Jeremy Corbyn
MP for Islington North · Your Party · United Kingdom
“In two minutes, I will do my best, Sir Desmond. I am proud to represent a very small urban area of Britain in which, over the years, we have managed to increase the number of parks and open spaces.”
“I grew up in a country area where we had a competition over who heard the first cuckoo in spring. It is that sort of change in understanding that we have to bring about if we are to win this debate on biodiversity and sustainability on our planet. The Government are pledged to the 30by30 target for the oceans.”
“We have to address the wider issue, which is the pollution emanating from our towns, cities and industries into our rivers and the water companies that do not deal with it. I have 13 seconds left, so I will simply say this: it is great that the House has come back to this issue and that so many Members want to speak today.”
“I congratulate the right hon. Member on becoming Prime Minister and on his stamina at taking questions for already even longer than the longest world cup match. He has said some helpful and useful things about housing, particularly on rough sleeping.”
“Surely the obvious answer is to bring in some kind of ceiling—a rent control of some sort—to the sector, and immediately look at not postponing the rise in the local housing allowance, but to bring real relief to people who are desperately up against it and subsidising their rent out of their benefits.”
“When the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) introduced the debate, he quite rightly drew attention to the huge work done by our constituency and parliamentary staff. It is right that we should thank them on this occasion and also thank all the parliamentary staff for what they do.”
The complete record
Every one of 8,612 lines we hold for Jeremy Corbyn, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 12 of 173.
“Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said earlier, if the Government do not deliver on improving living standards for the very poorest in our society and deliver on improving the public services that everybody relies on, then the alternative is a turn towards the far right in politics, who will simply blame migrants, refugees or any handy minority for the problems that people face. We need something concrete that sets out a strong message about how we will improve living standards and make for a fairer society. A good start would be ending the two-child benefit cap immediately. It would cost £1.3 billion, take 250,000 children out of poverty instantly, and be a signal that we are serious. The idea of a commission to look at poverty is no doubt very welcome.”
“I congratulate all Labour MPs who have been elected and congratulate the Government on taking office, but I think people should be a little bit careful. The total vote for Labour was lower in this election than it was in the last two general elections. A number of independents like me were elected, and there was an increase in Green MPs, an increase in Plaid Cymru MPs and an increase in Sinn Féin MPs from Northern Ireland. There are levels of discontent in our society that were reflected in the election result. We ought to reflect on that. People in this election were totally fed up with falling living standards, increasing levels of poverty, increasing levels of homelessness, and higher levels of mental health stress and deep unease among many people in all our communities. As the right hon.”
“It is a great pleasure to be able to take part in this debate. I congratulate the new Members on their maiden speeches. I put on record my deep thanks to all the people of the Islington North constituency for voting for me in the election to be an independent MP. Fighting as an independent was an interesting experience after fighting 10 elections as a Labour candidate. It is a very different experience. You have to have a deep and very honest conversation with everybody on every doorstep as to why you are doing it. I am grateful to the people for their response and for their confidence in me to be their Member of Parliament. I put on record my thanks to them. This election showed an enormous parliamentary majority for the Labour party.”
“I am indebted to the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) for obtaining today’s urgent question, and she is correct to say that policy should be based on fairness, dignity and respect. In dealing with cases, I find that those with mental health conditions, including sporadic mental health conditions, are often unfairly sanctioned, go through much deeper stress and sometimes end up in desperate poverty as a result. In advance of the inquiry, could the Minister tell us what the Department is doing to ensure that the sanctions regime against people with disabilities, particularly those with mental health conditions, operates in a much more respectful and inclusive manner that helps them to deal with the horrible problems they are trying to cope with?”
“Does it not concern the Secretary of State that we are spending a great deal of money because of the private sector, which is an undermining factor in the NHS? The NHS paid £11 million to the private health sector in 2022, and many hospitals are spending 15% of their budgets on private finance initiative contracts. Does she not think that we could save an awful lot of money by concentrating on expanding the NHS workforce? Their loyalty, dedication and efficiency are far better and far greater than the atomisation of our services into myriad private sector providers. It is cheaper and more efficient to provide the service publicly, thus providing a better service for everyone.”
“It would be a step towards reducing pollution in our oceans, and an opportunity to say thank you to the many environmental groups, including Greenpeace, that have done so much campaigning to make sure that the law comes about, and against pollution going into our oceans from our privatised water companies, which pour far too much sewage into the sea. Can the Leader of the House give us some hope that legislation will be passed quickly during the wash-up, to hasten progress on protecting the world’s oceans?”
“I take this opportunity to wish you well for the future, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I raise with the Leader of the House the issue of the global ocean treaty? The papers to ensure ratification of that treaty, which would bring about the protection of 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030, were laid before Parliament a year ago. The treaty is supported by all parties in the House, obviously including the Government, and the legislation could go through very quickly in the wash-up. That would allow us to join other nations that have ratified the treaty, and help to bring it into international law.”
“Could the Deputy Foreign Secretary tell us in specific terms what military flights are taking off from Akrotiri to Israel? Are the Israel Defence Forces using Akrotiri? Are the US forces using Akrotiri? What is the nature of the overflying of Gaza by the RAF? Is surveillance information being sent to the IDF in response to that? In short, what is the military relationship between Britain and Israel at the present time?”
“I have read the evidence given to the right hon. Member’s Committee, which was taken in April this year. If the Government agreed that they had to accept responsibility for this issue and to go forward with it, how quickly could we start to see the highly justified compensation being paid to these women?”
“There is an opportunity to resolve this, and it could be resolved with a statement from the Government today undertaking that, by 18 July, when I understand the summer recess starts, they will put forward a proposal for a simple compensation scheme based on a formula, as the Chair of Work and Pensions Committee set out, to ensure that compensation can be speedily paid. If compensation was individualised, we would clearly have to deal with several million individual cases, which would take a very long time. What we need is justice, and it is up to this Parliament to deliver that justice for women who worked so hard to deliver the services from which we have all benefited. We owe it to them, and we can do it now.”
“They believe that they did the right thing, and they believe that the Government and the DWP have done the wrong thing by them. Rebecca Hilsenrath answered question 51 of the Work and Pensions Committee’s evidence session, on whether information should have been made better available, which obviously it should have been, by saying that services should be “user-focused”. She thought that the information system was poor, and that the advertising of it was poor. Clearly many very well informed people were not aware of the dangerous situation they were moving into with their own personal finances.”
“In the case of the problems that have recently come before us—the injustice of the mineworkers’ pension scheme, the injustice of freezing the pension rate for overseas pensioners, the Horizon scandal, and the enormous question of the contaminated blood scandal—we are here to resolve those problems and secure justice for people who have suffered a grotesque injustice. People look to Parliament to achieve that. We have the report, the information and the knowledge. We understand the injustice that has been done, the poverty that many people have been forced into and the insult when a person in their 60s finds that they cannot access their pension and is told by a DWP job adviser to take an apprenticeship, which is ludicrous. They know full well that they are not going to get it. Those people feel a sense of hurt.”
“That would have been expensive but, as I tried to explain in my interview with Andrew Neil, it would only have redressed an injustice. It would not have been throwing Government money around willy-nilly. Treating people properly is a moral issue. Many would say that Parliament is now confronted with a problem not of its own making, and that it has to do something to try to resolve the issue. Well, we are always confronted with problems not of our own making. We do not make problems— [ Interruption. ] Well, I hope we do not make problems, but we have to deal with them.”
“I was very impressed by the Work and Pensions Committee’s evidence session on 7 May. I was impressed by the campaign’s detail, by the evidence it presented and by the commendable speed with which it responded to the Committee and to the all-party parliamentary group on state pension inequality for women, chaired by the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey). We need to thank the campaign for its work. The WASPI women came up during the last two general election campaigns, and let us be absolutely clear that my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and I committed that an incoming Labour Government would have dealt with this issue, compensated the WASPI women and accepted that a grotesque injustice had been done.”
“We should pay tribute to all of them for the incredible work that they have put into drawing attention to this grotesque injustice over many years. They deserve to know that they will get an answer that will give them some comfort and hope. In the last decade, only three or four ombudsman’s reports have gone to Parliament because the Government have refused to acknowledge or accept them. The whole principle of the ombudsman is that it is an independent, non-political office that makes recommendations on the basis of the evidence it has collected. It went to a great deal of trouble to collect evidence and chose a sample of cases to give a holistic view on the situation, so the very least we can do is expect that the Government will undertake to act on the report.”
“This has been a timely and very powerful debate. We have heard some incredible contributions from many Members, who have shared first-hand knowledge of their constituents and the way they have been treated. I was very moved by what was said by the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) about the couple in his constituency who have basically lost everything because of this whole sorry saga. Some 3.8 million women have been affected by this issue, and many have now died—possibly over 270,000. This debate would not be happening if it was not for the bravery of the WASPI women campaigners over many years. I have always been impressed by their verve and the demands that they bring to any occasion, and by their dressing appropriately in suffragette colours—one cannot miss them at any event or meeting anywhere.”
“When the Minister replies, I hope he will say what we are also doing about the breakdown of any form of law or process in the Congo to try to protect women and children from the violence, and what demands we are making of the mineral companies—in this country, Switzerland, China and elsewhere—that are buying minerals knowing they have been produced in the most appalling circumstances. The victims are women who have no means of protecting themselves—no defence whatsoever—so rape has become a pandemic of violence against women in the DRC. I hope we can reflect that in the policies we pursue.”
“The international mining companies wash their hands of this and pretend that they are buying the vital minerals from responsible sources. They are not; they are buying them second hand from the exploited children and others who have suffered in the Congo. We have to put this issue in the wider context of insecurity there. We are very proud in Islington to have a councillor who comes from the Congo, Michelline Safi-Ngongo. She just sent me a message—it is quite long, so I will not read it all—saying, “Loss of income and high food insecurity can lead to spiking violence, abuse”. She goes on to say that the high incidence of abuse reflects the gender inequality and poverty of so many people in the DRC.”
“I want to put on record that, having on several occasions visited the DRC, I have never forgotten arriving in Goma after a very complicated journey by road from Kigali. It was almost dark, and we went to a women’s centre—by that time, it was completely dark—and the audience waiting for our small delegation were 300 or 400 women, all of whom had been victims of rape. They wanted some degree of closure on the horror of their experience, if that is possible, and some degree of international recognition of the horrors they were going through, where the armed groups routinely used rape as a weapon of war. Behind the violence is the thirst for minerals in the Congo, the search for cobalt and coltan, and the use of child labour, as well as the exploitation of women, in doing that.”
“The UN Population Fund says that between 2021 and 2022, there was a 91% rise in reports of gender-based violence in North Kivu province, and its mobile clinic reports on the number of people it is trying to assist who are victims of that violence. The situation is unbelievably appalling. A report by the TG Foundation in a study by the American Journal of Public Health, published in June 2011, stated that 48 women were raped per hour in the Congo, which would mean that since the start of the war with Rwanda, an estimated 12.5 million Congolese women have been raped. The report goes on to demand action by international Governments over the behaviour of the Congolese Government, armed forces and armed groups, and over the relationship between Rwanda, the Congolese Government and the mineral companies.”
“Of these, 59 per cent were committed by armed groups…Almost half of these violations and abuses were committed in the North Kivu province…The UN Joint Human Rights Office has documented 156 people who were summarily executed at the hands of the M23. M23 was also found to have sexually abused 30 women and 12 children”. Amnesty International goes on to report that 38,000 cases of sexual violence were reported in North Kivu during the first quarter of 2023—that is in the first three months of last year. In May 2023, Doctors Without Borders said that levels of sexual violence in internally displaced camps around Goma reached an unprecedented “catastrophic scale”.”
“He said: “I fear that the enjoyment of human rights in the country has come to a grinding halt...The absence of State authority over large swathes of territory has also cleared the way for brutal levels of violence and attacks. The insecurity is being fuelled by a seemingly impassable mountain of challenges: from large-scale corruption, to the unbridled race between multiple parties to take control and exploit the country’s wealth of natural resources, to ongoing violent land disputes...Between 1 October 2023 and 15 March 2024, the UN Joint Human Rights Office documented 2,110 human rights violations and abuses throughout DRC.”
“Member for Washington and Sunderland West pointed out the levels of conflict around the world and the prevalence of sexual violence, particularly against women and children, in all wars going on at the present time, including those in Yemen and Ukraine, and in other conflicts going back, such as Vietnam. It is sadly not a new situation, but it is one that we have to address and do everything we can about. I will particularly refer to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I have many constituents from there and they have often talked to me about it. In the few minutes I have, I will quote from the report on the DRC given by Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, at the Human Rights Council only a couple of months ago on 4 March.”
“I am pleased that we are having this debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing it, and on the way she introduced it by talking about the horrors of violence against women on 7 October in Israel, and the violence against women and children going on in the continuing conflict in Gaza and in other parts of the world. As the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) quite correctly pointed out, the time to investigate, if possible, is while the conflict is going on. We should at least preserve evidence during a conflict so far as that is possible, but that is never particularly easy. In her opening lines, the hon.”
“I am pleased that the hon. Lady mentioned that issue. The reality is that 7 million people in the Congo have been displaced. The world’s media barely recognise that—it barely registers on their scale—but it is probably the greatest abuse of human rights anywhere in the world at present.”
“The hon. Member has obviously done detailed research; did he have a chance to meet the Polisario, and has he visited the refugee camps in Algeria?”
“UN representatives have tried hard over many years to get agreement on what an electoral roll would look like and who can vote on the future of Western Sahara—for example, the people in the refugee camps in Tindouf and the Western Sahara diaspora, as well as the Sahrawi people in Western Sahara itself. I hope that the UK Government will recognise the importance of international law in that respect and recognise the right of the people of Western Sahara to decide their own future. The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham effectively is, effectively, denying the Sahrawi people any rights whatever. He is saying that the occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco on the departure of Spain should just be accepted as a done deal.”
“The United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara was established to ensure that there was a peaceful future for the people of Western Sahara. There has been conflict in the past, and there is a danger that it will return. The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham referred in his speech to issues surrounding Northern Ireland and to other issues. Surely, the way to avoid a conflict in the future is to look at the heart of the issue and to deal with it in a peaceful way, which is where the referendum comes in. The referendum has not happened.”
“The choice has now come down to the three options that have been put, which I will come back to in a moment: independence, autonomy or incorporation within Morocco. We must recognise that if we just say, as the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham appears to be saying, that Morocco’s illegal occupation of Western Sahara should now be confirmed and condoned and we should trade with Morocco absolutely normally, as though nothing had happened in Western Sahara, we are failing in our duties under international law. The issue was taken to the International Court of Justice in the 1970s, and an advisory opinion was issued requiring a referendum for the people of Western Sahara. That referendum has never taken place.”
“I have had the good fortune to visit the refugee camps in Algeria on two occasions and to visit the part of Western Sahara that is controlled by the Sahrawi people—a small part of it—near the border with Mauritania. I have also visited the occupied territories and Morocco, and met many shades of opinion, both within the Polisario and within Morocco itself. I have done my best to take a view on the situation based on its history. Western Sahara was occupied by Spain; it was a Spanish colony. On the return of democracy to Spain in the 1970s, Spain withdrew from Western Sahara. The United Nations General Assembly requested that, as part of a process of decolonisation, the people of Western Sahara—the Sahrawi people—should have the opportunity to decide their own future; they should have a choice they could make.”
“I thank the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) for securing the debate. We should also put on the record our thanks to the Library for a very good briefing on the situation of the Western Sahara. I listened carefully to what the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham had to say. It is unfortunate that the first 21 minutes of his speech were taken up by talking about Morocco and he barely mentioned the issue of the legality of Morocco’s occupation of the Western Sahara. That is the subject of the debate and the area we should be talking about. I first raised the issue of the occupation of the Western Sahara in this House in 1984.”
“That right can be supressed and wished away, but the desire for recognition and self-determination of the Sahrawi people, as with peoples all around the world, will not go away.”
“Morocco’s trade with Europe, its developing solar economy, the proposal for building an underground train tunnel to Spain and all those sorts of things are great and very welcome—many things in Morocco are extremely welcome and very good—but that does not take away the fundamental point that the occupation of Western Sahara on the departure of Spain remains illegal, and we should not be trading in goods produced in illegally occupied territories. That argument goes on all around the world. What I hope comes out of this debate is a statement by our Government that we will continue to respect international law, engage with Morocco and Polisario and engage assertively with the United Nations to ensure that this long-running conflict can be brought to a conclusion by giving the Sahrawi people a fundamental right to decide their own future.”
“Surely, the position we should adopt as a member of the United Nations and the Security Council is to support the General Assembly decision, the Security Council’s continued appointment of MINURSO, and the Secretary-General’s appointee to try to bring about a process for the future. The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham seems to be using the Morocco’s huge economic advances as a reason for overriding international law in respect of Western Sahara. I respectfully say to him that the two things are not connected.”
“What I am saying is that international law should come first, so the decision by Donald Trump, when he was President of the United States, to recognise Moroccan occupation, which few other countries have done, is a backward step for international law. It will obviously make a lot of people—particularly Sahrawi people—extremely angry, because they see in it no right of representation for themselves. My argument is that the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion was in terms of a process of decolonisation. The issue has been taken to the UN Special Committee on Decolonisation in New York, and I was there myself on that occasion, speaking about exactly this issue.”
“It is in the interests of Morrocco to ensure that there is a proper settlement and not to allow the commercial interests of phosphate mining, the agricultural sector or those who wish to occupy Western Sahara at the expense of the Sahrawi people to take centre stage in policymaking, when our policymaking should be decided by the issues of decolonisation and law.”
“I have visited those camps on three occasions, and I have met many people there who are sad that they have been driven out of their own homes and cannot return. They are doing their best to make a life there, but people stuck in a refugee camp for decades and decades—generations of them—get very angry. Look at the Palestinian people in refugee camps in countries around Israel; they get very angry. The way to deal with their anger is to look at the issue of the justice that has been denied.”
“I have listened to the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham speak on many occasions in the Chagos islands (British Indian Ocean Territory) all-party parliamentary group about the need for the Chagossian people to have a right to decide their own future. That issue is not for debate today but, in law, the Chagos islands are part of Mauritius that is decolonisation law that has been enacted. Let us be consistent about this issue and ensure that we, as a Parliament representing a country that was one of the founding members of the United Nations and that set up many of these international institutions, stand by them and abide by them, and give the Sahrawi people the chance to decide their own future. The camps in Algeria have been there for a very long time.”
“The hon. Member will be aware, I am sure, that the African Union has always taken the position that Western Sahara is an issue of decolonisation, and it was on that basis that Morocco left the African Union.”
“When the Minister gave a statement to the House, he said that the Government had extended the hand of friendship to those fleeing persecution and oppression. Is he aware that a considerable number of people who are in Calais, or who have crossed the channel and tried to get to this country, are victims of human rights abuse, environmental disaster and wars, some of which this country has been involved in, such as in Afghanistan? His answer is to demonise them and to try to force them to go to Rwanda. Should he not think for a moment of a sense of humanity about people in a desperate situation, through no fault of their own, looking for a place of safety in a country that was involved in the war in Afghanistan in the first place?”
“Some 34,000 people are already dead in Gaza, many are dying now in Rafah from wholly preventable conditions such as measles because of a lack of sanitation and medical care, and the Israeli bombardment is still going on. That is the biggest problem for getting aid in. What pressure is the Minister putting on the Israeli Government to cease the bombardment of Gaza, to ensure the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and to ensure that we will not be deploying British troops anywhere on the on the ground in Gaza, the west bank or any other part of the region and that instead we will search for peace and for justice for the people of Palestine?”
“I hope that we will play our part in reducing the pollution to the sea from our own sources, and put pressure on other countries that are producing ludicrous amounts of plastic with no thought given to the damage it does to the ocean and to future fish quality and supplies. The hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) made the point about the regulation of international waters—by agreement, obviously—because overfishing in one place has an effect on the loss of food supply for migratory birds or larger sea mammals. That causes an upset to the natural balance and we all pay a price. Let us agree today to get this treaty ratified as quickly as possible, so that we are playing our part in delivering sustainability and clean oceans.”
“It is paying shareholders with its debts and polluting our seas and rivers at the same time, so we need to be a bit sharper with all the water companies on the levels of pollution that are caused. I know that the Front Benchers want to speak, and I do not want to go on too long, so I will just say that it is an attitude of mind about the ocean that is important—that if we throw something in the sea, it does not disappear. In fact, it goes somewhere, it causes pollution and it causes damage which eventually comes back to bite us. I absolutely support the treaty and think it is a huge step forward. I hope that we can get it ratified quickly to help the speed of global ratification.”
“That means that we need a much tougher attitude towards dumping stuff in the ocean. We must also look at the pollution that we create in the oceans around our shores. A phenomenal amount of sewage waste flows into our rivers every year because of the inadequacy of the sewage treatment system and the lack of investment in it by many water companies. It is not just about the obvious unpleasantness of seeing solid waste in the oceans around our shores. A lot of the chemicals flushed down the toilet or put down drains and so on from industrial processes and elsewhere are not treated. That, too, adds to the pollution and poisoning of our oceans, so we need to be much tougher on water company regulation. For example, Thames Water has made a huge profit from its water distribution, but it has run up massive debts of £14 billion.”
“I am not sure that it is possible to have a completely plastic-free life, but a lot of the plastics that we use are completely unnecessary and end up being discarded and wasted. As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) pointed out, we can look at a beach and think that it is beautiful and pristine, but once we start sifting through the sand—we do not have to sift very far—we find bits of plastic waste. That plastic waste is ingested by fish and then eaten by those who eat fish. Having this level of plastic waste is self-poisoning, so we need very tough regulation. We also need tough regulation on what ships dump in the ocean. Cruise liners and other sea-going vessels are pretty bad culprits. They think that because they are out of sight of land, they can tip anything they want into the ocean and get away with it.”
“There will be enormous pressure from mining companies and others who want to do seabed mining, just as there is pressure from some in the fishing industry who have a voracious appetite for deep-bed trawling, which ruins coral, ruins biodiversity and destroys the ocean almost for all time. It is about regulation in the whole of the oceans, as well as in the areas that we are seeking to protect. Many hon. Members talked about plastic pollution, which is clearly very serious. The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) made the important point that plastic production is rising rapidly all around the world. It is probably rising more rapidly in southern countries than in western Europe or the United States, where there is some degree of regulation.”
“I am pleased that we have the massive marine protection zone around the Falkland Islands and south from there, but also around Diego Garcia and the Chagos Islands, which has now been adopted by Mauritius, as a continuation of the British initiative. In addition to the 30% target, we should think more about general attitudes towards the ocean. Obviously, water flows from one place to another, so we can protect one area from mining, overfishing and so on, but unless we have a similar attitude towards the rest of the ocean then, clearly, fish stocks and ocean biodiversity will be severely damaged. The efforts of deep-sea mining companies will come back.”
“Indeed, the whole attitude towards the marine environment has changed dramatically, certainly during my time in the House. I remember the massive controversy about an Antarctic mining Bill in the late 1980s. It was eventually defeated and withdrawn by the Government, and replaced by full support for the Antarctic treaty. Later, we got the protection of the Southern ocean as a whaling-free zone, and then as a fishing-free zone, so we got the principle of large-scale protection for the Southern ocean. That has meant that the whale population has begun to recover quite quickly. Our participation in the International Whaling Commission also helped to achieve that. Marine protection zones, and other zones that protect all species, are very important. Some 10% of all marine species are under threat at the present time.”
“I apologise for my phone going off while the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) was speaking. I did not wish to interrupt his speech. I strongly support the ratification of the treaty. I follow the right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) in hoping that that can be sped up in Government processes so that we can pass legislation before the general election, perhaps in the wash-up period. It is clearly not controversial between parties and it could be done. I see the Minister nodding sagely; she obviously wants to do the same thing but cannot say so, so I will say it for her: I hope that we can get this legislation done as quickly as possible. There is widespread support for the treaty among the members of the public who are aware of environmental issues.”
“The Member is making a very important and excellent point about care leavers. Does he agree that one of the problems is that on reaching the age of 18 they are deemed to be able to be independent but they have no support network in the way other young people of 18 often do, and therefore while they are getting housing support they might not be getting the necessary emotional and advice support that all other 18-year-olds get and benefit from? There is therefore a need for some sort of arrangement to ensure there is a continued level of support well after the age of 18, if the individual young person actually wants that.”