Trial of Jimmy Lai

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate. The Sino-British joint declaration is an internationally registered, legally binding treaty between the UK and China, under which China committed to uphold Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy and to protect the rights and freedoms of its people. This explicitly includes freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief; that is why we need to make sure that this declaration is upheld.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I declare my position as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong. Jonathan Price, one of the members of the international legal team—which, as the Minister said, was denied the right to represent Mr Lai—said that

“the rule of law is eroded”

in Hong Kong. That is very evident to us all. Are the Government taking sufficient steps to warn British businesses engaged, or considering engaging, in Hong Kong that the rule of law does not exist there? Are they taking sufficient account of the fact that a number of British businesses—notably, banks—are cosying up to the Chinese regime in Hong Kong? Are the Government concerned about that and prepared to take action?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The Foreign Office makes very clear the rules that should apply to all companies when they do business in different parts of the world, and to access and travel. We believe that the right kind of trade with China and Hong Kong is right; it is a good way of engaging with a country and of using those occasions to make sure that we are making the points about human rights. We have very strict rules in this country that require businesses to declare their supply chains in a whole variety of ways. There are rules covering some of the things the noble Baroness talked about. What is really important is that we focus on the case of Jimmy Lai and recognise that it concerns not only him but others. This is a human rights issue that the Government take very seriously and we want to see it resolved very soon.

North Korea

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Swire, for securing a very important debate. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for his very long and incredibly hard-working contribution to ensuring that these issues do not disappear entirely off the British government agenda and are brought to the public’s attention.

The condition and behaviour of North Korea is one of the crucial issues on the global geopolitical stage today. That is one reason why I am standing to speak in this Thursday afternoon debate. The other is a personal, historic connection. In 1998, 25 years ago, I was on the streets of Pyongyang. I was there as a tourist, having written on my visa application in my own handwriting, “I am not a writer or journalist of any kind”. It so happened that the first article I wrote for the Guardian Weekly, of which I subsequently became editor, was about Pyongyang. I was a lot younger then and did things that perhaps I would not do now.

It was a chance for me, as an Australian who came to Europe after the Berlin Wall had come down, to get some insight, no matter how constrained or limited, into that kind of society. It was the last society of that kind left in 1998. I really understood all in new ways after being in that society in Pyongyang. The last morning, I slipped—or at least I think I slipped—my oversight guards and was able to walk out on the streets of Pyongyang on my own. I understood what it was to be a non-person because everyone, for reasons I entirely understand, looked through me as though they could not see me. They did not want to acknowledge me. A street sweeper swept around my feet without ever acknowledging my existence. The only people who did were a line of 10 year-olds who were about to enter a building and did not have a teacher with them. They were smiling and saying, “There’s a foreigner over there” to each other. I waved at them and they waved back.

Those 10 year-olds would now be about 35 years old. They will never have known what it would be like to live in a society with any kind of freedom or opportunity, but it is really important that we look at the broader history of Korea here. If we look back over its history, from about 1876 onwards Japan exerted a continuing, crushing influence on the Korean people. The great Empress, Myeongseong, was assassinated by the Japanese in 1895 and Japan formally established colonialism in 1910. For the people of North Korea there is, going back many generations, no kind of sense of a state or society that gives them any kind of real hope or normality or any sense that there was an attempt to work for the common good.

We all know what difficulties there were in the reunification of Germany. When we think about the situation that the North Korean people are in, we need to think about how difficult that was. To pick up some points made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, it was reported in the Economist that on 9 October, when North Korea finally lifted the Covid blockade, up to 600 people were bundled out of Chinese prisons and deported to North Korea. The nature of all such reports means it is so often difficult to disentangle fact and detail, but I think there is no doubt that a significant number of people were in that situation. Everything we know tells us that those people, if they are not dead now, are in an horrendous situation. As the noble Lord said, it is terribly important that we assert the right to asylum and refugee status for the people of North Korea—for everybody, but acknowledging that North Koreans are acutely in need of that. The term “refoulement” has been much in discussion lately; clearly, this is a case where there must not be refoulement.

I also want to pick up some points made by the noble Lords, Lord Swire and Lord Alton, about hunger and food insecurity in North Korea. Going back to my visit in 1998—the noble Lord, Lord Swire, talked about how bad things were there in the 1990s—that was when I really grasped a word that had been merely hypothetical for me before “gleaning”, gleaning the leavings of the harvest from the fields. What I saw in the fields of North Korea, just outside Pyongyang, was a long line of maybe 20 or 30 middle-aged women who were going through a rice field. Each of them had at her waist a small purse. They were not young women, but they were picking up individual grains of rice and were going to get, at most, a small purseful from several hours’ work. That is a real measure of hunger.

We know that in March this year, the G7 Foreign Ministers noted the dire humanitarian situation. We have heard a lot about the regime’s exotic, luxurious lifestyle, but we are also talking about weapons of mass destruction and ballistic weapons programmes, into which vast amounts of resources are going. I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Swire and Lord Alton, about the need to think about sanctions, but sanctions that do not force those middle-aged women out to hunt individual rice grains in the fields or leave the children of those whom I saw all those years ago going hungry and malnourished. We have to be smarter and cleverer than that. We have to think about a future world in which we can, ultimately, see some different regime and some kind of future for North Korea. Starving people is no way to do that.

I think the noble Lord, Lord Alton, talked about Magnitsky-style sanctions, and the noble Lord, Lord Swire, talked about the enablers in our society. I have no doubt that there is North Korean money here in London, going through banks, law firms and real estate agents. We have to do a lot more about the huge corruption problem that we have in the UK. That is something that we can do directly, and we also need to make sure that we apply sanctions in smart ways that address that angle.

Finally, I spoke a little about weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. North Korea withdrew from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in 2003 and tested its first nuclear weapon on 9 October 2006. The International Atomic Energy Agency has not had access to North Korea’s nuclear facility since 2009, and in 2017 Pyongyang conducted its first test of a thermonuclear device. I am not going to go through this in great detail—it is perhaps a debate for another day—but I note that the majority of the world’s countries back the global treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons: 93 countries are now signatories to that treaty, 69 countries are parties and 123 countries have expressed their support. We must aspire to a world without regimes like that of the DPRK, but if things go that badly wrong, a world without nuclear weapons will be a much safer world for all of us. The existence of nuclear weapons is a threat to all of us and that will be the situation as long as they exist.

Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (Substitution of Cut-off Date Relating to Rights of Way) (England) Regulations 2023

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Lords Chamber

Let us not strangle the continuing emergence of lost rights of way. I ask the Government to embrace it.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate and particularly to listen to the powerful and incisive speech of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. I seek to add to the content of the debate rather than to repeat what has been said, but I could not resist rising to support entirely the regret Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts. It is not often that your Lordships’ House sees the two of us aligned, but it reflects the fact that, all around this House, every speech has expressed great regret, not just in technical but in real terms, about the direction that the Government are taking on these public rights of way.

I will very briefly set this in historical context. Since the election of Margaret Thatcher, 10% of what was public land in the UK has been sold into private hands. If we look back to centuries before that, it is one long tale of enclosure, of the public being excluded from more and more land. The real tragedy of the commons is that they were stolen from the people. Today, we are not talking about ownership but about rights of way: the right to walk on our own land. Maybe that path up the hill towards the church was once how people visited a family grave. Maybe the path between one village and the next was how courting couples got together and how, historically, families were created. We might make different uses of those rights of way today, but they should still exist. This country is sometimes referred to as a property-owning democracy, yet 40,000 land millionaires, 0.06% of the population, own nearly half our land.

We are in a situation where people have rights which are threatened with being cut off. I pick up one point that was highlighted in the excellent Ramblers briefing. As the Government are presenting this to us, it was never intended that paths in current use would not be cut off, yet our current arrangements are that this could be happening. These days with social media and mobile phones—I am probably not the only one with a walking app that often records the route that I took in various places—there may well be a great deal of data indicating that footpaths are in use. However, I invite your Lordships to consider for a second, as many others have referred to, how difficult it would be for volunteers and small local organisations to collect and collate all that data to provide the proof that is needed. That is not something that will happen quickly. We have lost so many rights. Let us not lose any more.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, I support these Motions from a particular perspective. Back in 1993, I was first elected to Suffolk County Council. Somewhat to my surprise, I found myself chairing the rights of way committee, a position that I held for some years. With all the experience that I gleaned, I can do nothing but agree with all the comments that have been made tonight.

When I was first learning about rights of way, I came across a summing-up by Lord Denning in which he said that nothing excites an Englishman so much as a footpath—I always thought that said rather a lot about Englishmen. Nevertheless, what I learned pretty quickly from that is that you have the coming together of two polar opposites. On the one hand there is the right of access, often historic, that people want to exercise, and on the other, “This is my land, it is private and I do not want anyone on it”. These are often irreconcilable. However, I also learned very quickly that, as public bodies and as legislators, it is not our job to pick a side but somehow to find a way of bringing them together. This is what saddens me about current proposals: they do not do that; they are partial and have come down on the side of the landowners.

The stakeholder working group, which other noble Lords have mentioned and which brought together local authorities, landowners and user groups, was able to come up with a consensus report. It is worth reflecting on how nigh-on impossible that must have been, and yet the stakeholder working group did that. That ought to be a gift to the Government, to say, “Here is a package on which all the stakeholders agreed”. Yet the Government have taken one piece of that and ignored all the rest, despite the conclusions of the group that

“implementation of the proposals in full is crucial to preserving the balanced nature of the package”.

It is a real pity that, all this time later, we have not moved; in fact, this is a massively retrograde step.

As we have heard, we do not have information about the exemptions from the cut-off date. There are some really important categories of rights of way here. Many paths in urban areas have never been on a definitive map and yet are used all the time. There are paths which are already in use. Where I take issue with the speech, with which I otherwise agreed, from the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, is that they are often not long forgotten and ill-used; many of them have been used for hundreds of years and still are but just happen not to have been recorded. It would be tragic if they were to be lost. Then there is the backlog of which we have heard: what is the status of those for which applications have already been made?

I want to finish by agreeing with noble Lords who share my disbelief at the Explanatory Memorandum, which says there will be no significant impact on the voluntary or public sectors, because that is palpable nonsense. Local authorities, as we have heard, already have a massive backlog and are hugely strapped for cash. If you are running a local authority and you have limited legal support, are you going to put it into childcare or public rights of way? That is the reality that many of them are facing. All that will happen is that the backlog will get larger. Who is putting in these claims? They are being put in by volunteers from various user groups. In all the years I chaired the rights of way committee, I never saw a specious claim. Every one of them had been immaculately researched, often over many years, and although occasionally we would disagree on the point of law or its interpretation, they were made in good faith and deserved proper consideration. How volunteers are to carry on working against this sort of deadline, and produce that quality of work, defies belief.

I urge government to prioritise the regulations governing these historical paths and the exemptions from the cut-off date, and to set out how government funding can be used to support the work of both local authorities and the voluntary sector, if we are not to lose them for ever.

Food and Biological Security: Agricultural Fungicide

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2023 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of how the United Kingdom’s current agricultural fungicide use will affect long-term food and biological security.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I am grateful to those who have joined this debate, to the Library for its excellent briefing and to the University of Manchester and the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy among others who have prepared additional material on a subject that may at first appear niche and specialist. I hope that by the end of this debate it will be much more familiar to this Committee and far beyond, with its status lifted up in Defra’s and the Department of Health’s agenda. I must also thank my BSAC intern, Lorna Flintham, who has played a major part in my preparations for today.

The severity and widespread impact of fungal disease and fungicide use are often greatly overlooked. Annually more than 150 million severe cases of human fungal infections occur worldwide, resulting in about 1.7 million deaths a year. Many of those deaths are because the drugs that once worked to cure now work no longer because the fungi are resistant. That is not solely or even primarily because of medical use of drugs.

First, I shall make a quick distinction. Antifungals are human medicines used to treat fungal infections; fungicides are pesticides used to treat and prevent fungal plant infections, particularly in food crops. Some 4,000 tonnes of fungicide are sprayed on arable crops annually, accounting for 38% of pesticide use. They are not used without reason. The Irish potato famine, African wheat blight and the way our world coffee industry now sits in South America, and not where it originated in south Asia, are all the result of fungi defeating human efforts. The problem is what these fungicides are doing to our environment, food security and biosecurity.

First, there is their direct killing action. To date no policy document has shown an appreciation of the state of the UK’s soil microbiosphere and how it is being affected by biocides such as fungicides. We benefit hugely from mycorrhizal fungi and, indeed, many other fungi that break down materials that would otherwise literally cover our planet, but they are being eradicated by indiscriminate fungicide use in industrial agriculture in what is being termed a large microbial extinction event. Not only is this destroying environmental biodiversity but soils depleted of these microbes have lower crop yields. Some 80% of our food is dependent on plants. Lower crop yields will push food security and supermarket prices only one way.

Then there is cross-resistance. Most fungi exposed to fungicides in a crop field will die, but some will survive and become inherently resistant to the fungicide due to natural selection. The fungicide will also stop working in the field. The key issue is that the fungicides that fungi are resistant to are extremely similar chemically to the antifungals we rely on to treat patients in healthcare. By developing resistance to fungicides, these fungi also develop cross-resistance to clinical antifungals. More and more patients are coming forward with resistant fungal infections that healthcare providers simply cannot treat.

Fungal diseases affect more than 1 billion people every year. For those billion people, antifungals are indispensable tools in fighting infection. Development of treatments for fungal diseases in humans is intrinsically more challenging than agricultural fungicides due to the shared characteristics of human and fungal cells—that is, it is very challenging to eradicate a fungal cell without also damaging the host, and therefore the utmost care must be taken to produce and protect effective antifungal drugs.

A new emerging antifungal drug, Olorofim, has been effectively trialled in the treatment of aspergillosis, a highly debilitating fungal lung infection with a 30% to 50% death rate even when the strain is not resistant to medication, which 20% of cases are. Olorofim could make a real difference to the patient population, but there is a big problem: its efficacy is threatened by ipflufenoquin, a newly developed agricultural fungicide. These two drugs use the same mechanism of action to kill fungi, a big problem considering cross-resistance and the spread of resistance from our fields to our hospitals. As a government priority, the approval of ipflufenoquin for use in agriculture and other commercial sectors should be paused pending further investigation into the cross-resistance risk. I hope the Minister, to whom I have given prior notice of all the questions in this speech, will be able to directly respond on that issue.

We should not allow the approval of a pesticide that could undermine decades of antifungal drug development and risk the well-being—the life—of thousands of patients who could benefit from it. There is an opportunity here to truly benefit physically vulnerable people, which most of the affected patients are, who are absolutely reliant on this new breakthrough medication, which is a spin-out from University of Manchester research.

Further, the Government need to assess the feasibility of ring-fencing certain mechanisms of action for human antifungals. Ring-fencing could prevent the fungi in our environment being exposed to similar chemicals that we use to treat fungal disease in healthcare, ultimately safeguarding effective antifungals for the future. In addition, to promote the safe deployment of novel fungicides, regulators should introduce new criteria when approving antifungal compounds for commercial use. Are the Government looking at that?

Our infrastructure could greatly benefit from developing a risk management framework to evaluate the likelihood of cross-resistance emerging between new agricultural antifungals and existing clinical agents before they are approved for use. This is a genie that, once out of the bottle, cannot be put back in. In doing so, we could stop the inevitable inefficacy of antifungals in future and allow our UK antifungal innovation to remain competitive.

Unsurprisingly, it has to be noted that the climate emergency will only increase the pressure to act. The UK Food Security Report 2021 mentions fungal pathogens only three times in 322 pages, although it notes that:

“Warmer temperatures can also encourage fungal diseases such as potato blight”,


backing up what the science has told us in multiple directions—that the effect of the climate emergency on plant diseases, of which 80% are fungi-based, will lower crop yields. In humans, fungi such as the valley fever pathogen are known to thrive in warmer soils. More frequent severe storms, floods and hurricanes are also increasingly dispersing harmful fungi across hundreds of miles to human hosts, potentially causing infection outbreaks through what were previously rare diseases. Here in Parliament, we need to seriously consider how fungicide use will fit into the growing pressure from fungal diseases in a warming world.

I turn to broader issues. Increasing our fungicide use in agriculture is not the answer; in fact, we clearly have to massively decrease it. Innovation should not automatically mean new synthetic chemicals. Yes, we need to make further research funds available to replenish our antifungals and fungicides but, much more, we need to explore innovative agricultural practices that reduce our reliance on fungicides. The Minister has frequently expressed agreement with me about the need for agro-ecological practices. To put it another way, as does the Exeter researcher Jamie Lorimer, we need to use life to manage life—using mechanisms that have been around for hundreds of millions of years.

Our approach to agriculture is outdated and comes from a time when we were not aware of the environmental and human risks of pesticide use. In that vein, I strongly urge His Majesty’s Government to share their plans and ask the Minister when we will see the updated UK national action plan for the sustainable use of pesticides.

I acknowledge to the Government that striking the balance between prioritising our food security and safeguarding our clinical treatments is an impossible challenge, but it is an essential one that we have to meet as best we possibly can. Managing fungal crop disease has always been essential to our ability to feed the population, but we cannot afford a haphazard, piecemeal approach that will hurt our public health and our NHS. We need integrated, “one health” considerations of the impact of the climate emergency and responsible fungicide legislation.

Mitigating these risks will require the Government to work collaboratively with cross-sector stakeholders: clinicians, industry representatives from agritech and pharma and third-sector organisations in both those spaces, and farmers. Globally, as we are reminded by reports of a new disease outbreak in China, no one is safe until everyone is safe.

Are the Government working with the Quadripartite, the organisation that brings together the WHO, the FAO, the UNEP and the WOAH, to look at the specific antifungal and fungicide issues I have outlined? Are they seeking mechanisms to reserve particular actions of chemicals for human drug use? Urgently, we need to delay the approval of ipflufenoquin in the UK pending further investigation and to leverage international mechanisms to address the approval of this chemical worldwide. Ultimately, no one is safe until everyone is safe. I look forward to the debate and hope for urgent consideration of the issues raised.

--- Later in debate ---

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

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, on securing this debate and welcome the opportunity to respond on the assessment of how the UK’s current agricultural fungicide use will affect long-term food and biological security. I thank her not only for the way in which she opened the debate but for giving notice of the very serious questions that she put; I will endeavour to answer them and other questions that have been put in this debate.

The noble Baroness is entirely right: fungal diseases can cause serious damage to crops and other plants. Potato blight, which was mentioned, and Dutch elm disease are well-known examples but fungal infections can affect all crops. Fungi can also leave poisonous chemicals, such as mycotoxins, in infected plants, with consequent risks to people.

Most of the food we eat here in the UK is produced here in the UK. While the diversity of our food supply chain, where domestic production is combined with imports through stable trade routes, ensures its resilience, we cannot underestimate the importance of British farming in delivering food security in the UK. A key component of this is the management of pests, weeds and diseases. Careful selection of crop varieties and attention to good husbandry will help to limit fungal infection of crops. However, fungicides will be essential in some situations to prevent or control infection.

I come to some of the points raised by the noble Baroness. She asked what was being done to address the damage done to the microbiosphere and soil fungi—a point also mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. We know that agricultural fungicides can affect the structure of soil microbial communities, including beneficial soil fungi, of which there are many. We promote the use of integrated pest management approaches, including the use of cover crops, which are known to increase soil microbial diversity. Through our environmental land management schemes, we are encouraging, incentivising and supporting farmers to develop integrated pest management into how they farm, and the use of green cover crops, which is absolutely vital. I will perhaps come on to say a little more about that.

I come to the noble Baroness’s specific point about ipflufenoquin and whether its use in agricultural or other commercial sectors is right, pending further investigation into the risk of cross-resistance emerging. I am of the belief—and I am happy to discuss this further with the noble Baroness—that this is not an active substance that is currently approved in the UK, or one that the HSE, which regulates this area, has received an application to approve. As and when it does, there is a very proper debate that the noble Baroness would be right in raising.

The noble Baroness also asked what work the Government were doing to reserve certain modes of action of antifungals for human medicine only, and about a risk management framework against cross-resistance development. The scope of the current regulatory regime extends only to considering resistance in the target pest, weed or disease, and therefore does not consider human pathogens. This is consistent with internationally accepted standards and guidance. However, we recognise the importance of understanding the broader impacts of resistance beyond single species. The new antimicrobial resistance national action plan, due to be published in 2024, will include a focus on plant health and will have commitments focused on better stewardship of antimicrobials in plants, as well as a call for a search on drivers of AMR in plants and the transmission routes of AMR through plants—directly responding to the very good point that the noble Baroness made—and on our greater understanding of the impacts of these fungicides in the wider contexts of the food we eat and the environment we seek to protect.

As with all pesticides authorised for use in Great Britain, fungicides can be placed on the market only after a thorough scientific risk assessment. That assessment and subsequent reviews consider risks to the environment and human health, as well as the efficacy of the fungicide. The assessment of efficacy is important in this context. To avoid excessive use, the regulator, the Health and Safety Executive, assesses the minimum dose of the active substance—that is the chemical that delivers the required effect—needed in the product. This will ensure that the product is sufficiently effective without applying more of it than is required, minimising the potential for resistance to develop. However, any pesticide must be used with care. We know that overuse of pesticides can have an impact on the natural environment but it can also lead to resistance, which costs farmers more and may cause further downstream impacts, including to human health, as the noble Baroness said.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, asked about compliance. There is a very strict enforcement process, governed mainly by the Environment Agency, on the release of chemicals into the environment, particularly into watercourses. I do not have a figure for the number of cases that we have dealt with in recent years, but it is certainly available and I am very happy to provide it to the House.

Managing antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, effectively is essential for biological security in the UK and globally. Our understanding of fungicide resistance as an emerging AMR threat is still growing. We are currently reviewing evidence of the link between fungicide resistance in crops and transition to animals, including humans. This work will fit into the broader context of the action this Government are taking on AMR, which encompasses resistance to infections caused by fungi, bacteria and other micro-organisms. In 2019 we published our 20-year vision to contain and control AMR by 2040. This strategic vision is supported by our current five-year AMR national action plan, running from 2019 to 2024, and a new action plan due to be published next year.

We have already made significant progress in combating AMR in agriculture. Our work on antibiotic resistance in animal agriculture has led to a 59% reduction in the use of antibiotic medicines in farmed animals between 2014 and 2022. It is a remarkable story, and there have been some staggering increases of way more than that. Alarmingly, last year there was a big spike of antibiotic use in salmon farming. We hope to see that continue to improve, but there are serious issues to answer there. Within this new plan, we seek to promote research into better understanding the transmission of antifungal resistance through the environment to humans and to encourage responsible antimicrobial use in crops by providing evidence-based guidance.

The noble Baroness asked what the Government are doing with the Quadripartite on these issues. Antifungal resistance is a subset of AMR and is taken into consideration in the UK and in global AMR strategies. I work with Ministers in other departments to make sure that the UK is absolutely at the forefront of these issues through our “one health” agenda. The UK is a leading member of the Quadripartite multi-stakeholder partnership platform on AMR, which is driving action on AMR across the sectors, including Governments, researchers, civil society organisations and funders.

A question was put about the national action plan on pesticides. We appreciate that noble Lords are concerned that the publication of the NAP has been delayed, and we will publish it shortly. We have not waited for its publication to move forward with work supporting sustainable pest management. Farmers can now sign up to new paid integrated pest management actions within the sustainable farming incentive scheme. We are really pleased with the level of interest in the new scheme, which includes integrated pest management, and we have had more people showing interest in the first month after the new actions were announced than we had in five months under the previous one. We are starting to see real buy-in to this. Feeding into that is a near doubling of the number of farmers in Countryside Stewardship, and our landscape recovery schemes are also taking place. This is moving into a good place, but there is much more work to be done.

We are also supporting research into pest management and IPM through the £270 million farming innovation programme, through which farmers and growers in England, with industry partners, can apply for funding to develop innovative methods and technologies to boost sustainable productivity in agriculture and horticulture. This work will help farmers access the most effective pest management tools available and ensure that we understand the changing trends in pest threats across the UK. It is really important that we see this grow and that research can be scaled here in the UK. Too often in the past we have seen really good ideas brought forward by unbelievably talented universities that have to go abroad to be scaled up. We want to see this investment here and this great new green tech boom exporting good practice and innovations across the world. We have not waited for the new AMR plan to be published to take action on pesticide resistance, as I said. This Government are already supporting this in a variety of different ways.

This holistic approach carefully considers all available plant protection methods to ensure that pesticides are used only where they are needed. Alternative methods of prevention and control are encouraged, and decision-making tools and monitoring systems are used to track pests and understand when intervention is required. IPM therefore helps to minimise chemical intervention and diversify the techniques used for pest and disease management, which reduces input costs for farmers and growers. We are all pulling in the same direction here: it absolutely makes sense for a farmer to use fewer pesticides, fungicides, sprays and other interventions if they possible can. The added advantage is that, over time, that will increase their resilience and reduce the likelihood of resistance. This year we announced new IPM actions as part of the SFI. That is working holistically, seeing better results for food security, the environment and, we hope, our health.

Around 10 years ago, when people started talking about precision farming, it seemed to be the future. Now, precision farming seems a little analogue in a digital age, when we are starting to see technologies coming through that can treat individual plants using data that is in the tractor cab and available through satellite imaging and other tools. We are starting to see benefits to both agriculture and horticulture, which could mean a dramatic diminution in the amount of spray we use.

Finally, in 2021 this Government established a £19.2 million research programme called Pathogen Surveillance in Agriculture, Food and the Environment, PATH-SAFE. This programme, led by the Food Standards Agency, will bolster our understanding of AMR in the environment, including the importance of different sources and potential transmission routes. We expect the final details of this project to be published next year.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Before the Minister concludes, I want to raise a couple of points that he has not covered. One thing that he alluded to is how this crosses over with the Department of Health. I have an easy question for him: will he please refer this debate to that department and make sure that it is aware of it? On the new AMR action plan, can the Minister ask the department whether we can have a meeting to talk about the specific issue of antifungals and make sure that it gets the attention it deserves?

I have two other questions that have not been covered. The Minister said that he does not know of any attempt to get ipflufenoquin registered here. Of course, if it is being used in the US, it is creating resistance that will be imported here, which is where the issue of trade deals will come in. Can the Minister make sure that this is drawn to the attention of our trade negotiators?

Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, asked about the numbers in terms of the SFI and integrated pest management. I understand that the Minister may not be able to answer now, but can he update us in a letter on the numbers of people applying to that?

Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 21st November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I join many others in offering the Green group’s welcome to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, and will take a moment to reflect on the last time I shared a platform with our new Foreign Secretary. He might recall that it was at the Oval cricket ground in 2016. He was standing in front of a blue Mini, Harriet Harman was in front of a red Mini, Tim Farron was in front of a yellow Mini and I was in front of a green Brompton bicycle. He might take that as a lesson in what to expect from Green scrutiny of foreign issues: we take a different approach and offer fresh, new perspectives. The Green Party is the future.

In reflecting on that, I respectfully disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Lamont of Lerwick. Ideas from the past—from the 19th and 20th centuries—about free trade and the desirability of more and more trade have gravely depleted our planet, heated our climate and inflicted human rights abuses, poverty and suffering on vulnerable communities and individuals, particularly women and indigenous people. The noble Lord counted the pounds in saying that the

“policy of self-sufficiency comes at a price”.

I point out that the policy of free trade at all costs has come perilously close to costing us the earth and has done huge damage to the health and well-being of billions of human beings.

Further, we are now in the age of shocks. I have noticed that, over my four years in your Lordships’ House, fewer and fewer people talk about going back to normal—some age, presumably, before the 2007-08 financial crash. Global, complex, just-in-time supply chains have gone out of fashion, for good reason. Instead of chasing maximum profits—an extra halfpenny if an item is shipped around the world for one bit of processing and then shipped back again—companies are focusing increasingly on resilience. So should Governments, particularly when it comes to food, in both their actions and policies. Rather than focusing on growth at all costs, they need to focus on security.

I turn to some specific elements of the CPTPP, starting with a point made strongly by the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, about the investor-state dispute settlement procedure, also known as the secret courts. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said last year that this presented a huge risk to essential action on the climate. A study in the journal Science found that Governments could be liable for up to $340 billion of payouts through ISDS, if they take away the essential environmental measures that we need to keep us all safe. High profile cases have seen Governments challenged by private investors over a phase-out of coal-fired power, bans on offshore exploitation of oil and gas, and moves to strengthen environmental assessments.

In reference to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Livingston, I say that taking cases and dragging through the ISD process over years at a huge cost has what the IPCC and others have identified as a chilling effect on Governments taking action, whatever the final outcome of the case, years and many millions of pounds or dollars later. That has an impact.

The UK has agreed side letters with CPTPP members Australia and New Zealand to disapply the provisions of the secret courts. The key question I put directly to the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, is about Canada, which is a particular concern. Canadian companies have been particularly litigious, having brought 65 ISDS cases, which could have a profound negative impact on the UK’s right to democratically regulate our own conditions. In October, a letter was sent by 30 NGOs and trade unions and 50 professionals from both the UK and Canada calling for an immediate negotiation for a side letter. Will the Government at least consider that, given the Canadian track record?

I also want to pick up on the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle—and I speak now as a former resident of Thailand with some awareness of the environmental and farming conditions in south-east Asia. When we look across all the CPTPP countries, we see that 119 pesticides that are banned in the UK are allowed for use in one or more of the group’s members. Many of these countries will be keen to export agri-food products to the UK, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Curry, said, this risks further undermining our farmers after the potentially disastrous impact of the Australia and New Zealand deals. Of course there will be huge pressure, again in Canada, where hormone-treated beef is used, and, as he said, there is huge public concern about that in the UK, for good reason.

I also want to pick up a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, about the end of the tariff on palm oils in Malaysia. Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch said in March in the context of the CPTPP that palm oil was “a great product”. I am afraid it is not if you are an orangutan, a member of a critical endangered species of our close relatives, who have seen their homes destroyed and once-biodiverse rich forests storing masses of carbon turned into serried ranks of sterile plantations. Indeed, it is also not great if you are a consumer of much of that palm oil in ultra-processed products, the damage from which is being set out right at this moment upstairs, as the All-Party Parliamentary Food and Health Forum hears from Dr Chris van Tulleken, author of the best-selling book Ultra-Processed People. That pretty well describes our current diet, and we certainly do not want to make it worse.

Finally, I want to cite the very useful Trade Justice Movement briefing for today’s debate, which said that this is an important opportunity for parliamentarians to debate the flaws in the UK’s trade scrutiny process and to highlight, as the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, did, that using what I would call whiteout—possibly that is an Australianism—on scores of documents to replace “the EU” with “the UK” does not amount to “a benefit of Brexit”.

As I often say, democracy—it would be a good idea. As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, highlighted, the opportunities for democratic oversight of this Government’s trade policies are severely lacking. We have to take what opportunities we can to hold the Government to account on many issues, not least our relationships with the rest of the world. I finish by promising the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, that I will be doing that particularly on the development part of his portfolio, on which he as Prime Minister had a positive record, as he did on the subject of antimicrobial resistance. I remind him that, as we learned through Covid, no one is safe until everyone is safe. Antimicrobial resistance is very much an issue that it is in our interest to tackle all around the world.

Occupied Palestinian Territories: Humanitarian Situation

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate. The insight of the faith communities is extremely important. The right reverend Prelate will know the personal prioritisation I give to this issue. Together with the political dialogue and the political track, we must ensure that communities are fully immersed. Ultimately, it is communities that deliver the outcomes.

The right reverend Prelate may be aware that I met my dear friend Archbishop Hosam when I visited Jerusalem, along with other Christian leaders. I have also engaged with other faith leaders. It is important that we keep the strength of what community and faith bring. I have visited Jerusalem on many occasions, and it was very sad for me that the silence of Jerusalem was deafening.

It is important that we once again look at how communities are working together. Faith leaders, particularly in the Holy Land, have a key role in ensuring that we return to that vision of sustainable peace. Let us not forget that in Israel 21% of the population is Arab; it is Christian and Muslim. We have very fine examples of how communities are working together. I have said it before and I will say it again: the exemplary example of what we see in Haifa is demonstrable. I have always said—I stand by this, and I challenge anyone to say it—that, even with the challenges in our country today, our country and any country is judged by the strength of its communities and the resilience and cohesion they bring. By God, we have challenges, but working together is how we solve them.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, to follow the evidence presented by the right reverend Prelate, this morning I received a message from a Medical Aid for Palestinians worker in Gaza, who for safety reasons I will not name. She said, “This work is not about humanitarian aid any more. It is about where to get wood for fire in order to cook. It is about water queues, bread queues and how long the walk is in search of water or bread. Our work and advocacy are centred on dignity for Palestinians, and there is no dignity”. Many Members of your Lordships’ House have spoken about the aid workers from many different groups who are struggling so hard to survive themselves and support people in Gaza. Does the Minister agree with me that they cannot do humanitarian work unless there is a ceasefire, as was called for last night in a vote in the Senedd?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness about the phenomenal role that aid workers, agencies and doctors are playing on the ground. I know that some British doctors are still serving in the hospitals under such intense pressures; I pay tribute to them. There are doctors lining up to go into Gaza to provide support.

I also agree with the noble Baroness that we need to take stock of the human tragedy unfolding in Gaza. It is for us all not just to contemplate but to act upon. That is why the nature of the cessation required needs to ensure that support can get in, but it must also be done in a safe and secure manner. If we look at the example of the field facilities we are discussing with partners, including field hospitals within Gaza, they must satisfy the issues of security for Israel and for those working there. The access and supply routes should be equally secured. Those are some of the key priorities we are currently working on.

Israel/Gaza

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will take two perspectives on the situation in Gaza and Israel—one local and one global. I will use both these perspectives to argue for a call for a ceasefire now from the British Government. That call would reflect what the UN Secretary-General, UNICEF, the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization are saying. The call also comes from two organisations to which the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, referred—Women Wage Peace and Women of the Sun —prominent Israeli and Palestinian women’s groups respectively. I noted that same call in the immensely powerful speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, which drew on the voices of many so awfully affected by the Hamas atrocity.

I will give the local perspective first. Last night I spoke about the more than 2 million people facing acute water shortage. In 30-degree temperatures they do not have clean water to drink, let alone in which to bathe. More than 1 million people have been told to move, when there is nowhere to move to. I draw on a briefing on international law delivered today: forcible transfer is illegal and a war crime, but there are narrow exceptions if it is temporary and to protect civilians from hostilities, provided that there are assurances that they will be able to return home and there is a humanitarian safe haven—safe from war and provided with essential needs. Israel is not adhering to those principles in Gaza.

In north and south Gaza, children—so many children—women and men are being bombed, attacked and blown to pieces. Whole extended families have been obliterated. One story serves as an example of what is happening to many thousands: the British doctor Mohamed Altawil lost 35 people from his family in a strike on a residential building in which around 100 people died in total. Credible accounts put the level of violent deaths of children so far at 1,750. The total rises daily. Of all those children who were not killed, think of the maiming of their bodies and minds. The organisation Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor estimates a daily death toll of 200 children and infants. Some 24 hours ago we debated the situation in Gaza in this Chamber. Since then, 200 children and infants have died.

Last year, before all this started, a report found that four out of five under-18s in Gaza said that they already suffered from depression, grief or fear. That was a sharp deterioration compared with a 2018 study. A ceasefire would of course not undo all that damage to young minds and bodies, but it would mean an end to the reign of death and destruction in Gaza and Israel. Israeli families are mourning terrible losses and hoping desperately for the safety of hostages. A ceasefire would surely improve their chances of survival and freedom.

I turn now to the international perspective. In the UN Security Council, Russia has been using its attempts to promote a ceasefire resolution with backing from China, Gabon, Mozambique and the UAE to distract from its continuing criminal invasion of Ukraine. This is in a context in which Moscow has already won significant levels of backing and abstentions on motions against its attack on Ukraine from states that have become increasingly disillusioned particularly with the US and UK positions on a range of international issues. This comes in a week in which there has been a breakdown in crucial talks on climate loss and damage. In this context, the global South’s view of the global North can only further decline. In practical terms, a call for a ceasefire would also be a small step in the right direction of convincing many countries that the UK and its allies will act in line with the rule of law and follow humanitarian principles for all the world’s peoples.

There are long memories in your Lordships’ House, so some Members might recall the speech given in 1996 by the Conservative Foreign Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, to the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians. It stated that the UK’s position on Palestine was premised on international law and UN resolutions. The Green Party still holds this morally right position today, as it has always done. If we are to establish an order based on the international rule of law which all are expected to obey, we need this to be in the interests of Palestinians, Israelis and us all.

When I talk about the climate emergency, speakers from the Benches opposite often ask, “But what can the UK do?” The same question might be put here, although both our Prime Minister and Foreign Minister seem keen to put themselves forward as central players on the world stage. Rather, I suggest that we need to be humble and realistic. There are limits to what we can do, although restoring overall levels of official development assistance would be a good place to start. We can adopt international law and humanitarian imperatives as the guide for our words and actions.

The Government could start by speaking up for international law and accepting their responsibility to make a judgment call about what is happening in Gaza now, not trying to evade doing so as they have been in the face of multiple challenges in recent days. By not doing so they are implicitly saying that they regard the continuing slaughter of the innocents as acceptable. They could acknowledge that if one party does not adhere to the rule of law, that does not give the green light to the other side also not to adhere to the rules of war.

I will make two final short comments. Atrocity prevention should be at the centre of all UK foreign policy. We could do much more on this. As many other noble Lords have said, we should be putting our own modest contribution towards efforts to relaunch a political process for a two-state solution. The world’s attention had turned away from that; it clearly cannot afford to stay away.

Iran

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, as my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary and I have said, on whether the IRGC is sanctioned in its completeness, we take any issue of proscribing organisations seriously. It is very much a decision for the Home Office, as the noble Lord will be aware, but we co-ordinate our activities extensively. Any decision we take in the future remains an option for us to consider, but I do not want to go further than that, nor would noble Lords expect me to.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I join the general welcome for the government actions reported in the Statement and pick up a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, about the rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which is reportedly mediated by China and is reflected in the meeting between their Oil Ministers yesterday on the sidelines of the OPEC conference in Vienna. Can the Minister tell me whether the Government are reconsidering UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia in the light of these relationships, given that arms sales totalled, in an official declaration, £7.9 billion since the bombing of Yemen started in March 2015? The Campaign Against Arms Trade estimates that the total is £23 billion.

In that context—the actions of the Iranian state that have provoked this reaction by the British Government—what impact does the Minister see on the war in Yemen and the terrible humanitarian conditions there, given that it is one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises? It is also an enormous environmental threat, in the light of the sadly misnamed tanker, the “Safer”, off Sanaa. I do not know whether the Minister can update me, either now or in writing, because the latest information I could find was talk of a UN mission to pump the 1.1 million barrels of oil out of the “Safer”. At the end of May it was reported that this was about to start, but there has been no report since then. How is the behaviour of the Iranian regime, and indeed of the Saudis, likely to impact on attempts to defuse this environmental time bomb?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, yes, I acknowledge that. The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, also asked about the Saudis and the new deal that was signed between the Saudis and Iran. I was in Saudi Arabia recently, in Riyadh, and met some of the key people involved in the direct negotiations with the Houthis. What I can share with the noble Baroness is that since that deal has been signed, which I asked directly of the Saudi Minister who visited on Monday, a month on, he smiled and said, “We will wait and see how stabilisation works in the region”. Thankfully, we have seen, through some of the work done directly by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a fragile peace that has been sustained in Yemen. I have had extensive meetings with various representatives of the Yemeni Government, including, this week, the Prime Minister. We have also met various leaders, including the Foreign Minister. When I was in Saudi Arabia, I met the Saudi Arabian ambassador, Mohammed bin Jaber, who is leading the direct engagement with the Houthis and the other parties within Yemen.

While the noble Baroness is correct and we stand by our strong humanitarian support for Yemen, the situation is improving and we are playing our part, directly and through the UN, to ensure that the UN-mandated process is further strengthened by the Saudis in this respect. While I hear what the noble Baroness says about support for its arms industry and our defence sales, those are carried out under a rigorous programme and practice. But it is important to recognise where there is progress. In what is a challenging situation of fragility across the Middle East and Yemen, we are seeing progress on the ground in accessibility and reconstruction, led primarily by some of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s efforts.

If I may just pick up the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, about the US and the interventions, our militaries work very closely. Earlier this year, regrettably and tragically, we again saw the shipment of arms from Iran through the Gulf to supply the Houthi machine, but we were able to intercept and we have been able to share information with key Gulf partners on the interceptions that we have made and to make the case for the importance of ensuring that we can stop this arms flow from Iran.

On the FSO “Safer”—which is an Arabic word that translates in an Anglicised way—we want to make the “Safer” safer. The first step was very much about money, and that money has now been gathered. The UN, using British expertise and that of other nations, is working on ensuring that the environmental catastrophe that would happen if the tanker’s load was shed across the Gulf is being directly dealt with. A lot of work is being done in stabilising the vessel before any operations can begin. While I am not going to tempt fate and say there is good news, there has been some real progress and the first thing was about ensuring the financing was in place, which I can assure the noble Baroness is very much now in situ.

China

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, what rousing words to follow.

I declare my position as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for securing this debate. She could hardly have known how precisely timely it would be given that, as has already been referred to, a few hours ago, two men who now face a 1 million Hong Kong dollar bounty on their heads were in this very place speaking about the experience that they are going through.

It is interesting to make a comparison; I did not know until this point that rewards for catching people who have committed criminal acts in Hong Kong is quite a traditional part of their justice system. Therefore, there is a reward of 300,000 Hong Kong dollars for information leading to the prosecution of a man accused of murder, and for two men wanted in connection with an arson case that killed 17 people there is a reward of 400,000 Hong Kong dollars. We can contrast that with the 1 million Hong Kong dollar bounty that is being offered for the capture of people who are advocating freedom and the rule of law.

I was not able to be at the press conference, but I followed reports of it closely. I particularly want to raise with the Minister an issue raised by both the men there. One of them is Finn Lau, who has lived in Britain since 2019 and is a BNO visa holder. He reflected on the fact that he has been sent screenshots of Chinese nationalists discussing kidnapping him. No doubt the eight people affected are hoping and believing that the states they currently reside in will not extradite them to China in the face of this Chinese action, but they have to live in fear of bounty hunters: private people. We need to think about—I am sure the Government are, but I really hope they are thinking hard—the security of these individuals.

I also note the comments made by Christopher Mung, who has lived in the UK since 2021 and is also a BNO visa holder. He noted that this attack on eight people is a much broader effort to silence and cause a ripple of fear among the greater Hong Kong diaspora. I hope the noble Lord may be able to address this. Again, I hope the Government are thinking very hard about how to provide both security and confidence to the many people we have, I am happy to say, welcomed from Hong Kong to the UK.

Not all of those people are necessarily intending to be permanent residents. It is interesting that there has not been much discussion of the fact that this year a record number of students have come from China to study in the UK: nearly 152,000 people. I am not going to address the potential security issues that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, touched on. I will leave that to other people. I am concerned about the experience those students are going to have in our system. Some of them will be from Hong Kong. It is possible that some of them will be from Uighur or Tibetan backgrounds. It is possibly less likely, but there are probably a few. Those students have to be kept safe here in the UK. They have to be able to enjoy the freedoms we expect all students to enjoy in the UK.

More than that, if we think about students from any part of China, students are young people. They are being exposed to new ideas; that is the whole idea of studying and studying overseas. They are being exposed to ideas about our democracy. When I have been handing out Green Party leaflets in Sheffield, I consciously give them to people who I think are probably Chinese students because direct examples of democracy in action are a really useful experience to have. Are we able to ensure—and do the universities have the right advice to ensure—that those students, if they start to explore democratic ideas and if they say slightly the wrong thing in front of another Chinese student of a different political persuasion have the right security and support? Is there help for universities, which will not necessarily have the political understanding and knowledge to realise just what the risks are? Are the Government doing enough to support all that?

I have just about run out of time, and I have lots of things here. There is one other thing I want to talk about in the rest of my time. This morning, I spoke to a group of King’s College London summer school students about the wonderful development of Magnitsky-style sanctions. They arose from civil society campaigning and are a social innovation brought about through the activities of civil society. The Government have followed along and adopted them. I am not going to ask the noble Lord the obvious questions because I know exactly what formula answer I will get. I will simply point out that the UK has yet to impose sanctions on anyone implicated in the crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong and that in responding to the bounty announcement, James Cleverly said:

“We will not tolerate any attempts by China to intimidate and silence individuals”.


The background briefing to the press release states that

“the UK continues to lead international efforts to stand up for the people of Hong Kong”.

Do we really? Where are the Magnitsky-style sanctions?

Situation in Russia and Ukraine Recovery Conference

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend. As others have expressed, this weekend’s events have made very clear the instability within Russia and the nuclear challenge, through both threats and that particular plant. We are looking at Zaporizhzhia’s positioning and have seen the insecurity and instability around it. We continue to work directly to support the efforts of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and I know that my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has been speaking directly to Mr Grossi. From our perspective, which is led by the objectives of Ukraine, Russia must immediately restore full control of the ZNPP to the competent Ukrainian authorities and, on the issue raised by my noble friend, ultimately ensure that the IAEA has full access to all nuclear facilities to make sure that safety and security measures can be put in place. We welcome its recent confirmation that there is no immediate risk to the plant, but that is a moment in time; security and stability must be returned and the IAEA must be given unfettered access.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I offer Green support to the comments from both opposition Front Benches on support for the Ukrainians.

I will pick up the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fall, on nuclear weapons. It was rather covered over by the weekend’s events, but late last week some thinkers with very close links to President Putin, including Sergey Karaganov, chair of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, a think tank, and an adviser to Putin, were on the record as making a number of very concerning comments about the so-called need to lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons to win the Ukraine war. That was followed by our being reminded that we cannot know whose hands those nuclear weapons will be in next week, next month or next year. The Minister referred to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. There is an immediate concern to understand what is happening with those nuclear weapons, but is real government thought also being put into the fact that the world cannot be safe until it has no nuclear weapons?

We want to focus on the Ukrainians as well, so I have a very specific question about the Ukraine Recovery Conference. There is no reference in the Statement to demining. We have seen reports recently of farmers, in particular, who have been forced to patch together their own demining machines from tractors and lorries and take it upon themselves to clear their fields so that they can let their cows out and plant their crops. Is the Minister confident that enough support is going into that demining effort? Will he either tell me more about it now or perhaps write to me on it?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

We have had different perspectives on nuclear weapons over history, but it is very clear that this instability in Russia, as several noble Lords have said, is to no one’s benefit. The instability and insecurity of Russia lends itself to real concerns over nuclear weapons. I assure the noble Baroness, without going into further detail, that we are working with all our key allies and partners from an intelligence perspective and in other areas. We have seen statements by other concerned Governments, including China today, so I assure her that we are not just monitoring but keeping vigilant on this issue.

The noble Baroness talked about statements by those close to Mr Putin. Even more worrying is that Mr Putin has at times threatened the same, which lends itself to even deeper concerns over the issue. Events this weekend have only added to that deeper concern. It requires greater vigilance; we must ensure that we mitigate and take all the necessary actions that we can.

As I have stated repeatedly, it has never been the intention—nor should it be—to see instability within Russia. This instability has been perpetrated by Mr Putin; let us not forget what he has done to members of the valid Russian opposition. We have repeatedly seen sentences increased and he has suppressed the public protests that started when his illegal war against Ukraine took on new proportions through the invasion of east Ukraine.

On environmental issues more broadly, we are watching the impact of the dam, and the issue of demining is key. I mentioned in the Statement that some of the floating mines have come down the Dnipro river, but I can share with the noble Baroness that the HALO Trust, which we support and fund, has played a key role. It was represented at and spoke during one of the key panel sessions of the Ukraine Recovery Conference. I fully support the noble Baroness, in that I agree that mining has a direct impact on not only the long-term stability and security of the country but on its primary resource, agriculture. Let us not forget that half a billion people used to get grain from Ukraine, and it will take a long time before that is restored, even if the war were to end today.