16:15 Mary Creagh (Labour)

That this House recognises that 2015 is an historic year for development as the countries of the world come together to negotiate the binding climate change agreement at the 2015 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Sustainable Development Goals; believes it is unacceptable that more than one billion people still live in extreme poverty on less than $1.25 a day; notes that the effects of climate change will be most severe in some of the world’s poorest countries; further recognises that the UK has a leading role to play in these negotiations; regrets that the Government failed to bring forward legislation to enshrine in law the commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of Gross National Income on international aid as set out in the Coalition Agreement; further regrets that this Government has failed to support standalone Sustainable Development Goals on health and climate change; and calls on the Government to show global leadership on tackling the causes of poverty inequality and climate change.

This year, 2015, is an historic year for development. The countries of the world will come together at the United Nations in September to agree the sustainable development goals, and in Paris in December we will agree a framework to tackle climate change. These agreements would be priorities for a Labour Government. We have called today’s debate—the first since the debate on Burma in 2008—to set out the differences that we see between this coalition Government and Labour on these vital issues.

Fifteen years ago, a Labour Government led global efforts to tackle extreme poverty, which led to the millennium development goals. These goals have produced fantastic results. Every day, 17,000 fewer children die. Nine out of 10 children in developing regions now attend primary school and we have halved the number of children who die before their fifth birthday. In 2002, just 700,000 people received treatment for HIV. The last Labour Government helped to found the global fund to fight AIDS, TB and malaria. Today, 13 million people access life-saving HIV treatment. We cancelled debt, increased aid and outlawed cluster bombs, and when my right hon. Friend the leader of the Labour party was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the UK became the first country in the world to put into a law a target to reduce carbon emissions. Other countries, such as Finland, Denmark and Brazil, have followed that lead.

I appreciate the call that the hon. Lady is making for UK leadership on climate and poverty issues. Does she recognise that her party’s support for things such as maximising oil and gas extraction in the Infrastructure Bill, agreed just a few days ago, is undermining the pledges she is now making to tackle climate change?

There are three vital areas that Labour would prioritise to tackle inequality: universal health coverage, human rights and climate change. I will say more on those issues in a moment, but first I would like to look at this Government’s approach. We regret that the Government failed to bring forward legislation to enshrine in law both parties’ manifesto commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income on international aid. It fell to Labour MPs and the good offices of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) to ensure that the landmark Bill that would do so was passed in this House.

Eradicating poverty will be possible only if we tackle climate change. If we do not keep temperature rises to below 2º C, millions will fall back into poverty. The Prime Minister says very little about his wind turbine these days. He is a prisoner of his divided party, which is split over whether climate change even exists. For Labour, climate change will be at the centre of our foreign policy and integral to our plan to change Britain.

There is a real opportunity to address climate change this year. The United States, the EU and, most importantly, China, are all showing a willingness to act. At the Paris summit in December, a Labour Government would push for global targets for reducing carbon emissions, with regular reviews towards the long-term goal of what the science now tells us is necessary: zero net global emissions in the latter half of this century. In addition, we must ensure that the sustainable development goals have a specific goal on climate change—something that the Secretary of State has repeatedly failed to back.

It is entirely fair for my hon. Friend to be scrutinising and questioning Government policy, particularly on climate change and what position is taken into the sustainable development goals summit. Does she feel that a Prime Minister who said that we should “cut the green crap” is the right person to lead this country into crucial negotiations about climate change and the future of poor countries around this world?

With the right leadership, ours is the generation that can end extreme poverty, reduce inequality and tackle climate change. We can move to a world beyond aid and enable people to secure justice instead of charity. The year 2015 provides a unique opportunity for the world to think bigger and do better for ourselves, our children and the world’s poorest people. That is a thrilling opportunity and we must not let them down.

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16:41 The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)

In September, on the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, we will meet in New York to agree the elements of the post-2015 development framework up to 2030. In December, the world will come together in Paris to agree a binding international treaty to tackle the global dangers of climate change. I am proud to be part of a Government who are taking a leading part in all of those negotiations.

My right hon. Friend is right, and she speaks from a position of authority. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr O'Brien), she is well respected, both for her service as a Cabinet Minister and for her tireless work with charities such as Tearfund. She is absolutely right: we were one of the key players that recognised the need to fuse the two agendas, of sustainability and climate change and of tackling poverty, successfully if we were to achieve the goal that my Department works faithfully to achieve of eradicating absolute—

Government Members say that they want a bipartisan approach and nowhere is that more useful than on the issue of climate change, because we need a long-term strategy. Why does the right hon. Lady resist having separate climate change goals within the sustainable development framework?

The hon. Lady is somewhat misinterpreting the Government’s position. If she looks at the report by the high-level panel of experts co-chaired by the Prime Minister, she will see that it includes a range of targets and goals in relation to climate change. I shall come on to that later but, as I have said, no one can deny that the UK has played, continues to play, and will play a leading role in climate change discussions, not least because that flows into the work that we do in international development, for example, setting up the international climate fund and investing nearly £4 billion in projects that can help to tackle development and, in many cases, give a real lead in addressing climate change.

As part of that, we have consistently argued for a strong health goal that focuses on strengthening health systems and on ensuring effective health outcomes for all women, men, girls and boys at all ages. We have clearly stated that the framework must fully integrate environment and climate change, and it must have a strong goal on gender equality focusing on improving prospects for women and girls. I was disappointed that there was no explicit reference to the importance of having a strong gender goal and the mainstreaming of women and girls’ issues in the development framework. I hope that we can continue, as we have done in the past, to have cross-party consensus on those issues to make progress.

We want to see, and the open working group included, the critical issues that the millennium development goals omitted, including peaceful and inclusive societies, economic growth, which is key if we are to increase people’s prosperity, and good governance. Today I shall reflect on the progress that the international community has made to date on agreeing the post-2015 development framework. The proposed sustainable development goals agreed by the open working group last July reflected a high level of ambition and the UK was instrumental in forging that outcome. Those goals have been welcomed by the NGO community, and, like the high-level panel report, they rightly devote significant attention to climate change and environmental sustainability.

In his synthesis report the Secretary-General made a clear link between the post-2015 framework and the outcome of the climate change conference in Paris. I agree that the two are fundamentally connected and that 2015 is a unique year and a unique opportunity to bring the two agendas together. As I argued at the UN General Assembly last year, it is the very poorest who will be hit first and hardest by climate change. Our objectives for the Paris meeting are clear and ambitious. We want an outcome that delivers the ultimate goal of the UN framework convention on climate change, which is to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting the global average temperature increase to no more than 2° C above pre-industrial levels. We are one of the few countries arguing for this to be explicit in the SDG framework. The most cost-effective and reliable way to achieve that is through an international, legally binding agreement with mitigation commitments for all.

I appreciate the tone that the Secretary of State is taking. I want to ask about consistency, because the one thing that I learned when I worked for Oxfam for 10 years was that to have credibility on the global stage, we need to have consistency in our domestic policies. The Environmental Audit Committee inquiry into SDGs found that there is a contradiction in the Government supporting subsidies for fossil fuels while at the same time promoting the climate change agenda. Will she say something about that?

On a stand-alone goal on climate change, I point to our Prime Minister’s own words:

“Climate change is one of the most serious threats facing our world. And it is not just a threat to the environment. It is also a threat to our national security, to global security, to poverty eradication and to economic prosperity.”

In short, climate change is too complex an issue to belong in just one goal; as we have said repeatedly, it needs to be interwoven or mainstreamed throughout the entire post-2015 framework.

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17:19 Mr Stephen O’Brien (Eddisbury) (Con)

The Government, with leadership from the Prime Minister and technical ability and fantastic support, are totally committed to this agenda. We have also had some magnificent successes that give people confidence that the money has been well spent. DFID is technically superb and a world leader, and our thought leadership is also driving into the mainstream of thinking about international development. That is all at the service of the one thing that, post-1945, we have all wanted to support—the UN, which is the greatest peace deliverer on the planet. The UN has set the agenda. The Prime Minister has been part of the leadership and significant goals have been proposed on climate change, as well as the economic and human development indices.

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17:25 Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)

I am proud of the efforts of the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund and the Catholic Agency For Overseas Development—I am chair of the all-party parliamentary friends of CAFOD group—but a lot more has to be done, particularly on climate change. It is right that we address this challenge, and I am glad we are doing that in this debate.

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17:49 Nia Griffith (Labour)

Clearly, 2015 is a historic year for international development. It is a time when we will be talking about both the sustainable development goals and climate change, on two very important occasions in September and December of this year, and I want to see the UK really taking a lead, as we have done in the past. I certainly do not want us to be backtracking on anything to do with climate change, which I see as one of the most important issues. It is directly linked to international development. It is blatantly clear to us that while we have enjoyed economic development and have created many of the climate change issues, it is people in developing countries who are suffering the consequences;, and it will be they who suffer drought and flooding if the temperature rises and they who will have the least resilience. It is very important therefore that we help those countries to build the necessary resilience and that we recognise the importance of tackling climate change and raise it at every possible opportunity. We know perfectly well that our tackling it here is not enough; it needs to be done on an international scale.

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17:59 Stephen Doughty (Labour)

Let me deal with the sustainable development goals, the main subject of the debate. It is important that we get back to the base principles. It is in our fundamental common interest, as well as being a moral imperative, to get the sustainable development goals right and to continue to make the case for development in this House. Fundamentally, it is a moral case that everyone is born the same and deserves the same opportunity. People in this country and the world over, including in my constituency—where I regularly have difficult debates on the doorstep about this—are not insulated from the consequences of poverty, conflict and climate change in other countries. We may see that in shifts in migration—we have all seen the terribly tragic events that are repeatedly happening in the Mediterranean; in poverty-driven conflict creating further zones of instability around the world, which can then lead to the risk of young people, including from my constituency, being dragged into fighting for organisations such as ISIS or al-Shabaab; and in terms of disease, as we have all seen with the tragic circumstances of Ebola in west Africa and the consequences of people then travelling around the world.

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18:07 Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)

My right hon. Friend will be aware that the proposals from the panel the Prime Minister co-chaired included 12 universal goals and national targets, which have been taken forward in the brief that Ban Ki-Moon issued six months later. My right hon. Friend will be aware, given the point that has been made by the Opposition, that three or four of those goals refer specifically to energy and climate change. As a Minister, I was privileged to support Ban Ki-moon in the conference that he convened on energy support for renewables in the developing market.

I would hope that no one in the House believes that tackling climate change is not important. It is important that the sustainable development goals give priority to environmental sustainability to tackle climate change—that is an essential prerequisite of poverty eradication—and go on to deal with issues such as disaster risk reduction, water and food security, and nutrition. All of those are tied up with climate change. The House should not spend time being concerned about climate change deniers—we have moved on from that.

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18:14 Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)

I welcome today’s debate and agree that we should enshrine in legislation the goal of 0.7%, irrespective of whether or not it has been agreed. The point I want to emphasise is that previously in the millennium development goals, insufficient attention was paid to environmental protection and sustainable development. In this year of opportunity, we must make sure that we in the UK and the European Union show the necessary leadership to get to where we need to be at the Paris negotiations with the climate change targets, and at the New York summit with the sustainable development goals.

All these issues are important. I hope that in his reply the Minister will tell us a little about the climate change aspects and how we will ensure that that is embedded in all the sustainable development goals. I hope he can tell us how the green thread of environmental sustainability will similarly be embedded in those goals. I hope he will tell us how we will deal with the issues nationally. We have heard a lot about international development, but this is just as much a matter for the Treasury, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Cabinet Office and the Office for National Statistics, because we will need to monitor and audit the implementation of the sustainable development goals that we want to see agreed in New York.

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18:22 Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)

We strongly took the view that it was important that there were stand-alone climate change goals in the new sustainable development goals. I know they are currently there and I hope that the Government and the Opposition will confirm that they will recognise the importance of maintaining those in the final package.

We emphasise the importance of—the phrase we use may not be the most elegant but nevertheless it highlights what we want to say—decoupling economic growth from an increase in natural resource use. I hasten to add that we are not against economic growth, but we want to get away from the idea that economic growth has to be accompanied by increasing resource use, and increasing climate emissions as well.

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18:28 Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)

Finally, as many Members have said—including the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), whose work in this area I greatly respect—unless we tackle climate change, it will be impossible to live in a sustainable world and to create the jobs and livelihoods that everybody needs.

“to show global leadership on tackling the causes of poverty inequality and climate change.”

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18:33 Kerry McCarthy (Labour)

I am very pleased that Labour has called this debate to highlight a particularly momentous year for international development, with the launch of the sustainable development goals and the climate change talks in Paris in December. Much was achieved under the previous development framework of the millennium development goals, but much more of course needs to be done. In the time available, I want to concentrate on a few of the goals.

The food that is wasted, according to Tristram Stuart’s excellent book of 2009, “Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal”, is enough to feed 3 billion people. That would still leave enough surplus for countries to provide their populations with 130% of their nutritional requirements. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that every year the production of food that is wasted generates 3.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases and uses up to 1.4 billion hectares of land, which is 28% of the world’s agricultural area. Globally, the blue water footprint for the agricultural production of food waste is about 250 km 3 , which is more than 38 times the blue water footprint of USA households.

“The world is on track to avoid dangerous climate change and is less vulnerable to its impacts”.

Goal 10 is about linking human development with the future of the planet. As has been said, we cannot eradicate poverty unless we tackle climate change. It has an impact in many ways. It affects whether a country can produce enough food to feed its people and whether people can move beyond subsistence farming to being able to make a living from farming. It affects the water supply. For example, we can look at the impact that climate change and glacial melt are having on the mountainous areas of Nepal and Tibet, which are sometimes described as the third pole because they make up the third biggest ice mass after the Arctic and Antarctic. It causes natural disasters that range from droughts to floods and that include typhoons, tropical storms and landslides due to soil degradation.

Yesterday, I met seven of the eight ambassadors and chargés d’affaires from central American countries and last week I met the high commissioner from the Maldives. Those countries see the impact of climate change on their lives on a daily basis. The Maldives might no longer exist if we do not meet the 2° target. That is why what happens in Paris at the end of the year is so important.

I have asked the Secretary of State at International Development questions about the Government’s commitment to a stand-alone climate change goal. I admit that I am still slightly confused. I have heard from other people that we will probably accept all 17 goals. However, in her response to me, the Secretary of State suggested that she would prefer to see sustainability mainstreamed across the post-2015 framework. I agree that it is important that the issue is mainstreamed, as it ought to be across all Departments in the UK, but that does not mean that there is no need for a lead Department on climate change in the UK. In the same way, I believe that a stand-alone sustainable development goal on climate change would help to focus minds, keep the issue firmly on the agenda and ensure that we do not drop the ball on what is a very important issue.

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18:38 Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)

As we have heard from a number of speakers, 2015 has the potential to be an historic year for international development. The international community will come together in September to agree the sustainable development goals and at the end of the year to agree a framework to tackle climate change. That will happen just in year one of the next Parliament. The next five years must be about not just making the right agreements but, crucially, delivering on them. That will require commitment, energy and, crucially, leadership on the international stage. We will need the ability to set the agenda, to advocate and persuade, to build alliances, and to use our influence to make a difference for some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.

With crucial negotiations and agreements coming up, I want the next Government to be drivers, not passengers. The new sustainable development goals must go faster to eliminate extreme poverty and focus on tackling inequality, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley). To add to that, we would prioritise universal health coverage, human rights for all, including women, children and the disabled, and the effects of climate change.

My hon. Friends the Members for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), and many other colleagues, raised the issue of climate change. Labour will, unlike this Government, put the fight against climate change front and centre of international agreements. We will use the G8 in Germany to push for climate change to be a permanent standing item at the UN Security Council. It will be on the agenda of every meeting with world leaders here in the UK. Leading on the sustainable development goals; leading on climate change; leading on private sector development; leading on universal health coverage; and leading right around the world. That is the leadership this country needs.

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18:49 Desmond Swayne (Conservative)

I thought the remarks of the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth on fair trade were particularly pithy. He rightly drew attention to the false dichotomy between security and defence, and development; they are intimately connected. My right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) gave us the advantage of his 30 years’ experience, including as a Minister, and rightly drew our attention back to climate change and sustainability. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) highlighted the important report from the Environmental Audit Committee and asked several detailed questions. I offer her a trade. I have every intention of reading her report, but perhaps she will read this report: “A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies through Sustainable Development”. It is all in here: exactly how every single one of the targets has to be permeated with the key issue of sustainability. We are confident that the goals will be universal and we are ready to play our part: we have a strong cross-Government approach to this agenda, which is crucial to ensuring that all Departments are engaged and that the UK will be well placed to deliver these goals—it says.

The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) brought her long experience and knowledge of nutrition to this debate, but when she went on to climate change there was an element of criticism. I would point out that we were one of the few countries that constantly tried to get a specific reference to the 2° target back into the goals.

When it comes to climate change, there is again no division of substance between us. On equality, there is the principle of no one being left behind before a target can be met. Again, there is absolutely no division of substance between us.

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