Preet Gill MP: Climate-Related Speeches In Parliament

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Preet Gill's Speeches In Parliament Related to Climate

We've found 27 Parliamentary debates in which Preet Gill has spoken about climate-related matters.

Here are the relevant sections of their speeches.

• 12 Mar 2024: Budget Resolutions

  17:16

  At a stroke, the Prime Minister’s decision to attack Britain’s net zero targets trashed Britain’s reputation as a place to invest in developing the clean energy of tomorrow. The outcry from industry shows how self-defeating this was.

  [Source]

• 18 Dec 2023: International Health Regulations 2005

  17:49

  The international health regulations under discussion have of course existed in various forms since the 1960s. The latest iteration came into force in 2007. As they stand, the regulations obligate the 196 state parties to develop national core public health capacities for the detection, assessment, control and reporting of public health events. At some international ports, airports and ground crossings, they require parties to notify the WHO of serious diseases with risk of international spread. They set some of the human rights and other protections for any of us travelling abroad—protection of personal health data, for example. Those requirements are hardly controversial, apart from the fact that they were not on their own sufficient to prevent the spread of covid-19 around the world. That is why we think they must be strengthened. Climate change and globalisation mean that biological threats are only becoming more common, and future pandemics could be deadlier than covid-19. If another epidemic strikes with that same infectious potential, we must ensure that we are better prepared.

  [Source]

• 14 Nov 2023: Economic Growth

  16:55

  At the root of so many of the problems besetting British infrastructure and our housing crisis is the planning system. Surely no one in the House would agree that the current regime is fit for purpose. When we have millions locked out of the dream of home ownership, bills soaring and huge national infrastructure challenges such as the race for net zero, we cannot go on like this.

  [Source]

• 5 Jul 2023: Draft Commonwealth Development Corporation (Limit on Government Assistance) Regulations 2023

  14:36

  Lastly, I wanted to ask the Minister about what is driving UK development policy, as it simply does not make sense to me. Why, one might well ask, is BII the only untouchable domain of UK development spending, when we are scaling back climate finance, when bilateral aid to Africa has been parked, and support to desperate Afghans fleeing the Taliban, who now comprise the biggest group crossing the channel on small boats, has been cut to ribbons?

  [Source]

• 3 Jul 2023: Draft African Development Fund (Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative) (Amendment) Order 2023 Draft Af...

  18:08

  I am grateful to the Minister for outlining the African Development Fund orders. We will not oppose them. I welcome the support they show for tackling poverty and food insecurity, creating new jobs and opportunities to meet the demands of Africa’s young and fast-growing population, and tackling the climate crisis.

  Since 2019, Africa has been hammered by the converging crises of the pandemic, the climate crisis, debt, inflation and conflict. An estimated 55 million people on the continent have been pushed into extreme poverty since the onset of the pandemic. In 2021, nearly half a billion people in total were living on less than $1.90 a day. In that context, it is essential that we do what we can to prevent the current crisis from derailing long-term development gains.

  They are breaking their promises on international climate finance, hoping to leave a tab for the next Government to pick up.

  The African Development Bank estimates that the continent needs $7 billion to $15 billion a year in adaptation finance to meet this accelerating challenge, yet ICF, international engagement and domestic commitments were conspicuous in their absence in Government announcements at the Paris summit. Can the Minister explain whether the Government remain committed to delivering the £11.6 billion in international climate finance that they promised in 2019? How and when will that be delivered? Will the Minister explain why the Prime Minister was absent from the summit while more than 100 world leaders were in attendance at a time when, by his own admission, there is growing anger at the international community’s failure to help the most vulnerable countries adapt to a climate crisis that they did not create?

  [Source]

• 17 Apr 2023: Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response: International Agreement

  18:10

  While it might feel like the pandemic is over now, the threat is not. That is what today’s debate is about. Far from a once-in-100-years event, many natural biological threats have emerged in recent years, including severe acute respiratory syndrome, avian flu, middle east respiratory syndrome, Ebola and monkeypox. Climate change and globalisation mean that natural biological threats are becoming more common, and it is not only biological threats that we must prepare for. Advances in gene editing mean that virologists can more easily modify viruses to be deadlier and spread more quickly, increasing the security risk posed by bioweapons and bioterrorism. Will the Minister comment on our concern that the biological weapons convention currently remains very weak, with little funding and only four staff, compared with the 500 staff for the chemical weapons convention?

  [Source]

• 21 Mar 2023: Commonwealth Day

  10:13

  Nowhere is this more urgent or relevant than in our environment. As I am sure all Members present know from our own constituencies, young people are demanding action on climate change. Across the Commonwealth, the futures of 1.5 billion people under the age of 30 will be defined by this issue. Yesterday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its synthesis report, which was a warning shot: we can still achieve 1.5° this decade, but humanity is on thin ice. Our sovereign has been a committed advocate for action on climate change for many years, and Labour shares that sense of mission and common purpose. That is why we have committed to our green prosperity plan to decarbonise electricity by 2030, phase out dirty imported energy and legislate to ensure that climate flows into every aspect of UK development policy and spending, just as gender does. We recognise that this issue that will define this century, and we have only seven short years to take the action needed.

  To their credit, the Government reaffirmed their commitment to the 1.5° Paris agreement goals and nationally determined contributions at the Heads of Government meeting last year. However, it is now a matter of delivering. Can the Minister therefore update Members on the progress made to develop an implementation plan for the call to action on living lands that was promised in Kigali last year? Can she update the House on the progress she has made towards delivering the £11.6 billion of international climate finance that the Government have promised? Does she see a greater role for networks such as the Association of Commonwealth Universities in catalysing innovation and collaboration to tackle shared global challenges? I had the pleasure of meeting the ACU last year. With 500 member universities across 50 countries, it is uniquely placed to develop international policy at scale and pace. We have great institutions; we must not forget to nurture and make use of them.

  There is so much to be proud of in our Commonwealth membership and relationships. It is crucial to our mutual interests in relation to development, trade, security, climate change, human rights and democracy. It is a great institution that has, at times, been neglected when it needed to be nurtured. The past few years is a prime example of that. I hope the Government will act to correct their course; Labour certainly would.

  [Source]

• 1 Mar 2023: Turkey and Syria Earthquakes

  14:07

  The Government consider all these matters in terms of humanitarian need and resilience not just in this region and with earthquakes but in many regions of the world facing many other challenges, most of which, but not all, result substantially from climate change. The hon. Gentleman may rest assured that in all these matters of preparation, we are considering them every day and every week.

  [Source]

• 20 Feb 2023: DRAFT INTERNATIONAL FUND FOR AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT (TWELFTH REPLENISHMENT) ORDER 2023

  18:10

  I am grateful to the Minister for outlining the IFAD order. I welcome the support that the replenishment indicates for tackling poverty, food insecurity and climate change, and for promoting agricultural development in the world’s poorest countries.

  Small-scale food producers in poor countries have been among the hardest hit by the food crisis, which has been compounded by the lingering effects of the pandemic, global inflation, accelerating climate change, and conflict. Our continued commitment to IFAD is therefore completely necessary if we are to achieve sustainable development goal 2 by 2030. I am happy to confirm that we will not seek to divide the Committee on this issue today.

  We know the consequences when extreme poverty is allowed to fester: conflict, as in the Sahel; irregular migration and displacement; and the deep moral injury of lost lives, lost opportunities and lost human potential. It is firmly in the UK’s interests to continue to invest in IFAD’s work for that reason. Every billion of investment has increased the incomes of 8.6 million beneficiaries by 20%. IFAD’s work is at the frontline of some of the great challenges facing the world, creating enough sustainable jobs and food to meet the challenges of population growth; adapting and building resilience to climate change; and addressing a global hunger crisis that is, at this moment, killing someone in east Africa every 32 seconds. I therefore welcome that at least half of IFAD’s funding in the replenishment will go towards rural development projects in sub-Saharan Africa—a continent of 1.4 billion people just miles from Europe. Africa’s strategic importance to the UK should not be understated.

  [Source]

• 8 Nov 2022: Nigeria: Flood Relief

  I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his Cabinet role. I know that he believes in the difference that international development can make, and I wish him well in persuading his Cabinet colleagues. Asylum applications are delayed by the thousands, spending on temporary hotels is soaring, and the Home Office is in turmoil. To bail it out, the Minister has seemingly written the Home Secretary a blank cheque out of Britain’s aid budget, spending £3.5 billion that is meant to be tackling the root causes of mass displacement. Since 2008, 41 people have been forced from their homes every minute by the climate crisis, and the floods in Nigeria, where 200,000 homes are under water, surely show that the climate emergency is here, it is now, and UK aid is needed more than ever. Will the Minister agree to carry out an urgent review of all Home Office official development assistance expenditure, and consider whether it is delivering value for taxpayers’ money? Will he please tell the House how long he is happy to let the Home Secretary have free rein over his budget to mop up a domestic crisis of her Department’s own making?

  [Source]

• 31 Oct 2022: Draft International Development Association (Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative) (Amendment) Order ...

  18:09

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield on his appointment, and I look forward to working with him. There is much that we agree on, but I will certainly still be on his case and hold him to account. I am grateful to him for outlining the draft International Development Association orders and I welcome the support they indicate for tackling poverty and disease, giving millions the opportunity of an education and tackling climate change in line with the Paris agreement.

  Global co-operation has never mattered more: the world reels from the pandemic; we face energy, debt and food crises; the climate emergency is wreaking havoc; and 100 million people are now displaced around the world. Over the past 62 years, the International Development Association has provided nearly half a trillion dollars of investment in 114 of the world’s poorest countries. The technical assistance and grant and concessional finance that IDA provides has been vital for those countries, which are unable to borrow on global markets to develop their economies and lift their populations out of poverty. As a result, many borrower countries have since graduated from debt distress and gone on to be real success stories of the world. Our country can be proud of the role it has played in supporting that historic progress, where many hundreds of millions more human beings have been able to flourish and live good lives.

  Finally, I was profoundly disappointed to read that the new Prime Minister has decided not to attend COP27 in Egypt as we hand over our presidency. It is a crucial opportunity to meet other global leaders, see to fruition some of the good work started in Glasgow last year, and galvanise ambitious global action to tackle the issue that will define this century. It is an issue we all have a common interest in fighting and something that this Government have called their No. 1 international priority. Can I ask the Minister if that remains the case? If so, will he accept ICAI’s recommendation to advocate for a stronger focus on climate action at IDA if the Government are to meet their own climate ambitions?

  [Source]

• 26 Oct 2022: Global Food Security

  10:16

  As many colleagues have said today, the suffering across the world is enormous. Labour has been ringing the alarm about the hunger crisis for the best part of a year. From Afghanistan to Yemen to sub-Saharan Africa, conflict, inflation and accelerating climate change are creating a perfect storm. In June, the World Food Programme warned that the number of people at risk of succumbing to famine or famine-like conditions could rise to 323 million this year. The former Minister, the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), travelled to east Africa last week, where she will have seen the human consequence of the crisis at first hand. It is a shame that she cannot now turn that into action.

  I will finish by referring to the single greatest long-term challenge to global food security: the climate emergency. This summer, droughts, floods and wildfires wreaked havoc in the UK and across the world. In Pakistan, devastating floods left a third of the country—equivalent to the size of the United Kingdom—underwater. Acres of rice fields were lost. In India, extreme heat decimated crop yields in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, leading to a domestic grain export ban. In the horn of Africa, we face an unprecedented fifth failed rainy season in a row.

  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned of the impact of global warming on food security—not only from the wanton destruction of extreme weather events, but as soil health progressively weakens and ecosystems collapse, pests and diseases become more common and marine animal biomass depletes. This is a disaster for the world, including for us in the United Kingdom. The Climate Change Committee has warned that global warming could lead to a 20% rise in food prices by 2050. That is a reminder why international co-operation and development is essential to protect people at home and across the world.

  In the crises of years past, we stepped up as leaders on the world stage to galvanise action and co-operation on the challenges that we have in common, helping to develop early warning systems so we can act decisively before tragedies strike. What happened to that ambition? Will the Minister tell us why his Government continue to invest in fossil fuels overseas? Why were central projects for adaptation and mitigation indefinitely paused this summer? When will the UK finally deliver on the international climate finance that it promised as host of COP26 last year?

  [Source]

• 6 Jul 2022: Strategy for International Development

  18:15

  We needed this Government to play their part and come forward with a serious plan. That is why, prior to the strategy’s publication, I set out five basic tests that would allow the Opposition to support the Government. First, after the shutdown of DFID, is the strategy serious about restoring Britain’s development expertise? Secondly, would it provide the resources needed and return the UK to 0.7%? Thirdly, is it serious about targeting aid to those most in need? Fourthly, given the war, pandemic and climate emergency we face, would it protect climate, health and conflict as priorities? Finally, would it make the long-term, positive case for development, because we know it works? These are simple and reasonable tests. They are not complicated or designed to trip the Government up. They are, I hope, tests that many Conservative Members and Members in all parts of the House would want to see met. The sad truth is that this strategy does not meet a single one of these most basic tests.

  I have also received confirmation that the Business Secretary has returned £100 million of Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy international climate finance for 2022-23 to the Treasury, only months into the financial year. That is not an underspend, but a cut. In the integrated review, this Government said that climate was their No. 1 international priority, but we know that the cuts undermined our standing in negotiations in a crucial year at COP26, and developing countries can block agreements, which is in no one’s interest. A year after COP26, crops are failing across the Earth because of extreme heat, and millions of east Africans face famine. How is anyone meant to trust a word this Government say?

  That is the choice at hand on international development. We could be working with our partners, such as the US, at the G7 to negotiate the ambitious action needed on climate change, on vaccinating the world and on our global economic crisis. Instead, Samantha Power, the head of USAID, is reduced to calling the UK out publicly for cutting aid to sub-Saharan Africa in the middle of a global food crisis.

  We could be leading the way as we once did, inspiring our partners to do development differently and to address the challenges of the coming decade, but let us be honest: Britain has been in retreat under this Government. Since shutting down our world-renowned international development partner, we do not even send Ministers to many high-level meetings at the World Bank, the UN and other institutions where we have a seat at the table. At a time when we should be shaping the global response to climate change, the pandemic and the global cost of living crisis, we are missing in action.

  [Source]

• 26 Apr 2022: Oral Answers to Questions

  Wars rage in Africa, the middle east and now Ukraine. There is a growing climate crisis, food prices are surging and 300,000 children face death by starvation in Somalia. Britain’s reputation is in tatters after two years of callous aid cuts, having shut down the world-renowned Department for International Development. It is clear that Britain needs a strategy for long-term development to stop lurching from crisis to crisis. Can the Secretary of State confirm today exactly when the new strategy will be published? Will it be backed with the funding, focus, ambition and expertise needed to make a lasting difference in the world?

  [Source]

• 27 Oct 2021: Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

  I welcome the Secretary of State to her place. Yesterday, it emerged that the Prime Minister’s pleading at the G7 and the United Nations to deliver £100 billion of climate finance has failed. With that, we had another example of the waning global influence of this Government in retreat. I had hoped that the new Foreign and Development Secretary would have put a stop to that, but her first act was to sign off on savage aid cuts to climate programmes and climate-vulnerable countries, disproportionately impacting women and girls, weeks before the most important climate summit of our lifetime. Does the Secretary of State agree that cuts to programmes such as the green economic growth initiative to preserve Papua’s 90% forest cover, and cuts to the aid budget, have actively undermined the UK’s ability to deliver not only at the conference of the parties, but on the world stage, exposing global Britain as little more than a slogan?

  [Source]

• 26 Oct 2021: Oral Answers to Questions

  I welcome the Secretary of State to her place. Yesterday, it emerged that the Prime Minister’s pleading at the G7 and the United Nations to deliver £100 billion of climate finance has failed. With that, we had another example of the waning global influence of this Government in retreat. I had hoped that the new Foreign and Development Secretary would have put a stop to that, but her first act was to sign off on savage aid cuts to climate programmes and climate-vulnerable countries, disproportionately impacting women and girls, weeks before the most important climate summit of our lifetime. Does the Secretary of State agree that cuts to programmes such as the green economic growth initiative to preserve Papua’s 90% forest cover, and cuts to the aid budget, have actively undermined the UK’s ability to deliver not only at the conference of the parties, but on the world stage, exposing global Britain as little more than a slogan?

  [Source]

• 20 Apr 2021: Climate Change: International Co-operation and the Global South

  To galvanise global support to avert the climate catastrophe, tackle poverty and improve global health in a year when the UK will host the G7 and COP26, we must bring countries together. Instead, this Government are the only one in the G7 to have taken the callous decision to cut their aid budget, which weakens our ability to bring countries together to tackle the global challenges we face. The Government’s cuts to the aid budget will remove a lifeline from hundreds of thousands of people and damage our planet, leaving us all less safe. Rather than hiding behind written statements, will the Foreign Secretary face up to his decision, make a statement to the House on his spending plans for 2021 and put his Government’s cuts to a vote?

  [Source]

• 26 Nov 2020: Official Development Assistance

  13:07

  Britain and the world deserve better than a Foreign Secretary who has allowed the aid budget to be slashed, leaving our global reputation lying in tatters ahead of a year when the UK hosts the G7 and COP26. We know that we need a dramatic acceleration in the pace and scale of global climate action, and we all want the UN climate conference to be a success, but for that to happen we must harness the political will of other countries. As host, it falls to the UK to lead by example, not withdraw, yet cutting the aid budget does exactly that and has already attracted outspoken criticism from vital partners. I pity the Foreign Secretary having to explain to his counterparts that this is all part of his and the Prime Minister’s idea of “Global Britain”.

  The hon. Lady asked about climate change. As I made clear, our first priority will be to prioritise measures to tackle climate change and protect biodiversity, and we will maintain our commitment to double the international climate finance, which I agree is very important as we go into COP26.

  spending on ODA. [ Interruption. ] The hon. Lady says, “Yes, yes, yes”—so does she advocate cutting the amount of ODA that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spend on climate change? [ Interruption. ] Again, we come back to the basic point that, given the financial pressures that we face, difficult decisions need to be made. [ Interruption. ]

  I supported the Foreign Secretary taking over the DFID portfolio because I knew that the rigour he would bring to ODA spending would mean that it was always in the British national interest. Indeed, the way he has spoken about it this morning reassures me of that. He has spoken quite rightly about girls’ education, not just because it is good for girls in other parts of the world but because it is good for Britain. He has spoken about climate change, not just because it is good for the poorest and most low-lying countries around the world but because it is good for Britain. He has spoken about vaccination, not just because it is most important for the most vulnerable in the world, but again, because it is good for Britain. So does he understand why so many of us are disappointed that, knowing how well he will spend this money, not only in the interests of others but in the British national interest, we hear that it has been cut? I am sure that he feels that, too.

  The fact is that this is not what was promised. This is not what was promised to the people of Scotland in 2014. This is not what was promised in the Conservative manifesto 11 months ago. The Foreign Secretary talks about scrutiny of spend, and I absolutely agree, but my inbox—I dare say colleagues feel the same—is unanimous this morning against this move. It is fair to say that in Scotland we have a disproportionate interest in international development, because of the history we have with our churches, our non-governmental organisations, our trade unions and our universities. Civic Scotland is keen on international development, and DFID—now merged, of course, into the FCDO—is based in East Kilbride. This is a betrayal: not just a betrayal of those promises, but a betrayal of some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world, who are also facing covid, the economic consequences and climate change, and they are going to be left by this in a dreadful situation.

  I join my right hon. Friend in paying tribute to Baroness Sugg, a terrific Minister who will be greatly missed. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on her appointment as the UK’s international champion on various climate change issues. With her expertise, passion and dedication, she makes an excellent case for taking a more strategic approach, not only in relation to the ODA spend that derives from the FCDO, but looking right across the piece, across Whitehall, to ensure that it is allocated in the areas where it has the greatest life-changing impact. We will do that on climate change and biodiversity, and on girls’ education and helping the very poorest around the world.

  I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend, who was a fantastic Development Secretary. We have talked at length about these issues since our time in opposition, and will continue to do so. He mentioned a number of points. He read out some statistics. With respect, I do not think it is possible to talk with the precision that he did about the implications, because we are not going to take a salami-slicing approach and just say, “We’re going to cut a third from all areas of ODA.” That is not what we are going to do. We are going to take a strategic approach. We will safeguard those areas that we regard as an absolute priority, including many of the things he mentioned, particularly public health and international public health, alongside covid, climate change and girls’ education.

  The Foreign Secretary says that this cut is both temporary and a matter of necessity. Although borrowing is up, the overall cost of borrowing has fallen because of falling interest rates, yet the poorest countries are not able to respond to the economic consequences of covid in this way, as richer countries can. As we are the global host of the G7, the UN Security Council and COP26, will he press the Chancellor to lead by example for global Britain, particularly in relation to the new US Biden Administration, and to leverage more funds from the US as well, so the poorer nations get the best deal in the worst year—next year, of all years, when it will be needed most?

  My hon. Friend may know that we ended bilateral aid to China in 2011. There is, though, still a case for some collaboration in the development space with China, and the example I tend to give is climate change. Yes, China is the biggest net emitter, but it is also the biggest investor in renewables, and even with all the other challenges we have with China, that is an area in which we want to try to work and engage positively.

  The hon. Lady has advocated cutting ODA in the past. She now shakes her head. [ Interruption. ] She wants to fudge it as repurposing. We are not going to fudge it in the way that she does. We are going to be very honest with the British public about an incredibly difficult set of decisions. We are making sure that we can see our way through the pandemic. We will still be contributing £10 billion to the world’s poorest, to climate change and to girls’ education. I think they will understand. If the hon. Gentleman has any alternatives, rather than just criticising from the Opposition Benches, we would be glad to hear them.

  Order. I know how important this statement is, but we do have two further debates, on climate change and on covid-19, so I urge colleagues to have fairly short questions and, correspondingly, short answers.

  The provision of overseas development aid is not a selfless act: it is in our interest to foster global peace and sustainable development, thereby reducing the migration associated with war, climate change, disease and famine. What is the Foreign Secretary’s assessment of the impact on international peace building and migration associated with the Government’s choice to cut foreign aid?

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• 12 Nov 2020: Refugee Communities: Covid-19

  14:56

  Some 90% of the £2 billion invested in energy deals after the UK-Africa investment summit last year went on fossil fuel projects, and the Minister’s Government are funding fossil fuel projects in Mozambique using more than $1 billion of public funds. COP26 has been delayed for a year; we are looking to build back better, and ensure a safer, fairer world after the pandemic, and there are still opportunities for the Government to act and show clear leadership before they host that meeting. Will the Minister today commit to ending support for fossil fuel projects overseas, both from the aid budget, including the CDC investments, and from UK Export Finance, as a matter of urgency?

  It is not only climate change that impacts migration; so, too, does the destruction of the environment and biodiversity, which affects people’s lives and livelihoods. From the Amazon to Borneo, habitats are being destroyed by legal and illegal deforestation and degradation, forest fires, over-grazing and cultivation. As well as working with those countries, we need to consider the impact that we have here. That is why I ask the Minister to support the amendment on due diligence that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) has tabled to the Environment Bill.

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• 8 Sep 2020: Climate Change: International Co-operation

  To avoid scrutiny, the Secretary of State snuck out cuts of £2.9 billion from the aid budget on the day Parliament rose for the summer recess. That is around 20% of the aid budget, despite the fact that projections of an economic downturn suggested a required fall of something closer to 9%. Can the Secretary of State tell us where those cuts will come from, and how the Government will ensure that they tackle poverty and the climate crisis and deliver value for money for the British people? Will he today commit to ending the use of UK aid and investment to fund fossil fuel projects in the global south?

  [Source]

• 9 Jul 2020: Official Development Assistance

  15:15

  The Secretary of State herself acknowledged how difficult the process would be, and that her Government would not be ready for a fully functioning Department to exist by September. With no organisational plan yet in place, the Institute for Government estimates that it will take at least two years for the new Department to be properly bedded in. Does the Minister agree that it would have made more sense to focus on the issues at hand: the global pandemic, the upcoming G7 chair, hosting COP26 as part of tackling the climate disaster, global poverty, inequality and conflict?

  [Source]

• 6 May 2020: Covid-19: International Response

  13:11

  Wherever we look, the virus has hit the poorest and most vulnerable hardest and has exacerbated existing inequalities. I am sure the Secretary of State will agree that ensuring that we have a strong, independent DFID is vital to overcoming the immediate emergency of the coronavirus while continuing to tackle global poverty, inequality and the climate crisis.

  [Source]

• 9 Mar 2020: Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill [Lords]

  18:25

  This is a real opportunity to do the same with the Commonwealth games, using them as a call to action to eradicate poverty and inequalities and improve health and education, alongside sustainable economic growth and tackling climate change.

  [Source]

• 10 Jul 2019: Universal Health Coverage

  10:34

  Secondly, let me talk about health financing. Researchers at the World Health Organisation have estimated that the annual cost to poor countries of meeting the SDG target on healthcare for all by 2030 would be $112 per person. That is a significant increase on previous estimates, and would leave low-income countries facing an annual funding gap of up to $35 billion. The WHO estimates that poor countries will need to spend up to 20% of GDP on health to bridge that gap—clearly an impossible ask. If low-income countries are to have any chance of making up even part of the shortfall, Governments of rich countries and international institutions urgently need to address their role in creating global poverty and inequality, including through enabling unjust global tax and trade rules, demanding unsustainable debt repayments, failing to regulate their corporations properly, and imposing costs on poor countries through their contributions to climate change. I hope the Government will use their leadership position at the UN meeting in September to ensure that there is honest recognition of their responsibilities and the reasons why many poor countries do not have the domestic resources necessary to fund public health systems.

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• 11 Jun 2019: Sustainable Development Goals

  17:04

  Does my hon. Friend agree that, just like in 1992 when after the Earth summit every local council produced a local agenda 21, the Government should be mandating local councils to produce and fulfil local SDGs? I think that councils would be willing to take that opportunity if the call went out from the heart of Government.

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• 1 May 2019: Environment and Climate Change

  16:26

  Climate change is damaging the lives of people in the UK and abroad. We see the impact through the two recent cyclones that have struck Mozambique. A country that usually expects only one major storm every 10 years has had two in two months, with the latest, Cyclone Kenneth, the strongest cyclone ever to hit Africa.

  In the UK, climate change is seen as directly responsible for the projected rise in heat-related deaths and flooding, with the poorest and most vulnerable people most likely to bear the brunt. It is a tragedy that those least responsible for climate change suffer the most. We need to act to prevent a global climate disaster, yet the Government are not doing enough.

  On emissions, the Government like to talk smugly about what a good job they have done, but the Committee on Climate Change warned last year that the UK will not meet the emission reduction targets laid out in the UK’s clean growth strategy for the fourth and fifth five-year carbon budgets. On biodiversity, too, the Government are falling short, with only five of the 19 targets in the strategic plan for biodiversity set to be achieved.

  The Government’s commitment to fighting climate change is enshrined in the sustainable development goals, yet according to UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development we are underperforming on 72% of the targets that are relevant to the UK, and many of those are also relevant to climate change. Take target 11.6, on reducing the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including air pollution: UK100 found that 17.9 million NHS patients in England are registered at a GP practice in an area that exceeds the World Health Organisation annual limit for PM2.5 air pollution.

  The national Government clearly do not care enough about climate change, but thankfully some of our local elected officials do: Bristol and Liverpool have pledged support for the sustainable development goals; Birmingham approved a motion on the sustainable development goals in November last year; and 59 councils, more than a third of them Labour-run, have declared a climate emergency. Although those are great initiatives, local government needs more support from central Government. Local authorities need resources to invest in better, greener infrastructure, to encourage and support more people to cycle and walk safely and to promote renewables.

  My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. She has referred to what cities and authorities throughout the UK are doing; will she join me in congratulating the Welsh Government on declaring a climate emergency, and cities such as mine, Cardiff, which is doing so much work on sustainable transport, led by Councillor Huw Thomas?

  The Government have blocked onshore wind, Britain’s cheapest form of energy. According to SERA, the reintroduction of onshore wind would cut another £1.6 billion off the collective electricity bill, but rather than act, the Government have chosen to block onshore wind. Sir David Attenborough has said that climate change is humanity’s

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• 20 Mar 2019: Oral Answers to Questions

  “The people of Mozambique need emergency response and support right now to survive this crisis. But this is also a harsh reminder that the climate crisis is upon us and developed countries need to urgently reduce their emissions and stop funding fossil fuels.”

  I welcome the relief package for the region issued by DFID, but it is a tragic irony of climate change that those least responsible are the ones who pay the highest price. A key component of the—

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  Will the Minister confirm whether the Government have plans to offer any additional climate finance to support vulnerable communities and countries to cope with the consequences of climate change?

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See all Parliamentary Speeches Mentioning Climate