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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“It is remarkable that the UK Treasury does not benefit directly and that those that benefit the most are large businesses that have managed to aggrandise themselves via the poorly regulated sale of individual quotas over many years. Small-scale fisherfolk and non-sector vessels are left to fish from the pool that accounts for just 4% of opportunities. In addition, those big businesses that benefit the most by their control of quota also benefit from the free management of the resource via central and local government funding of the MMO, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Natural England and the inshore fisheries and conservation authorities. It is also clear that big businesses are best placed to make representations and influence policy in a way that a single-handed inshore fisherman simply cannot.”
“The partial ban on destructive dredging and bottom trawling in MPAs has been a success, and I hope it will be extended to a complete ban once the due process and consultation have taken place. I wish the Minister and his team well in the upcoming negotiations. If he binds himself to the mast of science and turns an Odysseus-like ear to the siren voices urging him to allow greater quota, I cannot promise him popularity, but he would become a unique and respected first voice for common sense and a sustainable future for our industry. First-hand sales of UK-landed seafood were over £1 billion in 2022, as my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes said. That is a good reminder that wild-capture seafood is a national resource.”
“I am sorry if I have given the hon. Gentleman the impression that I think fishing communities would be against this; I do not think that. That is precisely why I welcome the remarks of my hon. Friends the Members for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes and for South East Cornwall about the importance of consultation. Look at a case such as Lyme Bay: it was the local community, in consultation with the scientists, who produced the efflorescence that has taken place there. This must be done through the industry co-operating with the scientists. We should note that MPAs were designed specifically to protect the nature within them from human activity that damaged it, and that includes fishing. It should therefore not be considered a negative that those areas are being protected.”
“Only large companies can afford to recruit and invest in new entrants, and over the past decade we have seen a growing reliance on foreign crews. We have heard, and will no doubt hear more, about visa problems. Local apprenticeship courses have met with varying success, but they will not provide the numbers or the pace to replace foreign crews, let alone the fishermen who have reached retirement. When the Minister considers the successor funding scheme to the fisheries and seafood scheme, I will be grateful if he looks at what more we can do to grow our own talent and build the workforce, particularly for the small-scale fishing fleet. It cannot fund apprentices directly itself, but its members have a lifetime at sea and the knowledge to help to grow that talent.”
“I appreciate that the roll-out programme came under the last Government, but can Ministers urgently investigate what is going wrong with those systems from the user’s standpoint, and what steps the MMO can take to make things work better? Small-scale fishermen are the beating heart of so many of our coastal communities. Fishing is not a job; it is a way of life, but one where it is increasingly difficult for new entrants to be found or gain appropriate training. Many of today’s fishermen came into the industry via the youth training scheme. It provided college, a small salary and on-the-job training. Some of our country’s finest inshore skippers came via that route, but they are now close to retirement.”
“I am told that CatchApp is regularly down, and inshore vessel monitoring systems and approved suppliers are not required to provide robust support in a timely fashion, leading to lost days at sea. The stress and anxiety that those two systems are causing around the coast is palpable. The MMO warned, during the roll-out of both those systems, of the risks of pressing ahead with them before they were fully tested and, in the case of the I-VMS, that not stipulating service levels would leave fisherman at the mercy of the providers. We debated the issue in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee at the time, but the Government simply rode over it.”
“I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and I thought that his points on visas were well-made, but it is important that we put safety at the forefront. Paradoxically, the common denominator that runs through every report is that the crew involved had all attended courses and attained the required safety and training certificate. I gently suggest that it is time for the DFT and the MCA to consider their syllabuses to see whether what is being delivered leaves graduates with the practical understanding they need to transfer to their work environment. I think a review is overdue. The roll-out of CatchApp and inshore vessel monitoring to the small-scale fleet has been widely seen as a disaster by inshore fishermen.”
“Before the Minister does that, could he look at what we might learn from the American fish management plans, which are gold standard and have had the clear management objectives that, I am afraid, many of ours lack?”
“Does the Minister actually believe that the discard ban is being observed? If he has doubts about that, would he agree that ensuring there are onboard cameras and monitoring is the best way to put an end to that element of illegal fishing?”
“Key reforms must be implemented over the next year, along with enforcement. Those are the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee. Can he assure the House that he is taking those seriously and moving them forward?”
“Last July, the previous Government issued its third national adaptation plan, and this March the Climate Change Committee issued its independent assessment of NAP3. It said that it falls far short of what is needed, that it lacks the pace and ambition to address growing climate risks—which we are already experiencing—and that it fails to set out a compelling vision for what the Government’s well-adapted UK entails, with only around 40% of the short-term actions to address urgent risks identified in the previous climate change risk assessment. Will the Secretary of State ensure that the key recommendations of the Climate Change Committee in its assessment of NAP3 are implemented and that an urgent refresh of NAP3 takes place, to strengthen it and avoid locking in additional climate impacts?”
“I live in the London borough of Brent, but I am only too aware of how many families in Brent prefer to say that they have a Harrow address. Indeed, many of them have a Harrow postcode to justify their little white lie. We have seen no impact assessment of what such a boundary change might do to the value of these properties in Barnsley and Sheffield.”
“In developing the Barnsley 2030 strategy, they have worked closely with communities, businesses and organisations across all sectors and with local councillors. In the strategy, it was confidently stated that “our borough’s vision and ambitions represent everyone who has an interest in the future of Barnsley.” When it was written, that included the people in the Oughtibridge Mill development. Who are we to deny those residents access to the bold and ambitious plan that these councillors speak of? The strategy concludes: “We truly believe that together we can tell a better and shared story of our borough and we have a real opportunity to turn Barnsley into the place of possibilities.” In passing this order, we would deny those possibilities to 284 families.”
“But the River Don is not the biggest problem; there is also the A6102. Langsett Road North is a major road—in parts a four-lane highway—and runs parallel to the River Don. It is not a shared artery that binds the people on one side of a community to the people on the other; it is a road that forms a natural boundary and separates people. No doubt that double barrier was what the boundary commission was accounting for when it made its original proposal. We must not assume that some of the 284 families would not rather enjoy being residents of Barnsley council and appreciate the vision of individuals such Councillor Sir Stephen Houghton CBE, who chairs the Barnsley 2030 strategy board, and Bob Kirton, his vice-chair. Their strategy is about “celebrating and championing” the borough as it progresses to 2030 and sets out some bold ambitions.”
“Any hon. Member who has looked carefully at the map of the area will have noticed that the part of the Oughtibridge Mill development currently under the jurisdiction of Barnsley council in the Penistone East ward is not only by far the larger part of the site—I would say it is about three to four times the size of the part in the Sheffield area—but actually separated from the residential area of Oughtibridge village by not one, but two major physical barriers. The first barrier is the River Don, with only one narrow river crossing available to the whole Barnsley side of the estate. Any resident travelling from the eastern part of the development at the far end of Aspen Road who wanted to walk to the post office in Oughtibridge village would face a 1½-mile journey—a 3-mile round trip.”
“Well, of course they were not; people have not yet moved into those 284 households, so how could they have been? That is why it falls to us here in Parliament to consider what those individuals, when they move in, might wish to know. Let us look carefully at what will be at stake for those 284 families. Of course, we should be just as concerned were the draft order to affect only the current 12 families, but let us consider precisely what will divide those future families from their nearest neighbours in the other part of Oughtibridge Mill. The local authorities’ argument is that it would be more convenient administratively for them if the whole development came under Sheffield, but we ought to be more concerned with the families and what that might mean for them; the decision we take today will have a profound influence on their lives.”
“The boundary commission has the serious job of keeping our democracy relevant and connected to people, but sometimes, quite without wishing to, it can end up dividing the community and confusing future residents, all at the expense of the taxpayer. The Minister made much of the fact that the draft order would affect only 12 households, and the final recommendations of the Barnsley and Sheffield principal area boundary review say: “Our final recommendation to change the district boundary in this area currently affects 12 households”. However, the recommendations also say that that figure will rise to 284 households by the time the development has been built. That is about 800 to 1,000 people. The Minister also said that no representations were made.”
“I can only guess at why she so singularly favoured me with the appointment, but I trust that the length of the speech I am about to make will be sufficient to express to her just how appreciative I am that she allotted me this task. Inevitably, boundary changes can be controversial. Sometimes we risk separating a region from its history. I do not know whether this is an old saying or just something I have been saying for a very long time, but scratch history and you find geography. Our history is moulded by our natural environment. Each region has its own that depends entirely on the fertility of its land, its proximity to the oceans, and trade routes and its access to fresh water and natural resources such as coal or precious metals.”
“How good it is to have your guidance, Mrs Harris, for our first legislative duty of the day. Today will be a busy one for all of us, with votes on the Budget and the ramifications of the US election competing in our minds for attention. While boundary changes may seem like minor political fare in comparison, it is important that we recognise that we are dealing with the fine grain of politics. People are affected at the most local level by the decisions we make. I want to express my profound gratitude to our Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough and Rushden, for thinking of me as someone who just might be interested in the draft Barnsley and Sheffield (Boundary Change) Order 2024. I know that many colleagues would willingly have supplanted me and usurped my duties on this Sixth Delegated Legislation Committee.”
“Indeed. I am talking about the effect on the future value of these properties. Residents who have moved in under one local authority may find the value of their property affected by its suddenly being designated under another. I must stress that I respect both councils and have no doubt that they look after their populations equally well, but we should have been provided with an impact assessment to show that there are such—”
“On a point of order, Mrs Harris. A point of order was made and I believe a motion was made, but I did not hear any vote taken on the motion. I would have thought that that was the function of the Chair.”
“It highlights the obligations of all states, including the United Kingdom, to ensure that the rule of law prevails. We are all duty bound not only to act in the interests of justice and human rights, but to uphold the very principles of international law. That is the law. It is clear. It has been authoritatively stated by the court. What is not clear is whether Governments will abide by it. The law can state, the court can rule, but none of it brings about anything unless the power of enforcement lies behind it. In the UK we are very fond of saying that we respect the international court and the international rules-based order. My challenge to the Minister is this: show it.”
“Israel ought to cease its unlawful activities, halt all new settlement activity and provide full reparation for the damage caused by its wrongful acts, which includes returning land, property and assets seized since the occupation began in 1967 and allowing displaced Palestinians to return to their original places of residence. The court made it clear that other states also have obligations. It emphasised that all states are required not to recognise the illegal situation created by Israel’s actions in the occupied territories. That means that they should not engage in trade, investment or diplomatic relations that would entrench Israel’s unlawful presence. The advisory opinion is a landmark in the legal and political struggle over the fate of the Palestinian people and the integrity of international law.”
“The court ruled that Israel’s exploitation of natural resources in settled land was also unlawful. The court ruled that Israel occupied Gaza. It ruled that it occupied the west bank and East Jerusalem. It ruled that that occupation was unlawful. It ruled that the occupation must be brought to an end. That also means that, in its actions, Israel must behave not as a warring nation state against another warring state, but as an occupying force, with all the obligations that entails about its conduct, including ensuring that aid can get through to all who need it.”
“The court ruled that the occupied Palestinian territory is to be considered a single territorial unit, which means that the failure to recognise Palestine as a state is now out of step with international law. On 10 September, Palestine took its seat at the 79th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. It is not yet a full member, because it has been blocked by the United States, but it has the right to submit proposals and amendments. The Government of the UK still does not recognise the Palestinian state, and I believe that that is now incompatible with international law. The court ruled that settlements and outposts in the west bank and East Jerusalem were unlawful. It does not matter that Israeli law considers settlements to be lawful; they are not, and they should be evacuated.”
“As politicians, we talk of the international rules-based system, by which we mean the World Trade Organisation and the United Nations, but often we do so only when it suits our position. When it does not, we ignore it. That is why it is crucial that we grasp the legal implications of the decision promulgated on 19 July this year by the International Court of Justice. It settled the law in its advisory opinion on the legality of Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory. The opinion came from a request by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2022, and I believe it carries immense weight. It is the interpretation of our world’s highest court of law as it relates to the occupation of Palestine.”
“I congratulate the Minister on making his maiden address. Can he reflect on the verb that he used? He said that we have been “asking” Israel to do those three things. He then went on to elaborate that none of those three had actually been fulfilled. Is it not time to stop “asking” and to do something a little stronger?”
“On the penultimate day of the last Labour Government, the then Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, created the marine protected area around the British Indian Ocean Territory. At that time, it was the largest protected area anywhere in the world. As my right hon. Friend knows, the last time a prosecution was brought for illegal fishing in that area was in 2020, four and a half years ago, and the way in which that prosecution was conducted meant that a £10,000 fine—a mere slap on the wrist—was levied against the vessel. Such vessels take hundreds of thousands of pounds of fish out of that marine protected area. Who is going to pay? How committed are the Government to ensuring that that marine protected area continues to exist, and how will they ensure that the minimal level of protection that is currently in place is increased?”
“Can the Secretary of State confirm that CCUS will be used not simply to allow the continued extraction of fossil fuel for our power sector, but only for the hardest-to-abate heavy industries and for the production of green hydrogen, thereby keeping domestic fuel bills low and delivering on this Government’s commitment to decarbonise our power sector by 2030 through much cheaper renewables and nuclear, not more expensive gas with CCUS? Finally, may I caution him against swallowing too much of the hype around blue hydrogen?”
“I had rather hoped that my right hon. Friend was going to start his statement by saying, “As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted—”. I have waited so long to hear a Secretary of State make such announcements from the Dispatch Box, and I am delighted. However, my right hon. Friend knows that carbon capture technologies reduce the energy intensity of fossil fuels by up to 25%, which makes such electricity much more expensive than that produced from renewables.”
“It is troubling that many owners, who, according to the Act, are responsible for fire safety in these blocks, are seeking to establish themselves in foreign jurisdictions, often in tax havens. How can the Government take action to ensure that those who are responsible—often those who were responsible for the defects in the first place—and who are now seeking to evade jurisdiction in this country, can be brought to justice? Will the Government have to appropriate these buildings to do the remediation work that is so badly needed, and not at residents’ expense?”
“On regulation, my hon. Friend will know that Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s report made very strong statements about the difficulty of reconciling the role of maintaining standards with the competitive environment. It was when building control ceased to be the responsibility solely of local authorities and became privatised building control functions that things started to go wrong. What action will my hon. Friend and the Government take to ensure that one set of standards is applied in one particular way and is not subject to trading? Saying “We will give you a shortcut if you come to us” is what went on, but it is wrong and needs to stop.”
“Many of the owners of these blocks have sold on to further owners, and to further owners beyond that. The Prime Minister spoke about subcontracting, but there has also been on-selling. Some of those owners live in tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands, and they are simply not complying. They are not even applying to the building safety fund to get this remediation work done. Will my right hon. and learned Friend consider very carefully what powers the Government can take in order to take control of these buildings, get the work done and then recover the costs, if necessary by acquiring and selling the buildings themselves?”
“I do not think I have ever heard my right hon. and learned Friend speak more powerfully, more personally or more movingly than he did in this statement. I know that the more than 20,000 residents in my constituency who are still living in high-rise blocks with the nightmare of fire risk constantly upon them will welcome what he said about the Government taking a consistent and measured view of the recommendations, and moving to implement them systematically. They will also welcome what he said about the prosecution of those responsible for what Sir Martin called “systematic dishonesty” and “deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes”. I reinforce what the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) said about remediation.”
“My hon. Friend, very importantly, mentioned the role that carbon capture, usage and storage has to play in the decarbonisation of our economy. I am sure he will have seen the latest National Audit Office report on CCUS and will therefore be aware that the Department has increased its reliance on CCUS substantially since this was first mooted. The NAO is clear in its report that uncertainty remains about the funding available for future stages of the CCUS project proposals; that the previous Government were behind in agreeing support for track 1; and that future progress on the programme is dependent on reaching financial investment decisions for at least some of the track 1 projects very swiftly. Will he give us an update—if not now, at some point later—on how this essential part of the programme will be handled?”
“The right hon. Lady said that Members should not quote only from sources that they feel are friendly to them, so I will not quote from the International Energy Association, but perhaps she might accept a quote from the World Economic Forum, which stated: “Renewables are now significantly undercutting fossil fuels as the world’s cheapest source of energy”, according to its report.”
“The hon. Lady is being generous in giving way. On the issue of undergrounding power lines, although that may in some cases be necessary for communities, does she not accept, given that it is 10 times the cost, that it is possible to screen the power lines and, in doing so, create biodiversity corridors that can connect biodiversity from one part of the country to another, so that biodiversity can cope with climate change?”
“The UK Government originally committed to publishing the NBSAP in March and then May, but I am glad that they did not, because the change of Government should have afforded officials in the Department time to radically revise the draft. It was intended by Conservative Ministers to be merely a restatement of what the UK was already doing, not the urgent and transformative action plan that is required to deliver on the four goals of the GBF.”
“It set in place four goals: to halt human-induced species extinction, to use biodiversity sustainably, to share its benefits equitably, and to implement the finance of $700 billion a year necessary to achieve the first three goals. It also agreed 23 vital targets, including the 30 by 30 target to conserve and protect 30% of the planet’s land, seas and inland waterways by 2030, and the reduction of perverse subsidies by $500 billion a year. Talk is cheap. Targets are easy to set, but difficult to implement and even more difficult to police and enforce. That is why every country needs a plan—specifically, a national biodiversity strategy and action plan, or NBSAP. Revised NBSAPs must be submitted in advance of COP16 in Colombia this year.”
“If the CBD was established 40 years ago, why on earth is our biodiversity in the state that it is? The most comprehensive report ever compiled on biodiversity and ecosystem services by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services told the United Nations: “Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history—and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating”, and that the impacts for people around the world are grave. We have not made the progress that we need to. The CBD set important goals and targets to halt this frightening state of decline. I pay tribute to the Canadian Government who, at short notice, hosted COP15 and established the global biodiversity framework.”
“In simple terms, that is what the convention on biological diversity has sought to do since it opened for signatures at the Earth summit in Rio in 1992. It has been ratified by every member state of the United Nations, with the appalling exception of the United States of America. Its aims are the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the use of genetic resources. It has two supplementary agreements: the Cartagena protocol, adopted in 2000, which seeks to protect biological diversity from the potential risks posed by living modified organisms created by modern biotechnological practices, and the 2014 Nagoya protocol, which aims to share the benefits arising from the utilisation of genetic resources in a fair and equitable way.”
“A decline in insect populations can affect the yield of our crops. We use nature because it is valuable; we abuse nature because it is free. Because classical economics treats the services that nature provides as externalities, it fails to properly represent either the non-market benefits of ecosystems or the environmental costs of growth. More than a decade ago, I gave a speech at the Berlin summit on natural capital. I said then that the time when the Earth could support human communities without difficulty was coming to an end. The truth is that it has ended. We live in an age of planetary boundaries and tipping points. Natural capital has been eroded to such an extent that the complex mechanism of ecosystem services that nature provides has been compromised, and we now need to repair and restore the Earth’s ability to support us.”
“Her enthusiasm for her brief, and for all that we hope this Government will deliver for the environment, was an inspiration to the dozens of MPs and campaigners who crowded into what was, I am afraid, a much too small room on a very hot evening. Nature is the source of life. It is the foundation of everything we have and everything we value, yet some economists talk as if the natural world is a subset of the economic one—something to be accounted for separately. In fact, the opposite is true: the economists’ world is a subset of the natural world. When did we last receive an invoice for pollination services from a bee? When did the forest last invoice us for its flood protection? However, a decline in our forest cover can affect everything from our food security to the destruction of our homes.”
“May I add my voice to the concatenation across this House welcoming you to your new role, Madam Deputy Speaker? I also welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry East (Mary Creagh) back to this House. I am delighted to see her at the Dispatch Box as the Minister for nature. She was a most distinguished Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, and I look forward to supporting her and our Government in championing nature in this critical decade for the natural world. I thank her for joining, just a day and a half into her new post, the meeting of the international conservation caucus, which I chaired in Parliament on Tuesday.”
“As we make good on those promises, we can proudly resume the global leadership role that so many around the globe are urging us to take by hosting COP17. By doing so, we will become even better placed in the future. We often think that rights are things that apply only to people. That is not true. Companies have rights. Trusts and institutions have rights—rights safeguarded by their guardians and trustees. At the heart of the convention on biological diversity is the idea that nature has rights, and we are but the guardians and trustees of those rights. I am confident that the Minister will be an exceptional guardian for nature, and I look forward to her response.”
“COP17 will take place mid-way through the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework—possibly the most important moment for taking stock of progress towards 2030, and a chance to work in partnership with all 196 countries that are party to the CBD to ensure that we are moving at the necessary speed and scale to meet our 2030 goals. The Government were proudly elected on a promise to ratify the global ocean treaty, improve access to nature, expand nature-rich habitats such as wetlands and peat bogs, take steps to clean UK waters, meet UK Environment Act targets, and improve animal welfare by banning trail hunting and the import of hunting trophies. We should be proud of that ambition.”
“Although it is important that business recognises the value of ecosystem services, it must appreciate that it is far cheaper to prevent environmental damage than to repair it afterwards. That is why it is important that the Government make it mandatory for companies to report against the Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures. London is the centre of the green bond market. It is the right place and this is the right Government to mobilise the financial flows on which the sustainability of our planet depends.”
“This is not just an environmental problem, but an economic and a security problem. I have another reason for wishing that the Prime Minister would go to Cali. I hope he will announce that the UK is willing to host the next CBD COP—COP17—in London in 2026. The fourth goal that was set in Montreal at COP15 was the goal of finance and resource mobilisation. Where better to make progress on the financial framework for delivering our 2030 and 2050 targets than the City of London—the world’s financial centre? Governments cannot do everything on their own. The role of the private sector in mobilising the resource of business and industry is vital. I refer the Minister to the “Financing Nature” report produced by Henk Paulson, the former US Treasury Secretary. He talks of the “clear and compelling economic case” for financing nature conservation.”
“That brings me to the question of who in Government will be attending COP16. I know the Prime Minister and other senior Ministers have been invited. What an amazing signal it would send to the rest of the world that the UK is back, seriously engaged on the international stage with the most critical threats facing our planet, if the Prime Minister were to lead our UK delegation and if not only the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs were to attend, but the Foreign Secretary. The CBD has sometimes been seen as the Cinderella COP to the Climate Change Convention. In truth, they are twin crises in which each turbocharges the other. The loss of biodiversity will deplete all of the provisioning resources and ecosystem services on which human life depends.”
“Framework target 22 aims at ensuring the full, equitable and inclusive representation and participation of indigenous peoples and local communities in decision-making processes that are related to biodiversity, and it aims to foster inclusive, participatory and rights-based approaches to conservation. I am extremely grateful to the Colombian ambassador, who joined us on Tuesday evening and spoke movingly about the need to ensure that those peoples who have, for eons, been the guardians of so much of the planet’s biological diversity should not find that their traditional knowledge is commercialised for others’ gain as they are left impoverished, their territories polluted, and their way of life stolen from them. I hope the Minister will make space in her diary at the COP to meet the leaders of those communities in Cali.”