22:43 Rachael Maskell (Labour)

COP26 started a conversation that should have taken place decades previously. It did not end where our fragile planet demanded, but, with 1.5° now in critical care, it failed to grasp the scale of the crisis and it fell short of the demands required to safeguard against our planet burning, melting, flooding and people dying.

COP26 said there is no time for delay, no time to prevaricate or put off, no time to postpone. When opportunity comes to accelerate our path to net zero, to cut carbon, to protect biodiversity, to end the plastic endemic, to enable a carbon negative future and to put investment in sustainability, it must be grasped. Delay has been our failure. To take action is our hope.

BioYorkshire will place not only York and Yorkshire at the heart of the UK biosciences economy, but the UK at the heart of the global bio-economy. Its ambition is for domestic transition, but its power is in global mitigation. It will demonstrate how investment in biotechnology is hugely beneficial for our own economy, and on a global scale will give us new tools through which to drive international markets and international development. While the climate crisis drives our world apart and accelerates inequality, a just transition draws us together and demands equality: a time when global north reaches out to global south with the solutions they need to build their futures as we transition ours; and when we quicken the move to clean energy as we leave fossil fuels to rest in their carbon seams.

Yorkshire’s ambition to be net zero by 2038, as set out in the Yorkshire and Humber climate action plan, and for North Yorkshire to be the first carbon negative region, will rest on BioYorkshire being given the power to deliver. It will use world-class science and local expertise to turn lab technologies to fully scaled-up applications to deliver profitable, bio-based production of chemicals, materials and fuels, and enable productive, net zero food, feed, farming and wider land use practices.

Will the Minister first make it his priority to come to York to meet the partners? I know that he will be keen to do so. Secondly, will he agree to make BioYorkshire one of his Government’s flagship projects and bring forward the full funding now, so that scaling can commence without delay? To have such a well-developed project could help accelerate the success of the Government’s 10-point plan and bring a crucial offering to COP27.

With COP26 done, the world is watching. Science, economy and ethics are yearning. The Prime Minister talks about a green industrial revolution; BioYorkshire is ready to lead that revolution. The Prime Minister talks about levelling up; BioYorkshire could deliver sustainable jobs and investment to the north right now. The Prime Minister said he would fund BioYorkshire. Will he keep that promise? The Government must see the opportunity, hear the need and feel the urgency to invest in Yorkshire’s green new deal. We cannot afford to delay.

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22:59 George Freeman (Conservative)

In the time available, I will try to set the scene. It is a great pleasure to be here as the newly appointed Minister for Science, Research and Innovation with a mission to implement the Prime Minister’s vision of a science superpower and an innovation nation. That means that the UK, in an increasingly competitive global world, has to continue to punch above its weight in science with world-class science and science for the global good that helps to prevent climate change, feed 9 billion hungry mouths and solve global challenges, as the hon. Lady has been talking about.

Given a background in agriculture and agri-tech, having worked in the seeds industry and having the Norwich research park on my doorstep, I look at Fera, the leadership the hon. Lady has outlined powerfully in precision farming and in agri-tech, the University of York and the agriculture college. This is genuinely a cluster of excellence in its field. The bid it has put together around fuel, chemicals, materials, net zero, food and feed, and land use is a powerful one, and there is very little in it not to be supportive of.

We also set out a series of recommendations about cannabinoid medicines, CBD and industrial hemp as a net-zero crop with huge potential, and the broader application of agri-genetics for both net zero agriculture and nutriceuticals, functional foods and the interaction of food and agricultural medicines.

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