UN Sustainable Development Goals

Debate between Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

I will certainly take away what the noble Lord said and look at it carefully. In history, it is true that a green revolution of productivity in agriculture has almost always been necessary to see more of an industrial revolution and an increase in prosperity. But the noble Lord made a good point about small farmers—as we should keep it in the family, I had better go and have a careful look at it.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, the sustainable development goals included volunteering this time. As Prime Minister, the noble Lord really supported volunteering and introduced the International Citizen Service, which was run by VSO in this country incredibly successfully, so that the African Union then took it up as a major way of engaging the millions of young people in Africa whom he talked about. But a generation of young people in this country, and in the countries that organisations such as VSO work in, has missed out. Can he assure me that volunteering will now play a central part in the Government’s strategy to re-energise the achievement of the sustainable development goals and to do something to enable young people, here, in Africa and around the developing world, to get the skills and leadership that they need?