13:16 Jeremy Corbyn (Other)

The prince has also shown a consistent commitment to our often ignored natural world. As our climate and soils are being destroyed before our very eyes, the prince’s interest in the natural environment has not gone unnoticed. My friend the late great MP Michael Meacher once recalled that when he was an Environment Minister, he and His Royal Highness would “consort” to persuade the Government to do more on green energy. Asked by the press if there was a constitutional problem with a member of the royal family advocating a political opinion, Michael—a committed republican—replied:

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13:31 Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)

For decades, the Prince of Wales has been a champion of the natural environment, and I want to take a moment of the House’s time to comment on that. Some people have pejoratively described it as meddling; I would call it contributing. He has been way ahead of most of us on many of these issues. He was talking about the danger of plastics in our oceans decades ago. His work on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change caused, at times, criticism—but again, he was way ahead of his time. Now he speaks a language that really has a remarkable affinity right across the political divide in this country. He raised these issues when it was unfashionable to do so. There is also his work on promoting the circular economy, which is now being mainstreamed by all parties in this House, moving away from the “extract, use, dump” culture to one that really does deal with how we use our natural resources in this country. In his book “Harmony”, which he co-wrote with Tony Juniper, he connected the environment with related issues such as health and wellbeing in a way that was really prescient for its time.

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13:45 James Heappey (Wells) (Con)

I want to briefly express my admiration for the Prince of Wales and all his work on climate change, the environment and our oceans. In particular, I want to thank him and his wife, Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cornwall, for their great patronage of our nation’s armed forces and the ships, regiments and squadrons of which they are colonels.

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13:47 Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)

Colleagues have mentioned the prince’s work on the wider environment and nature, biodiversity and wildlife, and he has really helped to get soils on the agenda. All his climate change work has to be applauded. As others have said, he was ahead of the game on that, and many people are now following on the work he began.

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