Carbon Budget Delivery Plan: High Court Ruling

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend may be right—but why would we not want to do this? The net-zero economy grew by 9% last year, and there is £74 billion of gross value added to British businesses in the net-zero work being done right across the industrial sectors. So it makes sense to do this from an economic and a business point of view. Why would you not want to decarbonise your business or your home? That is why we have to work to hit these carbon budget targets, and there is an economic reason for doing so as well.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I am glad to hear the Minister applauding the net-zero green industries, but how does he square that with the decision by the North Sea Transition Authority—possibly misnamed—to grant 30 companies the right to look for hydrocarbons on sites that had been earmarked for offshore wind?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am not aware of those sites, but it is predicted that, even if all those licences are taken up, there will be a continuing reduction of 7% a year in oil and gas requirements for this country. That is one of the fastest reductions in fossil fuel requirements of any industrialised country.

Gibraltar: UK-EU Negotiations

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

The noble Lord speaks with great insight. I can give him a cast-iron assurance that I agree with every word he has said. We work closely with the Chief Minister and his team. I believe he will also be visiting London this month and meeting various committees in that respect. As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, the UK is steadfast, and it will not agree anything that compromises Gibraltar’s sovereignty.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, one of the many areas that cause conflict between Spain and the UK over the issue of Gibraltar is tobacco smuggling. Gibraltar does not apply sales tax or other levies, while Spain says that smuggling costs it €400 million a year in lost import duties. This and a number of other dubious business practices associated with Gibraltar have an impact both on the EU and on the UK. Are the Government looking at how some of these issues might be addressed to help to progress the negotiations?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

As the noble Baroness will know, there are provisions within the political framework for a level playing field. That will allow for mutual standards on matters covering labour, the environment and taxation, and it will cover all sectors.

Foreign Affairs

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and to welcome both his final comments and those on our relationship with Europe, which I will come back to.

It is tempting to focus, as many noble Lords have, on the situation in Palestine now: the hideous human suffering in the Gaza Strip; the terrible circumstances of the Israeli hostages; and the invention of a new acronym —WCNSF—meaning “wounded child, no surviving family”. UNICEF estimates that there are now 17,000 children in Gaza who are unaccompanied or separated from any relatives. That is about 1% of the entire population. Yet still we sell arms to the Israeli Government.

The topic of today’s debate is a broad one: the UK’s position on foreign affairs. I am in the lucky position that I can recycle material, because tomorrow I will be in Brussels with the Green European Foundation— I declare I have an unremunerated position on its board—to chair a debate at the Press Club on a major report, Geopolitics of a Post-Growth Europe. I urge noble Lords who seek new answers in a world where the old approaches—the approaches used for decades and continuing to be used by this Government—have delivered the conditions we have today to take a look at this report. Many will be pleased to note that in the introductory essay, the Dutch GreenLeft analyst Richard Wouters concludes that the EU

“should keep the United Kingdom close and underline that the door is open for re-entry. EU membership offers the closest form of alliance”.

However, in terms of our relationship with the nations of the global South—a growing, still relatively young part of the global population, as opposed to ours—the important point is made that it pays for them to sit on the fence, to play off the US, the EU and China, as well as the UK, against one another to secure trade, aid, investment and even security protection. There are many reasons for them to not prefer us and our allies. Many nations and peoples do not see the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the imperialist, colonialist attack that it is, because they associate such behaviour with western Europe and the US. They see, rightly, that much of the injustice and suffering they experience today originates from us. They see the enforced austerity of the IMF, the predatory actions of western lenders, the corrupt behaviour of western mining companies, the refusal to open up the use of climate technologies and, crucially, the refusal to allow affordable access to essential medicines and vaccines with manufacturing close to where they are needed.

History is not pre-written but made by the actions of people. Where we are today is the result of past actions over decades and centuries. Men sitting on these very Benches imposed starvation on India, forced 1.5 million Kenyans into concentration camps between 1952 and 1960, and imposed similar conditions in the so-called Malaya emergency. What should be at the heart of our foreign policy is, first, acknowledging the many abuses of the past and then that we need to act to stop the continuing oppression that arises from our own actions.

Debt cancellation is an obvious area of urgent need. Through that we would, as Wouters points out, ease the pressure on global South countries to sell off their biospheres and their lithospheres, and reduce the pressure to promote often exploitative labour conditions in export-orientated industries, when the efforts of their people could instead be directed towards delivering resilience and security, particularly food security, in the age of climate shocks.

I finish with a reflection on normative power—the power to exports one’s values—as an integral part of geopolitics and how living up to those values is crucial to being able to use that power for constructive good. With that in mind, I have two direct questions to the Minister for his summing up.

First, as Prime Minister in 2015, he made a public call to halt the planned execution of child defendant Ali Mohammed al-Nimr in Saudi Arabia. Ali was ultimately spared and has been released from prison. There are at least three such child defendants now in Saudi Arabia, despite its promises to stop sentencing child defendants to death. Will the Minister tonight publicly call on the Saudi authorities to prevent the executions of Abdullah al-Derazi, Youssef al-Manasif and Abdullah al-Howaiti? Secondly, the published value of UK arms sales licensed to Saudi Arabia since the bombing of Yemen began in March 2015 is £8.2 billion; the Campaign Against the Arms Trade says that it is much more than that. What is the world reading of Britain’s values when we export those arms and hand them over to one of the world’s regimes that is most abusive of human rights, particularly the rights of women and vulnerable migrants?

Myanmar: Health System

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 29th February 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure, as always, to follow the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and to very much agree with his points in terms of the need for more diplomatic action on sanctions on aviation fuel and small steps we can take to stop the flow of arms that are being used to repress the Burmese population. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for securing this debate. Unfortunately, I was not on that call with the nurses but, given what I heard today, I can only pay tribute to them. I have encountered other people in similar situations who can be utterly amazing.

My connection is that I was in Rakhine state in the late 1990s, up country in the amazing archaeological site of Mrauk-U, where the only other westerners in town were two Médecins Sans Frontières doctors. That was a testimony to the state of the medical system then in that poverty-stricken part of Burma.

I do not wish to repeat the points that others have made but will focus on two issues. One of them arises from what I was doing last night: I was with the High Commissioners of Barbados and Bangladesh, the Ineos Oxford Institute, the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy and the APPG on Antimicrobial Resistance. The meeting was preparing for the forthcoming high-level meeting in September of the General Assembly on the issue of antimicrobial resistance. I wish to cross-reference that with a couple of matters. One is the fact that there is increasing research coming mostly out of the Middle East that shows how AMR can be amplified by the impact of modern, heavy weapons, involving heavy metals going into the environment. That can induce resistance to antibiotics in microbes in the environment. There is also an increasingly amount of research that shows how AMR is strongly related to conflict. Obviously, that is partly due to the breakdown of medical systems, wounds that become infected for long periods, and so on. However, there is also increasing understanding about the impact of weapons.

As regards the issue of antimicrobial resistance, a figure that I suspect may shock even the knowledgeable noble Lords in this Committee is that about 50% of medical facilities in the world do not have running water. Wash water and sanitation are crucial. One would think that they are basic in 2024 but I have no doubt that these fundamental issues are enormous in Burma.

My direct question to the Minister—I will understand if he does not have an answer now—is: what are the Government doing as regards three key matters in the AMR area in terms of Burma? What is being done to support the provision of wash facilities, water and sanitation? What can be done to support provision of the appropriate antibiotics? Often in those situations, people just buy whatever antibiotics they can find, which may amplify problems. What can be done to increase the capacity for diagnostics that can operate at a small level, so that, crucially, one can test infections and find what antibiotics they are susceptible to and which they are resistant to? Then one can use the correct antibiotics. So, either now or later, perhaps the Minister can tell me of any work being done in that AMR space, which is getting much global focus this year, in terms of Burma.

I want to look at that, too, in the broader sense. I was in Burma many years ago with the World Health Organization, looking at the process of writing a report on women’s health. One of my more unusual claims to fame is that I appeared on the front page of the New Light of Myanmar shaking hands with the Health Minister. One might say that that was the previous junta’s propaganda rag. I did not have any choice in that. However, seriously, my question is about focus on women’s health and the efforts being made. We know that that issue is crucial to the health of whole communities but it often gets ignored. Rather more broadly, the focus on women’s education and the provision of support for women in those conflict zones and circumstances can be tremendously difficult.

Just as an example, some women from Afghanistan who I have heard from recently were working very hard to provide education—where girls are being denied it—by Zoom. Those technological means are open practically anywhere now. Is any work being done to support women’s education in Burma?

Death of Alexei Navalny

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 19th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I totally endorse the noble Lord’s statement, views and indeed sentiments. He brings a valuable dimension to the discussion and questions that we have about the strength of UK soft power, including the use of the incredible service that the BBC provides to many countries, including the Russian people. I certainly take on board what he said. As my noble friend said earlier, our fight is not with the Russian people. Indeed, Russian culture through history has enriched not just the Russian people but the world.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I associate the Green Party with the expressions of condolence from all around the House to Alexei Navalny’s family, friends and supporters.

A number of noble Lords have talked about extending sanctions. There is obviously work to consider there, but I want to focus on what is happening in the UK. In December, Transparency International Russia, operating in exile, produced an important report about illegal money transfers for fictitious or overpriced invoices, which is what is known as trade-based money laundering. They total hundreds of millions of pounds, and a very large percentage of that involves UK-based shell companies. We are about to see the long-awaited reforms of Companies House, but the second point raised by the report was about the role of enablers—that is, professional companies and individuals in the UK that are facilitating what is known as the London laundromat. We have been through two economic crime Bills since the Russian invasion, but a Minister conceded to me that we needed to do more. Are the Government planning to do more about the enablers who are not just enabling corruption but enabling Putin’s war?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

The short answer to the noble Baroness’s question is yes. She is right to raise the issue of those who profiteer. I mentioned earlier those who look for innovative ways of circumventing the legislation that has been imposed and the steps that have been taken. We need to ensure that the new bodies that have been set up and the new structures and powers that have been given are applied. There will always be deterrence, but there will always be those who seek to circumvent it. We need to close down the loopholes, including the ones that the noble Baroness has highlighted.

Recycled Plastics

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 13th February 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of reports that a global oversupply of petrochemicals has led to recycled plastics failing to compete with new, and whether they plan to take any action in response.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, we are aware of the oversupply of petrochemicals in the global market, but this is a matter for industry to lead on. It is estimated that businesses which are members of the UK Plastics Pact have, on average, increased the recycling content of their packaging from 8.5% in 2018 to 24.1% in 2023. The Government will continue to readdress the balance through measures such as the coalition and packaging reforms and the plastic packaging tax.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the Minister for his Answer. However, there was, for example, three times as much ethylene produced last year as there was demand for it. As with fossil fuels used for energy, is it not time to look seriously on a global scale at restrictions on production, not just working on the demand side, particularly given that we are all bearing the externalised costs imposed environmentally and financially in terms of waste disposal and the companies are taking away profits for unnecessary products?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises a very good point. Domestically, we are seeking to increase the supply of recycled plastics and reduce the demand, through regulation and tax, for virgin plastics, but we recognise that whatever we do domestically will not help to solve this global problem. That is why we are a founding member of the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution. At the United Nations Environment Assembly in March, we drove through, with Rwanda and Peru, a commitment to see an end to plastic pollution by 2042.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Our restrictions on straws, stirrers and cotton buds have had a big impact. These items used to appear on the top-10 littered items lists but no longer do so. According to estimates in our impact assessment, England used 1.1 billion single-use plates and 4.25 billion items of single-use cutlery per year, most of which were plastic but only 10% were recycled, so banning these items will have a significant impact on reducing plastic waste.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to strong public support for recycled plastics rather than virgin plastics, yet it is clear that the market mechanisms are simply not delivering the products that people can buy. Individual action will not work here. Do we not need to go much further and faster to ensure that we get to the circular economy that the Government stand for, and, indeed, the position where the polluter pays, which is the Government’s position?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Absolutely. The Government’s 25-year environment plan sets out our ambition to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste by 2042. The resources and waste strategy, which was published in 2018, sets out how we are going to achieve that ambition, mainly by creating precisely what the noble Baroness said—a circular economy. We are not the single repository of good ideas here so, if the noble Baroness has a suggestion that works with business and the end-user, particularly households, we would be glad to hear it.

Children in Gaza

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 13th February 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs what his Department is doing to ensure the lives and security of the children of Gaza.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton) (Con)]

My Lords, the best way to address the humanitarian situation is by ending the fighting as soon as possible. That is why I have repeatedly said that an immediate pause in fighting is necessary. UK aid is saving children’s lives. We are doing everything we can to get more aid into Gaza and have trebled our aid commitment to the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This includes targeted support for children through our £5.75 million contribution to UNICEF. Children are also benefiting from life-saving food, shelter and health support that we are providing through partnerships with other UN agencies, NGOs and the Red Crescent societies.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the noble Lord, but surely a pause in fighting is not enough. We need a permanent ceasefire now. Specifically, I am sure he is aware of the awful fate of six year-old Hind Rajab, calling for help in the midst of the bodies of her dead relatives, who appears to have died with two would-be rescuers from the Red Crescent. Have the Government demanded answers from the Israeli Government—or will they—about what happened to Hind, her family and the rescuers? Are the Government challenging the Israeli Government on the risks to hundreds of thousands of children in Rafah who are now in the path of the Israeli offensive? Surely it is time to stop all arms shipments to Israel, as a Dutch court has demanded that the Netherlands does, and implement targeted sanctions against members of the Israeli leadership, particularly those calling for new settlements in Gaza and on the West Bank.

Environmental Policies: Timeliness and Effectiveness

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I do not understand the noble Lord’s position. Working off a baseline, we have to make sure that we are sharing data. We are publishing 800 pages of data so that the noble Lord, NGOs, parliamentarians and others can hold us to account on this. We use an accepted baseline in order to show an improvement. No net loss by 2030 and 10% improvement on that by 2042—those are pushing targets.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the tone adopted by the Minister is in stark contrast—180 degrees opposite—to that of the OEP report. That talks of Britain being locked in an irreversible spiral of decline of nature. We have what the Minister calls landmark pieces of legislation. Can he put his hand on his heart and say that Defra has adequate capacity to deliver the absolute flood of material that needs to be done to get anywhere near delivering what he is suggesting is needed?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I think we can. We have put more resources into our agencies, particularly Natural England. We have a sense of complete determination to hit this, which comes from Ministers and goes down to the Natural England or Environment Agency individual who is dealing with a particular group of farmers. But for all the resources that we could put into government, we would fail if we doubled them. What is important is that we weaponise land managers and people who really know about this on the ground. That is why clusters of farmers working together—for example, in environmental farming groups—are the way forward to deliver an increase in abundance of species and protection of nature, which is not just an environmental or societal matter. It is an economic one as well, as the Dasgupta report proved.

Rohingya Refugees

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

The issue of the responsibility to protect is one we have taken forward and discuss with allies and partners. It is developing a doctrine, as it were. When it comes to this issue, we have a role; we are making a contribution and we are, I think, doing more than many countries of our size and scale. I think that there is a lot we should do to sort support ASEAN. It has set out its five principles for dealing with Myanmar, which we support, and has a co-ordinator from Laos who we want to work with. Ultimately, we should respect the fact that, in its region, ASEAN should take the lead on this issue and we can support where we can.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, on or about 28 December, it was widely reported that Indonesia had pushed back a boat containing a significant number of Rohingya refugees out of its territorial waters. I have not been able to find any report of what has happened since to the people on that boat. Would the Minister agree that that is absolutely unacceptable behaviour, out of line with international law? Have the Government made, or will they make, any representations on this to Indonesia? Do we not have to make sure that refugees are safe?

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

I am not aware of that report; I will certainly go away and look into it. What we would say is that Bangladesh should be praised for the role that it is playing in taking quite so many refugees. Obviously, there are huge pressures—there are worries about conditions in the camps and whether there is enough food—but, ultimately, Bangladesh is looking after a million people, and that is why we are supporting it to the extent that we are. Every country should take its responsibilities towards refugees very seriously.

Climate Change: Impact on Developing Nations

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, who made a very powerful point about externalised costs. Currently, the few in many sectors—the few giant multi-national companies—are making a financial killing, while the rest of the human and non-human world pay.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, for securing this debate and introducing it so clearly. Like many, I am tempted to talk about the inadequate, non-manifesto compliant level of UK official development assistance. The fact is that we would all be more secure in a more stable world if we were spending more on ODA. The Green Party says double the Government’s current level, and that should be applied to real development assistance, not housing refugees in the UK—as much as we should be doing that as well.

After the year we have just had, the warmest in probably 100,000 years, I was tempted, like the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, to focus on the extreme urgency of climate mitigation. That is roughly half the time our species has been on this planet, and this is the warmest year. It is certainly, by a substantial margin, the hottest since records began. I was also tempted, as Debt Justice has been doing, to focus on the way the global debt crisis is preventing climate action, particularly in the 54 hardest-hit global south nations. Global south countries are currently spending 12.5 times more on debt repayment than they are on climate adaptation.

The Minister might be surprised to hear that in the short time available to me, I am going to focus instead on some money that the Government could stop spending on official development assistance, money that might instead be redirected towards supporting women and girls’ grassroots organisations as a foundation of a feminist foreign policy, for example. This area is of particular interest to the Minister: agriculture. I am relying in part on a briefing from Compassion in World Farming and on some excellent research for which I credit the House of Lords Library, which conducted it for me at speed. Compassion in World Farming, as the name suggests, is focused on the well-being and welfare of non-human animals. It points to an independent review for the FCDO that suggests that the department should

“work through its programmes, with the Governments in programmes’ countries of operation, to establish agreed levels of animal welfare”.

My direct question to the Minister is: will the Government be doing that?

However, we are focused today on the climate emergency, and with that in mind I want to look in particular at the activities of the International Finance Corporation, which is a member of the World Bank Group. Andrew Mitchell MP, in his role as Minister of State for Development, is a member of the IFC board of governors. The IFC has in recent years funded private sector projects including: a multi-storey pig farm in China; industrial pig production in Vietnam; industrial broiler chicken production in Uganda; and industrial pig and chicken production in Ecuador. Will the UK use its influence to stop that damaging funding of factory farming? As I often reflect in your Lordships’ House, it is a huge threat in terms of antimicrobial resistance and is wasting food that could be fed to people, instead feeding it to animals which convert cereals and plant proteins very inefficiently into meat and milk. Globally, 40% of crop calories are used to feed animals when they could be feeding people.

Of course, these factory-farming installations also contribute to massive deforestation and other environmental damage, creating manure as a major pollutant, even though, if we had small-scale agricultural agro-ecological regenerative approaches, it could be a fertiliser on arable crops. Many studies have shown that will not be possible to meet the Paris targets without a reduction in global livestock production. Therefore, will the Government do something—take action to seek to persuade the IFC to stop this damaging funding—and, furthermore, commit to ensuring that no direct UK aid goes to factory farming?

On agriculture more broadly, I am sure the noble Lord is aware of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact paper, UK Aid to Agriculture in a Time of Climate Change, from June 2023. The Government then, in responding to that, committed to

“ensure all new UK bilateral aid spending does no harm to nature”

by ensuring that it is all “nature positive”. That was a commitment in the international development strategy of May 2022. Can the Minister tell me whether that is true of everything that was funded in 2023?

Finally, we have to tie all this together: the welfare of our natural world, of our climate and of people. Food security is one of the crushingly important issues of the coming age. The Government themselves, at least sometimes, acknowledge that small-scale agro-ecological production is crucial both to improving nutritional standards and to ensuring that we live within the Paris Agreement. Are the Government ensuring that they stop funding both industrial agriculture of all forms, and that they are funding the agro-ecological small-scale production the world needs?