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.”
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“I am glad that the Queen’s Speech includes references to mental health, because we have to recognise the mental health crisis that we face, the stigma attached to people who go through a mental health crisis, and the very long delays to get any kind of talking therapy, which means that too often people in a crisis resort to suppressant drugs rather than the necessary talking therapies and support. It is also about changing the attitudes that everyone has towards mental health and mental illness, and supporting people to get through such crises. I am proud to represent an inner-city constituency, Islington North, and I am proud of its strength and diversity and the way in which the communities come together. But I am not proud of the housing conditions in which so many people, particularly those in the private sector, currently live.”
“The Queen’s Speech includes references to the care service; I am not exactly sure what the Government’s plans are, but no doubt we will hear them soon. We have to treat social care as if it is part of the NHS, with the same principle of universal access to care when it is needed and decent pay and conditions for care workers. That has not been delivered by the plethora of private sector organisations and companies that have been delivering the service; it would and could be much better delivered by local authorities and the public sector as a whole.”
“Surely the way out of this pandemic now has to be to recognise that we live in a deeply unequal society and that many people do not achieve their full potential because of the poverty in which they live, the bad housing in which they live and the inadequate training that they get. Surely the way out is through investment in public services, in infrastructure and in sustainable—in economic as well as environmental terms—industries and jobs. That means legislation, which should be in the Queen’s Speech but I am not sure is there, to end the disgraceful practice of fire and rehire. Many companies are firing a whole workforce and then reinstating them on lower pay and with worse conditions. What a disgraceful way to treat loyal, long-serving workers. This is also about those who deliver care.”
“Post-covid Britain has demonstrated a number of things. One is the fantastic sense of community solidarity that exists all over the country, where so many people have joined in mutual aid groups and done so much to support each other and to look after fellow citizens who are using food banks in unprecedented numbers. It has demonstrated the levels of poverty that existed in Britain before covid, which have now become much worse as many people’s income has been cut by 20% on furlough and many sadly are looking at job losses in the future. The pandemic has also exposed the mental health crisis that affected Britain before covid and is now much worse. It has demonstrated the value of public sector workers, cleaners and delivery workers and the fantastic work that they have done to keep us safe and get through this crisis.”
“I compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) on her tireless work on behalf of her constituent and other dual nationals held in Iran. It is disgraceful that they are still held. It is disgraceful that Nazanin has had another sentence imposed on her, and she ought to be released. In the many negotiations that are no doubt taking place with the Iranian Government, what other issues are raised by Iran? Is the issue of financial dealings between Britain and Iran in the past raised? What other discussions does the Minister propose to have with Iran in order to secure the early release of all the dual nationals?”
“Instead, should we not give a message to the covid-dominated world that we are committed to bringing good, decent water and healthcare around the world as our absolute priority to bring about security for the whole planet?”
“The Minister says that Britain has a huge commitment to the poorest around the world. If we do, this is a strange way of showing it: we are cutting aid budgets while at the same time increasing arms expenditure. More than 2 billion people around the world have no access to safe, clean water. Many more have even less access to sewerage or any other kind of facilities. For many around the world, security is something to eat, clean water, a health service and the ability to have their children educated. What kind of message to the world is it that we cut aid expenditure while at the same time we increase the defence budget by £24 billion and massively increase the number of nuclear warheads?”
“The last thing I shall say in the few seconds I have left is that instead of reducing the numbers of uniformed servicepeople, as we are, we should be looking at their pay, conditions and treatment over the past 10 years and recognising the enormous work that they have done in peacekeeping operations, as others have pointed out, as well as dealing with crises such as the Ebola outbreak in west Africa, where they performed heroically. Surely real strategic thinking is about making the world a more peaceful and safer place.”
“Surely we need a strategic approach that deals with those issues—one that protects us from cyber-attacks, obviously, and ensures that we look at the causes of war and that we do not cut overseas aid expenditure but instead increase it, where appropriate, to improve developments around the world and cut down on the enormous gap between the world’s richest and poorest. Because the motor behind the conflicts of the past 30 years has often been human rights abuses, political instability and a fight for resources all around the world.”
“Surely we ought to be joining the rest of the world in seeking a global ban of all nuclear weapons, rather than this huge expenditure on weapons that everyone obviously hopes will never be used and that, in effect, do not provide us with any credible form of defence on the real security issues that we face at present. The coronavirus crisis has shown us how dangerous this world is when it comes to contagious diseases and when it is so divided by the poverty of the majority of the populations of the planet against the minority—and, of course, environmental disaster is coming down the line.”
“Contrary to what the previous speaker has just said, there is an increase in the number of nuclear warheads, which will go up to 260. That is contrary to our obligations under article 6 of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, originally conceived by the Labour Government of the 1960s. As one of the declared nuclear weapons states, we are required to take steps towards nuclear disarmament. The Government are proposing to move in absolutely the opposite direction—not just by increasing the capacity, the number of warheads and their firepower, but apparently by changing the strategic basis on which they may be deployed. They seem to be moving away from the “no first use” concept towards using them as a threat—or rather, when they believe there is a threat that has to be met.”
“This is an important and obviously very timely debate—timely because of the Government’s review of security needs for the future, and because of the vote in the other place last night on the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill. The Government were defeated over issues of ensuring that our political system, our Ministry of Defence, are held to account when allegations of serious offences such as torture or genocide are made against any British forces. We should never put ourselves above the law and should surely support international law, which is what all Governments have said they absolutely do. The review that has just taken place seems to miss out a number of very important things. But the headline figure was the one about nuclear weapons.”
“Increasing arms expenditure and arms sales will not bring about that more peaceful world. I want to record my thanks to the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for her thoughtfulness in introducing this debate and for her excellent early-day motion. She has made a great contribution to the House today.”
“Our armed forces have enormous skills to protect us from cyber-security attacks, but we also need to ensure that those skills are used to bring about a more peaceful world. Lastly, there is now a real danger of an even worse conflict developing in Myanmar, where there has been a coup to take over the Government and where the army is now in charge. Surely we must do everything we can to bring about a political solution for all the people of Myanmar, including the Rohingya people who have been forced into exile in Bangladesh, so that we can make our contribution to bringing about a much more peaceful world. Surely the crisis of the environment, of human rights and of refugees around the world ought to be the big signal that, post covid, the world needs to work together to conquer disease, poverty and inequality.”
“However, if the rhetoric from Government is always about ratcheting up a cold war with China, ratcheting up a cold war with Russia and pouring more arms into every area of conflict around the world, that will not bring us peace, and our armed forces could be put in harm’s way. To follow what the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) said, I have met some of our armed forces who saved lives in the Mediterranean by pulling refugees out of the sea off the coast of Libya who were in danger of drowning while they were seeking a place of safety, or helped people dealing with the Ebola crisis, and they told me it was the most useful thing they had ever done.”
“There are major issues around the world: a war in Yemen, a war in Afghanistan—albeit relatively low level—and the huge number of arms sales that we make to Saudi Arabia and other countries, which actually contribute to those conflicts. I would hope that we could have a more thoughtful approach to the longer term. I have no truck with human rights abuses anywhere in the world, be they in China, in Russia, in Saudi Arabia or anywhere else. Our contribution ought always to be arguing for the UN universal declaration and for human rights-based foreign policy. That, surely, would help to bring about peace in the future.”
“Yet instead of fulfilling our obligations under the NPT, we are proposing to produce even more nuclear weapons in this country. That will not make us safer, it is illegal within the terms of the NPT, and we ought to be leading the way towards a nuclear-free world by co-operating with the UN proposals, and with other countries. The third area of great insecurity is the number of refugees around the world. There are 70 million refugees who are products of environmental disaster, of wars, and of human rights abuses. They demand somewhere to live; they demand the right to contribute to our world. Instead of using threats against them, we should recognise the problems that have led them to seek refuge in the first place.”
“We are not going to reach net zero by 2050 at the current rate of affairs, yet we need to reach net zero by 2030. The opportunities coming up for us to contribute to this are numerous. One is COP26 later this year, at which we need not just to set an example of our activities in this country—where, yes, we are generating more electricity from renewable sources—but to go a lot further. We also have to ensure that we do not export pollution by importing goods made from polluting sources. COP26 is a huge opportunity that we must not miss to reach net zero by 2030, if at all possible, and to ensure that the technology to achieve that is universally shared. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference and the UN proposals on a global ban on nuclear weapons are also coming up.”
“We should be looking at human development in the future and how our overseas aid expenditure can help that; how a fairer trading system could reduce tensions around the world and raise living standards; and how we can deal with the food distribution crisis around the world that results in so many people living in hunger. We must also look at the human rights crisis in many parts of the world in which women’s rights, children’s rights and the rights to free speech and assembly are denied. Those, too, are drivers of injustice and inequality. The other factor in global affairs has to be the overwhelming need for us to take the present issues of environmental disaster and climate change very seriously. The rate of global warming is not slowing—it is increasing.”
“Indeed, our Ministry of Defence recognises that as well, because it has a department dealing with issues surrounding human security. However, we then have to look at the reality of the world as it is at the present time. Broadly speaking, western countries have a fairly high standard of living, albeit with massive inconsistencies and inequalities, but other countries, mainly in the global south, have less access to health care, almost no access in some cases to free education and shorter life expectancy. Surely those factors are major drivers of world insecurity and the conflicts we presently have.”
“This debate is very valuable and important. It should have been held before the Government launched their review of this country’s security arrangements and before their statements about future levels of expenditure on overseas aid and defence. We put defence expenditure up by £24 billion and cut overseas aid expenditure, which surely gives a very bad message to the rest of the world. Issues of real security need to be addressed in a fundamental way. What is security? Security for a human being is the ability to be able to live peacefully, to eat, to be educated, to have health care for them and their children, and to live a full and fulfilling life. That is surely something that we all want for ourselves. The UN recognises it is an important benchmark for human development.”
“We need instead an approach that increases statutory sick pay and universal credit, guarantees decent housing and recognises the fact that those refugees and migrants without access to public funds also need to be protected. Our liberties are at stake under this Act. Why on earth could the Government not at least review section 21 on the powers of the police to prevent protest and demonstration? We need to live in a free society in which people can express their wishes. That surely is the very least we can expect from this Parliament and this Government. That is why I will not be supporting this legislation when we are invited to vote on it later today.”
“They did not take seriously what the World Health Organisation was telling them in January last year, 15 months ago, and their levels of incompetence over the provision of PPE and their handing out of massive contracts to the private sector for the failed track and trace do not inspire confidence. We say well done to the scientists who have developed the vaccines and to those administering the vaccine programme as we speak, but why are the patents for these vaccines going to continue to be held by the private sector when the public have invested so much in them? Why are the poorest people in the poorest parts of the world not getting any access to these vaccines at all? We should review this situation. It has brought out the best and worst in our society. Healthcare workers and others are now rewarded with a pay cut as a result of this.”
“But if you are a family with three or four children living in a one or two-bedroom flat with no balcony, no open space, insufficient computer access and insufficient income because of the coronavirus crisis, it is a very different story indeed. They are the children underachieving in school and the people going through a mental health crisis and, sadly, that has led to an increase in domestic violence. I have raised these matters before during debates and questions on this. Overall, the Government’s record through the pandemic has been lamentable.”
“My local authority, Islington Council, my local hospital, the Whittington Hospital, and others have performed wonders during the past year in supporting people through this desperately difficult time. Volunteers, through mutual aid groups, have done fantastic work. They have organised and run food banks very efficiently, provided mental health support and supported our NHS workers. They are the very best of our society. The effects of lockdown are not even across the whole country, however. If you live in a good-quality suburban house with a garden and plenty of space, working at home is difficult but it is not the end of the world. If you have space for your children to study, it is okay but not great, because they ought to be in school. We understand that.”
“A year ago, the House gave the Government unprecedented powers to curtail and limit economic activity and our normal liberties, and placed huge responsibilities on our public services to deliver us from the dangers of the pandemic. A year later, we are not properly scrutinising this legislation. We are not apparently debating any amendments to it, and we have been given a take-it -or-leave-it approach by the Government, which is unacceptable in any democracy. Earlier this week, the renowned human rights group Liberty produced a very good document that suggested a better, alternative way of approaching this, and my great friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) introduced it earlier this week as a Bill in this House. I represent a densely populated inner-urban constituency.”
“I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement. I am glad that this Government and others are now taking seriously the treatment of Uyghur people and the violation of their human rights. Will he tell us what action is being taken over the historic profits made by British companies from manufacturing in that part of China? By the same token, will he undertake that the UN requests about the treatment of those being discriminated against—such as the Dalit peoples in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh—will also be included in the advice given to British companies, so that we do not profit from the abuse of human rights in any country around the world? If we do, we put ourselves in further violation of the universal declaration of human rights.”
“Indeed, most of the British media have barely reported on it. In the few seconds I have left, I would like to quote Sabina Inderjit, the general secretary of the Indian Journalists Union, who concluded: “Our brief view of the prevailing situation: Democracy in India is in danger. Its fourth estate is badly bruised and battered. Over the past five years, the country’s independent and free press, which has aided India to gloat of being a vibrant democracy, is being systematically and ruthlessly attacked like never before.” We should listen to Sabina Inderjit.”
“However, the nature of the way in which the protesters—the strikers—have been attacked in Delhi is unprecedented, as has been the reaction of the Indian Government to the way in which the media have responded: internet access has been closed down, media access has been prevented, and mobile phone access has been limited. The media have been prevented from getting their message out to the wider world. Last week, a number of colleagues now participating in this debate, including my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), had a meeting with representatives of the National Union of Journalists. On behalf of their colleagues in India, they told us how concerned they were about the way in which Indian journalists have been prevented from reporting on this issue.”
“For all those hundreds of thousands of protesters in Delhi, many more have joined in, and when a national call was made for a strike, 250 million people took part in it—the biggest ever industrial dispute in the history of this planet—so we should think about why those people are protesting. They are protesting because they are predominantly small farmers on less than 5 acres, many of them very poor. Over 22,000 have committed suicide in the past few years as a result of the stress they are under. It is as if globalisation has been forced upon them, and they do not want it, so this debate is about the media reporting, and it is about the views that people take on this issue all over the world. When a protest takes place, as the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) pointed out, there are often complaints.”
“Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) on securing the debate, and on the excellent way in which he introduced the subject today. The fact that over 100,000 people have signed a petition in support of Indian farmers shows the strength of feeling in the Indian diaspora, as well as in the rest of the communities all across this country. From clothing workers in Leicester to shopkeepers in London and elsewhere, many people in the diaspora have signed a petition to ensure that this debate takes place, because of the unprecedented nature of the demonstrations in Delhi and because of the unprecedented nature of the support for those taking part.”
“Does the Minister realise that there is a sense of the most enormous anger all across the country? Nurses have seen us through this crisis and have saved many lives, yet they are offered a pay cut as a result of it. Some are already having to resort to food banks to survive, and a third are thinking of leaving the profession unless they get a decent pay rise. Surely to goodness, if £37 billion can be found to pay Serco for a failed track and trace system, the money must be available to pay NHS staff properly. You cannot clap for them, and cut their pay at the same time. Surely we should just pay them properly, so that we can have a national health service that we can all be proud of and all rely on for all time in the future.”
“Towards the end of his speech, the Chancellor managed to provide a great deal of greenwash for his proposals. Of course, we all support a green industrial revolution. It was central to Labour’s manifesto at the last election, but where is the commitment to net zero emissions by 2030? Where is the commitment on protection of biodiversity to protect us all for the future? This Budget is such a lost opportunity. At the end of it, our society will be more divided than it is at the present time, there will be greater stress and uncertainty in so many people’s lives because of this Budget. We can, should and must do much better than this.”
“Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington before the last election, in which he pointed out that he wanted to move jobs to the north and ensure that the increase in public spending that we were proposing would help people across the north. The Chancellor made a big deal of about 750 jobs going to Darlington. Sadly, all that is cancelled out by the huge number of job losses in transport authorities across the north of England, particularly in Greater Manchester and Merseyside City Region. That is because the Government have not provided them with the funding package to support transport systems that they have in London and other places. This degree of unfairness between the north and the south will continue, and the degree of unfairness between the richest and poorest in our society will increase under this Budget.”
“I hope, by contrast, that the Government will recognise that not increasing statutory sick pay while at the same time doing nothing about tax evasion and tax avoidance says it all about Tory priorities. Statutory sick pay is £95 per week. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care himself said he could not live on that; I do not think that any Member would want to try to live on that, so why are we expecting anybody else in our society to do so? It has to be increased, and we need a guarantee of at least the £20 rise in universal credit, which at the moment is still a temporary measure. The Chancellor had obviously read quite a lot of the proposals made by my right hon.”
“I hope that the Chancellor will recognise that we need a proper funding formula for local services across the country, and not just claps for the NHS, the care service and delivery workers, but actual pay increases to recognise the massive contribution that they are making to our society. The Budget said a great deal about corporation tax and other business taxes, but it did not say very much about tax evasion or tax avoidance. From the Government’s statements, they propose to raise around £2.2 billion between now and 2025—in the next four years—from tax avoidance and tax evasion, yet the real figure is that something over £30 billion a year is lost to our public services through tax avoidance and tax evasion. If the Government were serious, they would have included measures in the Budget to deal with tax avoidance and tax evasion.”
“Millions of public sector workers have contributed so much to dealing with the covid pandemic. Those working in our national health service, our care services and our local government have made super-human efforts to try to help people get through a desperate time, helping people through the mental health crisis and so much else. Their reward is going to be frozen pay and, for those working in local government, a continued underfunding of local government services. For pretty well everyone across the country, there will be a 5% rise in council tax, as local councils desperately try to balance the books and deal with the increased demands on their services because of the covid pandemic.”
“There are many people in work at the moment who are being threatened with fire and rehire, and there are companies trying to dismiss the whole workforce and rehire them on lower wages and with worse working conditions. British Gas and British Airways tried it on, and so many other companies are trying to do the same thing. Where is the protection for people’s living standards and jobs in this Budget? Sadly, it is desperately missing. On public sector pay, many are going to be hit by the pay freeze and by a stealth income tax rise through the freezing of the tax allowance. I remind the Chancellor that a previous Government—a Labour Government in the 1970s—came a cropper on that one when the Rooker-Wise amendment was passed to prevent the Chancellor from the freezing the tax-free allowance.”
“I point out to him that the scheme includes no floor and that 80% of minimum wage is a lot less than the money people need to live on. It was my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) who proposed a year ago that we should have a furlough scheme. He sent substantial papers to the Treasury in order to bring that about. Sadly, I do not believe that the Chancellor read all of them. The scheme proposed by my right hon. Friend would have guaranteed everybody’s income and jobs, it would have had a floor, and it would have gone on to protect people’s conditions and wages, as well as those of people in all aspects of self-employment, including in the artistic sector.”
“I am delighted to be able to speak in this Budget debate, but sadly this Budget does not reflect the reality of people’s lives. Just this morning I have come from a local food bank where people were queuing up to try to get enough food to get by. They are people who thought they would always be okay and have enough money to live on, but they do not and they therefore rely on food banks. To the tens of thousands of people who have volunteered in mutual aid groups all over the country, I think we should say a huge thank you. They have contributed, in a way that the Government have not, to the lives of so many people who would be in such great difficulty if those food banks were not there. The Chancellor talks about extending the furlough scheme and protecting people on those wages.”
“We should be a party to ending the war, not promoting the war.”
“The crisis in Yemen is wholly human made. Thousands have died as a result of the war, thousands of children have lost homes and lost schools, and poverty and starvation are the order of the day. Britain’s record in this is appalling. Throughout this whole conflict, we have armed Saudi Arabia knowing full well that those missiles are killing people in Yemen, and at the same time claiming to be the harbingers of peace by organising a resolution at the United Nations. Will the Minister make it very clear that all arms sales to Saudi Arabia will stop and that Britain will be a determined partner in trying to bring about a peace process through a ceasefire as quickly as possible and to build good relations with all countries in the region? Too many people have died. The conflict has gone on too long and it simply has to stop.”
“Will the Secretary of State commit this Government to building the council houses that are necessary all over the country?”
“2020 saw the deaths of 976 rough sleepers on the streets of this country. That is a scandal, as indeed is any rough sleeping. Will the Secretary of State look with more care at the reasons why people are sleeping rough, including unfair evictions in the private sector and inappropriate use of the “intentionally homeless” rules? Regarding those who are temporarily housed in hostels, does he understand the stress they feel from not knowing what the future will bring? A hostel is a roof over their head on a temporary basis; what we need is investment—big investment now—in council housing, so that move-on accommodation can give people a secure, permanent roof over their head. The best way of achieving that is through the construction of lifetime tenancy council housing at social rents.”
“I ask the Prime Minister to do two things: will he end this scandalous privatisation of our NHS, which is happening before our very eyes; and will he replace the Health Secretary with somebody who will stand by and obey the law and publish in advance all contracts that are due to be let, so that the public can see how their money is being spent?”
“My constituents are seeking explanations. Most of them have lost income, many have lost their jobs and all are facing varying degrees of stress, ranging from the very severe to concern about their lives. Many local small businesses have closed for good because they see no future and they are not getting the support that they need. Yet, Mr Speaker, answers are required from the Prime Minister: how £10.5 billion of NHS contracts were awarded without tender; how a further 99% of all NHS contracts were awarded, again, without tender; and how, last week, the High Court found that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care had not acted legally in the awarding of those contracts.”
“The global network of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament shows the importance of it. When the non-proliferation treaty comes up for review, let us make a positive contribution and a real effort to bring about a world free of nuclear weapons in the future. Let us concentrate on human rights, poverty and the issues that face us, because that will ultimately make us more secure.”
“That means that the priority for all of us should be looking at the issues that face the world—refugees, global poverty, environmental disaster and, of course, trade supplies and food chains for the future; we are a trading nation, and we need to be sure that we can still trade and buy things from elsewhere. We have a very big job on our hands, and I hope the review takes all those issues on board. The last thing I would like to say in the few seconds I have left is quite simply this. The threat of a nuclear war has now been downgraded to tier 2. The treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons—the global ban—has been supported and signed by 86 nations and ratified by 52. Opinion polls show 59% support in this country for signing it.”
“If we are to have a rational review of what we are to achieve in the future, we must surely look at the issues facing the security of the planet, which obviously means our own security at the same time. One of those issues is global inequality. The gap between the richest and the poorest was, at the best times, beginning to close, but because of the economic slowdown due to the coronavirus, it is likely to get wider and wider. More people will be short of food, and more people will be leading insecure lives, and that will be the driver of the terrorists and threats of tomorrow. Later this year, COP26 will meet in Glasgow, where I hope we will come to an agreement that we will get to net zero by 2030.”
“The covid pandemic has shown just how dangerous this world is and just how dangerous the threat of another pandemic is, which is now seen as a tier 1 threat. The Government were advised in 2008 of the need to prioritise preparations for dealing with a global pandemic. The shortages of personal protective equipment and everything else show that they absolutely did not do that. The introduction to that report quite rightly says, on page 3, that we should look at the “drivers” of conflict. The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and now Yemen have led to an unprecedented number of refugees around the world. Some 65 million people—fellow citizens of this planet—have no home of their own and no secure place to live. They want to contribute to the world’s future.”