Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Whitehead on joining this House. He and I worked together in the 1997 Labour Government, when he was an enormous support to me. I know he will make a huge contribution to the House.

I was a member of the International Relations and Defence Committee when it wrote a report in 2022 called UNCLOS: The Law of the Sea in the 21st Century. Underlying its recommendations was the committee’s view that:

“As a major maritime power, the UK has a strong role to play in the development and maintenance of the law of the sea”.


As such, the UK must meet 21st century challenges to ensure the usefulness and relevance of UNCLOS. Many of the report’s recommendations related to issues that are not the direct subject of the Bill, but will the Government make a progress report on their more recent work covering these matters, including human rights and labour protections at sea? There are shocking examples of human rights law being broken, with forced labour and appalling working conditions. These include breaches of maritime security, including piracy and armed robbery at sea. Many such crimes take place partly because of the failure of regulation resulting from the system of flags of convenience, which cries out for reform. There is a need for an oceans strategy, as requested by Sarah Champion MP in another place. Can the Minister respond on that?

I turn to the central purpose of the Bill. The Select Committee also identified the importance of protecting biodiversity in the context of climate change and dangerous increases in the temperature of the ocean. In doing so, it pointed out the huge role the oceans play in absorbing carbon dioxide released since industrialisation. It also took evidence on the damage that land-based pollution causes to the marine environment, such as ocean acidification and changes to ocean circulations, which in turn can destroy marine species and the vital environments, such as coral reefs and mangrove forests, that support them.

I therefore welcome this Bill and congratulate the Government on introducing it. I ask that it completes its enactment in time for the ratification of the treaty. The Minister has explained the urgent need to put into domestic law protections that apply to international rather than domestic waters.

The Bill is largely technical, but the section on marine genetic resources strikes me as particularly important. Valuable scientific projects on the high seas are being carried out by British teams, often in international collaborations. I support new regulatory requirements extending reporting to the Secretary of State and do not believe that responsible scientists should see this as overly intensive regulation. I also support the area-based management tools set out in Part 3.

I have two questions for the Minister. First, with their new powers to act in international waters, will UK regulatory bodies such as the Marine Management Organisation need to abide by principles set out in the Environment Act 2021, such as the “polluter pays” and precautionary principles? Secondly, how do the Government intend to work with non-signatories, in particular—following up on what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said—with the US, which signed up originally but will not ratify the treaty? It is surely vital that we try to persuade it to take into account the issues that the treaty raises.

I end by welcoming what the Minister in another place said about UK support for a moratorium on deep-sea mining. I also welcome her statement that the UK will lead the world in the vital protection of our shared oceans, which was endorsed by my noble friend the new Minister in opening this debate. I am sure the Minister who winds up will want to say the same.