Alex Sobel
MP for Leeds Central and Headingley · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“North Yorkshire council’s planning committee rejected the Burniston site that the hon. Lady has mentioned not just on seismicity grounds, but because of issues of groundwater pollution, traffic and a whole range of other issues.”
“I know of constituents who have moved from Israel to Leeds because of the actions of the Israeli Government, and who applaud what we have done in banning Israeli settlement goods and services. Many of us stand squarely behind international law and human rights, and commend the Minister and the Foreign Secretary for their actions.”
“The clearest example of such a capability is recursive self-improvement—the full automation of AI development with no humans in the loop. That is the point where we lose control as development towards superintelligent AI proceeds too fast for humans to intervene and remain in control.”
“Domestic legislation can protect us from the risk of superintelligent development at home, but it cannot by itself address the risks posed by superintelligent programs abroad. A global program necessitates a global solution.”
“From there, the AI systems conducted a cyber-attack on the AI company Hugging Face to steal the information that would help it cheat on the test that OpenAI had set it. To put it simply, the AI systems went rogue and launched an unprecedented attack just to cheat on a test.”
“It is a power that the Government should already have. But even kill switches will not be enough if the development of superintelligent AI continues. Let me be very clear: AI is the crucial technology of the 21st century, promising vast benefits for science, medicine and the UK’s prosperity, but superintelligent AI is different.”
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“I accept that the hon. Gentleman has great experience in farming, but did he read the analysis by Professor Andy Summers of the London School of Economics, which shows that the £1 million relief is on top of the £1 million couples allowance? The benchmark is really £200 million farms, and the average estate value is lower, so only about 200 estates will be affected a year. In this case, only a small number of UK farmers will be affected, and it is not the armageddon for farms that the Conservatives are claiming.”
“What is wrong with the German economy? The German economy has consistently performed well over the past 30 years, in excess of our economy, and has a strong industrial strategy. This Government are going to produce an industrial strategy so that we can have just as strong an economy as Germany, and a similar tax base.”
“It was great to hear the Chancellor recommit to that mass transit yesterday, and that West Yorkshire will receive part of the integrated settlement to deliver that. We have only had a mayor in West Yorkshire since 2021, but I understand from a letter that she has received that West Yorkshire will be included in the integrated settlement in 2026, two years ahead of schedule if we look at previous integrated settlements that have been announced and the length of time that those authorities have had a mayor. That shows the exemplary leadership that we have in West Yorkshire at parliamentary level, at local council level and, most of all, at mayoral level with Tracy Brabin. West Yorkshire is ready to deliver in transport, in health, in education and in all areas.”
“Some have to travel many miles to be able to get the education that they deserve. The £1 billion funding promise yesterday, which is 6% above inflation, will hopefully provide a new school, or schools, in Leeds for SEN children, with new teachers and I will no longer have to knock on doors and meet parents saying, “My child is not going to school, because there is not an appropriate place in our city”. Finally, let me turn to devolution. I am sure that you will agree, Madam Deputy Speaker, that devolution has been a success in West Yorkshire. We have seen our bus fares capped at £2, and I know that the mayor is committed to keeping that going. We have also had a huge increase in lifelong learning and the skills agenda. None the less, Leeds is still the largest city in Europe without mass transit.”
“I hope the Chancellor, or a Treasury Minister —I see that there are a couple on the Front Bench—will meet me and the poet laureate, who has made this centre his passion project, to ensure that this centre adds to our national cultural life. The British Library in the North is situated in my neighbouring constituency of Leeds South, just a few hundred yards from my own constituency, and it received very similar news. I hope that we can meet the relevant Ministers in both the Treasury and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to ensure that these projects do not flounder under the false promises of the previous Government. Like many other colleagues, I am also pleased about the funding commitment for special educational needs. I meet so many parents who cannot even find a place in an appropriate school for their SEN children.”
“I urge my constituency neighbour, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Health and Social Care Secretary to ensure that the Leeds hospitals of the future project is given the priority that it deserves in the upcoming review of the new hospital programme. Leeds is ready to go. We have the approval, the plans and the commitment. We just need the green light to get on with it. My constituency is a significant cultural centre. Earlier this year, under the previous Government, Michael Gove committed £5 million to the National Poetry Centre, but, unfortunately, it was £5 million that he did not have. The centre will be sited by the University of Leeds in my constituency. Yesterday, we received the news that the £5 million of funding was under review, subject to consultation.”
“For every £1 invested, there will be a return of £12 in public benefit—both to the NHS and the taxpayer. That is real efficiency and real productivity in public services. Leeds is ready to deliver. The trust has already secured outline business case approval and planning consent, and has completed significant enabling works. The new hospital will be a net zero carbon building, designed to meet the highest standards of sustainability and digital innovation. This will not only improve the quality of care, but set a national benchmark for environmentally friendly and efficient healthcare infrastructure.”
“Maintenance of such an old estate is an enormous financial strain, with backlog maintenance costs now exceeding £630 million. The previous Government’s delays in the new hospital programme have already added an extra £300 million in costs to the trust. These challenges are not just financial; they directly impact our ability to deliver care to the people of Leeds. I have been to the Portland building and seen that three floors are shut. I know that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has also visited the site. What is going on is not acceptable. The hospitals of the future project will create the Leeds innovation village, delivering £13 billion in economic benefit and creating more than 4,000 jobs—delivering part of the vision that Lord Darzi had.”
“I am particularly grateful to hear confirmation that the Health Secretary will be providing further details of the new hospital programme in the new year. With that in mind, I would like to make a strong case for the prioritisation of the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust’s hospitals of the future project. Leeds is home to one of the largest and busiest acute trusts in the country, treating more than 1.6 million patients each year. The trust includes one of the largest centres for children and young people in the country, which cares for over 250,000 children annually and supports the birth of more than 8,000 babies. Despite the progress made by the trust, it faces significant operational challenges because of outdated infrastructure. Some parts of the Leeds General Infirmary in my constituency date back to the Victorian era.”
“I hope that by the end of this Parliament, we will be closing food banks and food pantries because people will no longer need them, and we will not be having to open new ones. There is nothing more foundational to this country than the national health service. I thank the Chancellor—my neighbour—for her continued focus on the NHS, a service that means so much to everyone in this country. The £1 billion capital investment to address the backlog of repairs and upgrades to outdated NHS infrastructure is a crucial step forward. I also want to acknowledge the £1.5 billion in capital funding that will be focused on increasing capacity in our health service, through new hospitals, surgical hubs, diagnostic tests and diagnostic centres.”
“It has been a pleasure to listen to so many excellent maiden speeches this afternoon from new colleagues on the Government Benches. I am looking forward to hearing the remainder of the maiden speeches to be made by our fabulous new intake to this Parliament. This Budget was about fixing the foundations, and we should take a moment to think about that word “foundations”. It was not about fixing the country or the economy, but fixing the foundations, so what underpins our country is broken. In Leeds, prior to 2010, there was one food bank and no food pantries in a city of 800,000 people. In my constituency, which is one of eight constituencies in the city, our food banks and food pantries are now in double figures. That represents an economic failure that we will fix.”
“We have heard from students that access to a rent guarantor is often a determining factor in their ability to continue their degree, or even access a university education in the first place. Everyone deserves the opportunity to succeed in their academic journey without the added stress of housing insecurity. The Government have the opportunity, through this Bill, to break down a major barrier to all students’ right to pursue higher education. I hope that they will work with me on this.”
“We have heard stories of students paying months of rent, only to find out that they have been scammed, and that the place they thought they’d secured does not even exist.” It is for those reasons that I would like the Government to consider banning landlords from demanding either UK rent guarantors or huge up-front payments, and perhaps limiting deposits to just three months’ rent. I would also like them to end the pressure for joint tenancies to be signed too early in the academic year, so that students need not commit to accommodation before they are ready, creating artificial panic in the market. Ultimately, we must remove barriers for care leavers, students and international students.”
“Information from the National Union of Students shows that two in five students have considered dropping out because of the cost of rent. When we are trying to encourage people to attend our world-leading institutions, which strengthen the skills potential of our country’s workforce, why do we put up so many barriers? Our universities are the UK’s strongest source of soft power. International students in particular are left with nothing but bad choices: they must either find a UK guarantor or pay six months’ rent, or more, up front to their landlord. As one student told the all-party group for students: “International students often face more challenges than home students.”
“I am a PhD student receiving the UKRI minimum stipend…The cost of living for food and rent alone is already difficult on this stipend, and, during the final week before the stipend is paid each month, I often struggle to maintain a healthy and balanced diet due to financial strain.” Research conducted by students from the Centre for Homelessness Impact found that just 36% of universities provide help with rent guarantors, that even fewer provide a rent guarantor service for students, and that, as universities themselves are facing extreme financial difficulties, such a service will become ever more unlikely. Renting as a student is already an uphill struggle. We know, for example, that student accommodation prices have increased by 61% since 2012.”
“Students in my constituency have told me of landlords asking them not just for a UK guarantor—the criterion for which is that the guarantor must own a UK property—but for deposits of up to 100% of annual rent. Such requirements disproportionately affect working-class students, care leavers, and those estranged from their families—groups that are already more vulnerable to poorer economic, educational and health outcomes. International students, too, face significant challenges, as most do not have family members with property in the UK. As one of my constituents, an international postgraduate student at Leeds University, told me: “My only viable option was using the guarantor service ‘Housing Hand’, which costs me an additional £50 a month on top of rent.”
“The Renters’ Rights Bill will bring much-needed security and safety to renters. I praise the Minister for Housing and Planning and the Secretary of State for bringing forward the Bill, which is much stronger than the previous Government’s Bill. As the MP for a constituency with one of the largest private rented housing sectors in the UK—it has 17,740 private rental properties, the majority of which are rented to students—I want to use the debate to highlight problems faced by student renters, both in my constituency and across the country. Students are shouldering the burden of 14 years of Tory mismanagement of our economy. The dual housing and cost of living crisis is being compounded by landlords making it increasingly difficult for many students to secure housing. This leaves many in increasingly precarious situations.”
“Today is a day of mourning for all those who lost family members on 7 October and those hostages in the tunnels lost since then, and for all those civilians in Gaza, the west bank and now in Lebanon. Like the Prime Minister, I have been meeting hostage families all this past year. The only time hostages got released was when there was a hostage-prisoner deal on 22 November last year and some 150 prisoners and 50 hostages were released. Has the Prime Ministers spoken to the Israeli Government about another deal to allow the hostages to be released through swapping them with political prisoners held in Israeli jails?”
“I welcome my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and his team to their places. I have discussed with many of them the chronic human rights situation in West Papua over many years. In 2019, President Widodo invited the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit West Papua, but that visit has not yet taken place. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that such a visit takes place, with both the Indonesian Government and the United Nations?”
“Science, technology, engineering and maths subjects are really important—I am a former community scientist—but we cannot neglect the issues around creative education, I am pleased that we will carry on with the creative GCSE, and I hope that we will see a huge uplift in the uptake of arts, sports and creative subjects in our schools and around the education system. That is my hope for enriching our country and our curriculum.”
“I hope we can see new funding for community coaching and equipment, especially in sports that are widely played at grassroots, but less so at elite level in the UK, such as basketball. Music education is also a vital area. We know how much music enriches people’s lives, but if they do not have the means to buy the equipment and to get music tuition, it is impossible to access music, to progress and to enjoy all that musical entertainment and education provides. We need to offer that in our schools and give that additional enrichment. Therefore, I hope to see an uplift in provision of music teaching, improving access so that families can afford the high costs of many instruments.”
“Sport is also crucial to the health of our nation and saves the NHS £1 billion a year by preventing disease and improving wellbeing through participation in community sport. We are seeing a crisis in the number of people who have active lifestyles, and that starts with schools and education. I am heartened to know that the Secretary of State understands that and is protecting sport time. I hope that will mean that we can reach the target of 60 minutes of physical activity a day for all young people. I welcome the approach my right hon. Friend is taking. We cannot just tell young people about the benefits of sport and celebrate successful athletes, although I love the Olympics and professional sports. We also need to reimagine—as Labour is doing—the role that sport plays in people’s lives and have it at the heart of decision making.”
“Leeds will have enough A-level places, but there is a huge shortage of places for alternative qualifications. That is causing a number of problems for our young people, who, through no fault of their own, are on waiting lists for technical, level 1 and level 2 courses and are therefore officially not in education, employment or training. That is adding to our skills gap and undermining the Government’s growth target. My view is that the greatest single challenge for our growth and energy missions is not investment or tax, but skills. I look forward not only to the new growth and skills levy, but to a strategy for creating the post-16 vocational places that we so desperately need.”
“Having access to arts subjects allows people to develop a strong sense of identity and transferable social skills, and to build a strong base of friendship and community. Children who have been pushed to the fringes are celebrated rather than punished. I am so pleased that Labour plans to commission an urgent, expert-led review into curriculum and assessment, and I hope that will mean a broader, more inclusive curriculum. MAP is mainly funded by commercial activities, which is not sustainable; we must ensure that alternative provision that focuses on creative education receives funding similar to mainstream provision. I invite the Minister and the Secretary of State to visit MAP with me in Leeds. The issues around provision are not limited to 11 to 16-year-olds. By September, 2,500 more 16 to 19 places will be needed in Leeds.”
“They can see that they could make a career from pursuing something creative and are introduced to a range of role models relevant to their lives, who they would not have met without attending MAP. For young people who are struggling to fit in with our mainstream education system, that can be life changing and the effects on society overall are immense. If we can reduce school exclusion rates by providing meaningful creative alternatives, we will be able to reduce youth violence, young people will be less involved in crime, and some of the strains on child and adolescent mental health services and other mental health services will be lessened. When I visited MAP, staff told me of the confidence that attending provision such as MAP can instil in students.”
“It is great to see another former Leeds city councillor in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. The value that sports and arts have in people’s lives cannot be overstated and, in this speech, I want to talk about their importance in education. The sad reality is there are significantly fewer access points for people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, who have a disability or who are black or from other minority groups in to sports and the arts. My constituency is home to a very special organisation called MAP, which stands for Music & Arts Production. It is an alternative provision offering access to creative subjects for young people aged 11 to 16. Students gain qualifications in art, design and music as well as in functional skills, and are welcomed into a creative community.”
“The Deputy Foreign Secretary enjoyed referencing Mr Gantz a number of times. Mr Gantz has set out his conditions for the end of the war and a “day after”. In response, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s spokesperson said: “The conditions set by Benny Gantz are empty words whose meaning is clear: an end to the war and…establishing a Palestinian state.” It is very clear now that Prime Minister Netanyahu wants a forever war and is opposed to a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. What are the UK Government saying to Prime Minister Netanyahu to ensure that he understands where we and the international community stand on this issue—as do many Israelis, including members of his own Government? What action is being taken against Ben Gvir, Smotrich and the Prime Minister of Israel, who are clearly trying to prolong the war in Gaza?”
“Finally, we need the resolve and long-term commitment to support Ukraine; not just to see this as something that happened two years ago and is slowly sliding off the agenda.”
“The biggest difference that could be made to see a swift conclusion to the war and no more Russian troops on Ukrainian territory is in air superiority. The Ukrainians are losing the war because, owing to the Russians’ air superiority, they cannot defend their troops on the ground. We have done a good job in training the first tranche of pilots from Ukraine, and now other countries are also training them, but they need the planes now. We had a setback following the election in Slovakia—we were about to see planes go, and subsequently they have not. We need other countries, and particularly the United States, to supply F-16s. We also need both variants of the Storm Shadow missile made in the UK to go to Ukraine, not just the export variant, which the hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) expertly spoke about earlier.”
“A large proportion of the money raised by the Disasters Emergency Committee from the goodness of the British people has been spent outside Ukraine, because it has been deemed too difficult to spend it inside Ukraine. However, there are small aid charities, such as those that we have been working with, which are willing and able to spend money in Ukraine but have no supply of funding. We need to open up the books of all the charities. DEC will open up the books only for the money that it has collected, not for each individual organisation. We need to see more money being spent in Ukraine. We have €300 billion sitting in Euroclear. We need to see that money not just frozen, but seized and then utilised for that war effort. Then we will see a change in the front.”
“That is an issue not just for the United Kingdom but, as I said, for the whole of Europe and North America and the rest of the democratic world. We need to ensure that we are doing everything. I will finish shortly, because I know that others want to speak, but I want to make a few points. It is still not that easy for humanitarian aid to flow across the UK border and EU borders into Ukraine. We are still seeing issues with people from Ukraine gaining visas to travel here. It is not acceptable that people have to travel to Warsaw to get a visa. We need consular services. If they cannot be provided in Kyiv, they should be provided in Lviv. We also need to look at how the funding that we have raised has been spent from end to end.”
“The sacrifices I have seen—towns and villages destroyed; schools obliterated; men without legs or arms who still want to contribute to their country’s war effort. We cannot abandon those people. They did not ask for this situation; it has been meted out to them by a violent, brutal autocrat. I will not call him a dictator—I am not sure whether we are quite there yet—but the last Russian presidential election was not legitimate; it was a stolen election. We are now in a situation where we are a bit weak minded —I agree with the right hon. Member for Gainsborough on that—and Putin’s mind is like a ball of steel. He will stop at nothing. We need to take that same attitude and stop at nothing. He will back down only if he sees strength; he will not back down on weakness.”
“It is estimated that the Russians are expending 10,000 to 15,000 artillery shells a day, while at the beginning of the war that figure was over 50,000, so they have depleted their reserves and are just using their current production. It is inconceivable that 30 or so countries in Europe and North America could not match that level of production if we went on to a war production footing. I had not intended to talk so much about military production. I had intended to talk about how it has been my honour to be the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Ukraine since December 2022. In that time, I have organised three humanitarian aid convoys to Ukraine and three parliamentary delegations—I see hon. Members in the Chamber who have been on them. The people of Ukraine owe us nothing, but we owe the people of Ukraine everything.”
“We need to increase our production of basic military equipment, such as artillery shells and bullets—the Minister for Armed Forces knows how many times I have questioned him about this issue. We then need more advanced military equipment too. Actually, the most advanced anti-drone manufacturer in the world now is Ukraine. We have much to learn from that, and in future we can do many things in joint ventures for our own defence. But we now need to ramp up our own military production. We have underutilised factories here, in the US—they have promised to increase production by the end of the year—and in Europe. To be fair to the Germans, they have done exactly that, particularly in shell production.”
“If we move back even further, the Scythians settled Crimea and created the agricultural breadbasket that we know today in southern Ukraine and Crimea. They supplied the Greek empire with its grain. That established Athens and other republics in Greece and fostered the democracy that we know now, because the Greeks could rely on the Scythians for grain. That is the ancient legacy of Ukraine. It is not Moscow or the tsars, but the Scythians and then the Varangians. My first point, therefore, is that the Ukrainians have a clear and historic right to a nation. It is straight out of the Putin playbook to try to denounce the legitimacy of the Ukrainian state. Secondly, I agree with the right hon. Member for Gainsborough that the UK, the United States and every European nation need to go on to a war production footing.”
“I had prepared a speech but will now have to make a different one, given that last speech from the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). I think he is an outrider for his own party in his view. First, I want to take on this idea that Ukraine historically is just some sort of outcrop of Russia. I will start and go backwards. My father wrote his PhD on the Viking incursion into Slavic lands. The Varangians created Kyivan Rus’—the Kyiv empire. It was an empire centred not in Moscow, but in Kyiv. Kyiv predates Moscow as the predominant city of the Slavic lands. If anybody wants to make a claim, it should probably be the people in Stockholm, because it was Swedish Vikings who settled those lands and established that kingdom—I do not think the Swedes now have any such ambitions.”
“As humans, we are not simply observers of nature but an integral part of it. We need an approach that collaborates across Departments, sectors and nations to even begin to save our natural environment.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Rees. I thank the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) for securing the debate and for mentioning and supporting my Climate and Nature Bill, which gets its Second Reading on Friday. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) for bringing forward the Climate and Ecology (No. 2) Bill, of which the Climate and Nature Bill is an iteration. If I am not successful on Friday, I am sure that we will see future iterations of the Bill as the matter has so much support across the House. The covid-19 pandemic laid bare the interdependence of people and nature. It is no longer possible to deny the fact that human health is linked to our use and abuse of the environment. The biodiversity crisis is a cultural, social and economic one.”
“The crises we face—of poor mental health, food shortages, conflicts and socioeconomic inequality—are all connected, and nature is the key intersection. We must tackle the nature crisis.”
“When we recognise that, it becomes blatantly obvious that depleting nature risks the health and wellbeing of everyone. What this demands, then, is a fundamental and transformational change of how we measure economic success. GDP does not take into account the depreciation of natural assets, despite the natural environment being the key decider of our future success. If we do not move into inclusive wealth measurement, we will continue running ourselves into the ground, destroying more and more of the natural environment. At their core, economies do not value the natural world and therefore cannot address biodiversity loss. People should have the right to experience the benefits of nature and a healthy environment, and the right to play a meaningful role in restoring and protecting that environment.”
“To build on that, we could create a national nature service so that young people can experience nature jobs and think about working in ecology in the broadest sense. I spoke briefly about tackling green skills shortages through nature education, but the UK must set out how it will fund these skills. No matter how many well-intentioned speeches we hear about the need to create green jobs, if there are no proper financial incentives, then devolved and local authorities will simply be unable to help us to reach the 2030 goals that we signed up to at Kunming-Montreal. We cannot decouple the crisis that the natural world faces from the economic crisis and the climate crisis. Economies are embedded in, rather than external to, nature.”
“Adding this GCSE to the curriculum, which is to be done by 2025, will create a skilled workforce that can go into jobs in the natural world. The practical skills that curriculum and skills initiatives provide are just one side of nature education. The second is encouraging people, not just young people but the whole population, to experience, celebrate and learn about nature in a holistic way. People are spending less and less time outdoors, and we know that this lack of connection results in a lack of appreciation of, and value placed on, nature. We can change that by improving access to nature in both urban and rural areas through, for example, expanding initiatives such as forest education schools—particularly to areas of high deprivation, where we know that children virtually never visit the environment.”
“I hope the Minister can address that point. Education will also be central to mending the heartbreaking lack of care that humans have for the natural environment. There are countless young people in particular who have shown outstanding leadership in this area, and I thank them for their bravery. Lots of organisations, as well as the Environmental Audit Committee, on which I used to sit, have noted that changes could be made to the school curriculum. For example, a new GCSE in natural history would teach children and young people skills in observing, naming and recording nature. There is a significant skills gap in ecology, which means that devolved and local authorities are simply unable to prevent further losses, let alone increase biodiversity.”
“Sadly, we remain in the same position on insect loss. The decline in insect populations is one of the lesser-known tragedies of the human effect on the environment. Where insects go, all other species follow. Let’s not mince our words: the rise in the human population and the loss of pollinating insects sets us on a road of cyclical starvation. We will lose the production of some crops, particularly those best for health and wellbeing. The role that insects play in food security is pivotal. Dung beetles, for example, save the cattle industry an estimated £367 million a year. The national pollinator strategy is set to be updated this year. There has been a successful educational piece on the role of bees in food security, but we need to go further and highlight the impact that invertebrates have, too.”
“I thank the hon. Lady, who serves alongside me on the net zero all-party parliamentary group. She has foreshadowed what I was going to say next: nature is essential to the future of all, and yet environmental degradation occurs disproportionately in, or around, low-income areas where a high percentage of people of colour live. Our approach must ensure a thriving natural environment for all. The House probably knows that I have a long history of raising the subject of insects. In fact, I introduced the first insect population loss debate in 2019, in this Chamber. I think it was the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) who provided the ministerial response to that debate, and she will be responding to this one as well. I wanted to call it insectageddon; unfortunately, the House authorities would not allow such a title.”
“Leeds’ sister city is Kharkiv. The people of Leeds are gravely concerned that the invasion of Kharkiv is imminent. Colleagues have already asked about artillery shells, which are in short supply, but even bullets are in short supply. What is the UK doing to supply the Ukrainian defence of Kharkiv with bullets? Are we upscaling humanitarian aid to Kharkiv and utilising it for the evacuation of civilians who want to leave? Will the UK Government supply additional visas for Kharkivians who want to come to the UK? The people of Leeds are ready to welcome them into their homes.”
“The right hon. Member, alongside myself, does a great job of co-chairing the APPG on global deforestation, and he is absolutely right about the legislation. Does he agree that the Government also need to be mindful of the issue when undertaking trade deal negotiations? We need the legislation, but we also need the Department for Business and Trade to have sight of the issue as well.”
“If we create a national nature service, people all over the UK will be able to gain hands-on experience and qualifications in green skills. That relates to my earlier point about the need for a cross-sector approach. A national nature service would not only support the economy but deliver biodiversity restoration. The UK is currently behind several major economies globally on that front. The UK’s national biodiversity strategy and action plan needs to be effective; it must not be a heartfelt but ultimately empty gesture towards nature recovery. Given the UK’s status as the most nature-depleted nation, that could be a real opportunity for us to deliver action and leadership at the CBD.”
“Improving our ecosystem’s health and supporting an abundant natural environment creates healthier communities. The future of wildlife is inextricably linked to our own future as a species. Plans for nature recovery and nature gain touch on all aspects of our economy. Delivering wide-scale habitat restoration is reliant on the UK creating green jobs. The NBSAP is an opportunity to integrate nature and people by setting out exactly how funds will be directed towards biodiversity skills shortages. There is a skills gap in ecology. No matter how many well-intentioned speeches we hear about the need to create green jobs, there are no proper financial measures to address that. The devolved Administrations and local authorities will simply not be able to prevent further losses and reach our 2030 goals.”
“There is no requirement in the Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework to monitor or assess the progress being made, or not, towards biodiversity and nature goals, so effectively the parties are still marking their own homework. There needs to be a formal mechanism to assess performance against goals and planned action. In the UK, we have one of the world-leading indexes—the Natural History Museum’s biodiversity intactness index —although it is not the only one. We need to adopt an existing index or get the parties to agree to one that does not currently exist. I would rather that we do the former. By doing that, the UK would demonstrate global leadership on species recovery. We know that there is overwhelming support among the UK public for the restoration of nature.”