14:25 Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)

This Bill should be a Government Bill, but the coalition appear to have dropped their commitment to legislate on illegal timber. This week saw the launch of the international year of forests at the UN General Assembly in New York. It saddens me that instead of championing their promises on illegal timber, the coalition instead seem prepared to abandon them. Shortage of time prevents me from talking at length about the importance of our rain forests, with regard to biodiversity, their capacity to regulate our climate and mitigate climate change and their importance for indigenous people, but I will note that in the past 24 hours there has been news that extremely worrying droughts have been killing the Amazon rain forests, leading them to becoming a net emitter of CO 2 in 2005 and 2010.

To those Members who were here last March and have good memories, those words might sound familiar: they were the opening words of the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), now the Minister of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, in a speech to support his ten-minute rule Bill—Illegally Logged Timber (Prohibition of Retail, Wholesale and Distribution)—just weeks before the general election. It was a Bill that I would have strongly supported. The reason I repeat his words is to highlight my dismay at the contradictions that are there for all to see of a party saying and promising one thing, but not acting once it has the power to do so.

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