Indian constitution. It won 32.4% of the popular vote ahead of the National Congress party, ahead of the Peoples Democratic party and ahead of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference party, which finished on 11.1%. The significance of those statistics cannot be lost on anyone with any understanding of Indian politics.”
“They also expressed their faith that the choices they made would find proper expression through their elected representatives under the constitution of India. It is worth recalling that 74.9% of the population of Jammu and Kashmir is of the Muslim faith, because simple mathematics then gives the lie to those who would claim that this is not true for the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir. The fact is that millions of Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir will make their way to the polls later this year, just as they did in 2008, but there is a significant difference this year.”
“Earlier this year, the people of India conducted the largest exercise in democracy and expression of the public will that has ever been concluded in the history of humanity, when 550 million free Indians—7 million of them living in Jammu and Kashmir—voted in peaceful elections. Nobody was assassinated; nobody refused to leave office. The world witnessed an orderly transition of power, as one Prime Minister gave way to the democratic will and passed the levers of state to a new Prime Minister with a different political vision for his country. In the last elections to the 89 seats in the Legislative Assembly of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, 61.23% of the electorate—a total of 6.479 million citizens— expressed their confidence in the democratic structures of the state of India by voting.”
“Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion high respect; their business unremitted attention… But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure, no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.” I would ask all hon. Members who contribute to this debate to have the humility to reflect upon and cast their judgment over the following salient fact.”
“India and Pakistan have both signed that agreement; it is therefore disingenuous for any politician here to claim that this is somehow a matter in which they have a legitimate role or voice. Certainly, it is the role of all hon. Members to represent the concerns of their constituents. I do not doubt that or disparage the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) for seeking to do so. But I believe that it is still the custom for every Member, on first entering this House, to be sent a copy of the speech of that great parliamentarian Edmund Burke, in which he speaks to the electors of Bristol in the following manner: “it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence and the most unreserved communication with his constituents.”
“In exactly a week’s time, the people of Scotland will go to the polls in a referendum to decide the future of our country. The debate has been hotly contested and not without its ill temper; but imagine the outrage on both sides of that debate if the Indian Parliament, the Lok Sabha, were today debating the merits or demerits of Scottish independence and passing judgment upon what we in the United Kingdom see as a matter for us, and us alone, to decide. The Simla agreement between Pakistan and India is actually quite specific upon this point: it requires the two countries to deal with Kashmir bilaterally and without the involvement or interference of any other state.”
“Of course, we must debate international issues. My point was quite simply that, under the Simla agreement, the two countries will deal with the matter bilaterally. To that extent, it is not for the British Government to interfere.”
“The Minister rightly spoke of the importance of having scientific advice available, but it must of course be based on scientific evidence. As he will know, last year the Government consulted on proposals to stop local authorities gathering evidence on the scientific effects of air pollution in their areas. He will also know that, just this year, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has said that it will not collect any future scientific data on the badger culls that are taking place. Will the Minister ensure that data that are important as bases for scientific advice are collected across Government?”
“Two years ago, figures were released showing that the green economy, although representing only 6% of the wider economy, was responsible for 30% of the growth in the economy. Will the Secretary of State tell us the current figures and, in his new line-up, which Minister has been specifically appointed to be responsible for green economic growth?”