15:04 Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)

I start by thanking the Liaison Committee for making it possible for this debate to take place in Westminster Hall. The background to it is the Rio+20 conference, all the work being done on climate change and the importance of Her Majesty’s Government embedding sustainability into all policies, right the way across government. It is important that the overseas territories are not excluded.

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16:19 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)

There is also, of course, regular discussion at ministerial level. We have the Joint Ministerial Council, which brings together UK Ministers and territory leaders and representatives and is organised collaboratively. The Environmental Audit Committee recommended that we should prioritise greater involvement of the territories in setting the agenda for those meetings, but I assure hon. Members that we already do that. We already have regular meetings with the UK-based representatives of the territory Governments in the run-up to Joint Ministerial Council meetings and, following discussions with them, we held Minister-led plenary sessions on the environment in 2012 and on renewable energy in 2013. Responding to specific territory requests, we also held in 2013 a technical discussion in which territory representatives were able to speak to UK experts on a range of environmental issues.

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