Forest Risk Commodity Regulations

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The EU’s deforestation regulation is far from settled and it is causing great concern. I have had meetings with representatives from a number of producer countries. On trips to countries such as Costa Rica, I met many others. It is not right to say that the EU system is done and dusted. There are great concerns among producer countries that it could mitigate against precisely the people who are living sustainably close to or in forest environments. We have started with these four and we will have a very fast—for these sorts of measures—review in two years’ time, which will see possible additions. That may comply with what the EU is doing, but we have no idea whether the EU is going ahead with all six or will go ahead with the same four that we are.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, in a recent investigation by Global Witness, it was found that both HSBC and Barclays are financing companies that are purchasing product made on illegally deforested land, particularly in the Cerrado. This is a complex ecosystem that is not covered as tropical rainforest. It has fallen between two stools, but it is producing an enormous amount of meat. Schedule 17 is meant to cover it, but it has weak definitions. The beef produced as a result of deforestation does not necessarily end up here in the UK, so we cannot just focus on the trade alone to stop it; we have to look at the money and where it is flowing. Do the Government remain committed to developing “clear due diligence standards” for the financial sector through the Treasury’s review of deforestation finance, which was commissioned in the Financial Services and Markets Act and committed to in the other place by the then Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Andrew Griffiths?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Yes, we do. The Treasury is proceeding with its review. Alongside that, we have the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures. It is not just for financial institutions in this country but has become the international byword on making sure that financial institutions are themselves regulated and making it clear to other investors and shareholders that the supply chains they are investing in are in accordance with the Glasgow leaders’ declaration.

Environmental Policies: Timeliness and Effectiveness

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I have written to my noble friend to give her a detailed answer to that question, which is the same one she asked quite recently. I assure her that I asked whether we really had to consult again, and apparently we do; it is a statutory requirement under the Flood and Water Management Act. I suspect we will bring in those measures later this year.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I heard the Minister speak about the Government’s urgency, but I will make reference here to actual policies and plans that have been delayed. I will mention a few; this is not an exhaustive list. The horticultural peat ban, which was promised by this year, is not here yet. The implementing regulations for the introduction of due diligence measures on forest risk commodities are still not before Parliament. The UK chemicals strategy was promised last year, the deposit returns scheme has just been delayed until whenever, and there are the replacement protections for hedgerows, which followed the loss of cross-compliance at the end of last year. That is just five. Can the Minister comment?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

On hedgerows, I refer the noble Baroness to the fact that an enormous quantity of new hedgerows has been planted, and we have 11,000 kilometres of hedgerows under new management as a result of the sustainable farming incentive. On other measures, I am very happy to write to the noble Baroness to tell her the timetable for when those measures will be brought in. On forest risk commodities, it is important that we are in step with other countries; we are absolutely determined to make sure that consumers can know whether the commodity they are buying is putting forests at risk. The UK is a leader in making sure that happens.

Colombia: National Liberation Army

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, Colombia is a human rights priority country for the UK. That means that we will continue to monitor any and all impacts that limit our ability to support civil society organisations. As penholder of the UN Security Council, we consistently raise the importance of participation of civil society and young people to realise the full benefits of the 2016 peace agreement in Colombia. We are fully utilising our position as penholder but maintaining Colombia as a high priority for human rights.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as director of the Hay Festival. We have been going to Colombia for two decades now and have seen a great deal of changes. It always astonishes me that conversations such as this happen without mentioning the word “cocaine”. Cocaine is the largest growth factor in Colombia. Every year, despite gazillions of dollars being spent by other countries, particularly the USA, the amount of cocaine that is grown increases. They may have got rid of some of the Colombian cartels but now there are the Mexican cartels. To talk about the peace process without confronting the issue of cocaine, which is illegal across the world and which a lot of people in this city help fund, is lunacy. I am not asking the Minister to say whether he approves of legalisation, which the previous president, Santos, did, who was outspoken that you could not stop crime without it, but could he at least tell me what conversations he has had?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right to point to the role of drugs. Colombia is still one of the largest producers of coca and cocaine in the world. The trade obviously fuels violence in many areas of the country, as illegal armed groups fight for control of territory and trading routes. That violence disproportionately affects local communities, in particular indigenous communities. Social leaders and former FARC combatants get caught up in it, and so the noble Baroness is right that this issue is inseparably linked to the peace process. Therefore, it is a feature of our discussions with Colombia. We are committed to working bilaterally with international partners, including Colombia, to disrupt, wherever we can, the supply chains that feed the domestic market here that she points to. My own opinion on legalisation is not strictly relevant, but it is interesting that many former presidents of Colombia take the position that President Santos took on this issue.

Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Lord is right. It would be wrong to pretend that all of our policies are lined up across the whole of government and are entirely consistent. What was said at COP 26, or more recently at COP 27, by us and by all the consumer countries is not reflected, for example, in our trade policies. That is just a statement of the obvious. There is much more work to be done to align the way we approach trade with one of the biggest consumer economies in the world. Countries want access to our markets, and we need to incentivise a move towards sustainability by removing barriers, for example, on commodities grown in Costa Rica, or tuna caught in the Maldives or timber produced and logged in Gabon. In each of those countries there are models of sustainability. We would be able to do much more that way than we could ever do through the use of aid. This is something that we are working on through government. The UK was responsible, at the last G7 last year, for persuading all the G7 countries to commit to aligning their entire ODA portfolios, including ancillary bodies such as BII, with our broader climate and nature agenda. There is a lot of work to be done to make that happen; the commitment is there, and we are making progress here in the UK. As I say, however, there is more work to be done.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, perhaps the Minister could say a little more about the original Question from my noble friend Lady Willis. Where can we find out about these success stories that he points to? If he does not know, can he write to us and leave a letter in the Library?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

There are many success stories. They get overlooked when we have these huge COP 27-type summits, but there are countries around the world providing perfect examples of what can be done. I mentioned that Gabon had broken the link between logging and deforestation. Costa Rica has broken the link between agricultural commodities and deforestation. There are a few other countries as well. We do not need to invent anything new. We just must make those examples of best practice the norm. If we can do that through our ODA and other tools, such as trade policy, we will be making a very significant difference.

The agricultural breakthrough that I mentioned earlier, which was launched at COP 26 with 13 countries endorsing it, has identified agroecology as one of the first priority areas for the next three years, and the 13 countries have all signed up to ensure that agroecology receives the funding needed to give it the boost that we want it to have.

Alaa Abd el-Fattah: Hunger Strike

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Boycott]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to assist British citizen Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who is currently on hunger strike in Egyptian detention, and since Sunday refusing to drink water.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice. I declare a relevant interest, which is that I am an old friend of Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s aunt, the journalist and writer Ahdaf Soueif.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, I recognise and share the deep concern felt by the noble Baroness, as well as by many other noble Lords and colleagues in the other place, about the situation with Mr el-Fattah. We also appreciate what an incredibly difficult time this must be for his whole family. I am also deeply concerned about Mr el-Fattah’s welfare following his escalation to a dry hunger strike on 6 November, in protest at his lack of consular access and the conditions of his detention. I assure the noble Baroness that Ministers and officials have continuously raised issues of his detention and the need for consular access with the Government of Egypt, on numerous occasions, including directly with the President.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

I thank the noble Lord very much for that. We have talked about this before and I know that he is entirely on the right side on this. Mr el- Fattah campaigned for democracy during the Arab spring; had things gone differently, this Government would have worked closely with him to bring democracy to Egypt. In fact, he has spent the last nine years in some of the most inhuman prisons that Egypt can come up with. As we know, he has been on a hunger strike, on 100 calories a day, for over 200 days now. Using the worldwide attention that COP is bringing, he started a water strike on Sunday. I am in contact with his aunt: the family have no proof of consciousness and no proof of life. His sister has been at the jail this morning: they have not accepted a letter. They have no idea whether he is being force-fed and no idea what conversations took place between our Prime Minister and President Sisi when they met in Sharm el-Sheikh earlier this week. I find it hard to believe, as he is a British citizen who is very likely to die—indeed, as I speak, he may well be dead—that we cannot apply some more pressure to rescue this extremely important man. It actually would not matter who he was: he is a British citizen in serious trouble.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I agree. We must apply all the levers we have. This was a major part of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister’s meeting with President Sisi, including re-emphasising that Alaa is a British citizen; indeed, that was a point I made on Sunday when I spoke to the Egyptian ambassador. The fact that we want consular access is not something that we have dreamed up. It is something that should be granted as a matter of fact.

I also met both sisters last week before one of them travelled out; one is still here. They are concerned that he is not taking water. On the issue of proof of life, I know that their mother is outside the jail asking for that weekly letter. What is required urgently is confirmation of that very issue. We will press, and are pressing, on that point. Again, it is a basic fact of reassurance that the family need.

We are pushing on his detention and consular access. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary met Foreign Minister Shoukry and raised this issue. I also know that the United Nations has made representations: Volker Türk, the human rights commissioner, put out a very strong statement coinciding with what is in effect a UN conference. I do not want to beat around the bush in any way: while there has been constructive engagement, we have not yet been granted consular access. That is unacceptable. I assure all noble Lords—and the noble Baroness in particular, with her family connections—that I am fully invested in this. I am trying to do everything within my capacity, but am also ensuring that the Prime Minister and my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary are fully versed with the issue and are engaging most directly.

Food Insecurity: England

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

There has been a lot of talk about self-sufficiency, so I looked into this to see what changes there have been in recent years. We have a high degree of food security in the UK: we are largely self-sufficient in wheat production, growing 88% of all the wheat we need; we are 86% self-sufficient in beef; we are fully self-sufficient in liquid milk—I am making a point that I hope is interesting; we produce more lamb than we consume; and we are close to 100% self-sufficient in poultry. The Ukraine situation has certainly added pressure, but our situation vis-à-vis self-sufficiency has not altered measurably in the last 20 years.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, two years ago the Government conducted an internal review into drivers of food bank use—everyone in this House would agree that that use has gone up. A commitment was given by Ministers at the DWP to publish this in 2020. In February this year, in the other place, Jacob Rees-Mogg said that a further commitment would be given to publish this review this year. Where is it, and when are we going to see it?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I understand, and the Government accept, the data limitations in monitoring food security. From April 2021, we introduced a set of questions to the Family Resources Survey to measure and track food bank usage specifically. I am told that the first results of these questions are due to be published in March 2023, subject to the usual quality assurance.

Social Security System: Rising Cost of Living

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I do not think I can answer on behalf of the people who make the decisions but I understand the point that the noble Baroness is raising. I know that there are families who are struggling. As I have said, a committee has been set up—I am sorry, but noble Lords know how government works. As I said, we stand ready.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, one quick solution would be to have automatic enrolment in Healthy Start vouchers. Despite the fact that the Government have put these up, we are still running at only about 60% to 65%. This money is there and it is doable—you could do it tonight.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises a good point. One of the things we can do, and must do more of, to help people in these situations is to make sure they are claiming everything they should.

Global Refugee Forum

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The figure that has been quoted and to which I think the noble Lord is referring—that the UK has so far accepted 50 people—is, in reality, growing very significantly. To quote Minister Cleverly from the other place, he says that we are looking to create something very large-scale very quickly. Initially it will be slower, but that will pick up. There is no doubt from the words spoken by the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, today that we have created a new system in record time, precisely to allow a far larger number of refugees into this country.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, we have all been ashamed, I think, to see the people in the railway stations in places such as Berlin holding up placards saying that they can host one person or two people. Many people in this country would do the same thing. Why are the Government not making this system available so that good people in this country can help people in Ukraine?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

We are creating exactly that system. We are creating a humanitarian sponsorship pathway which will open up a route to the UK for Ukrainians who may not have family ties with the UK but who can match with individuals, charities, businesses and community groups of the sort the noble Baroness just mentioned. Those under this scheme would be granted leave for an initial 12 months. There is no limit to the number of people who could be eligible for this scheme: we will welcome as many Ukrainians as wish to come, if they have matched sponsors.

International Women’s Day

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, 50 years ago, when we founded Spare Rib and the first women’s refuge was set up in Chiswick High Street by Erin Pizzey, 1.6 women a week were killed by their partner or previous partner in England and Wales; the figure today is two a week. Can anyone imagine 104 women all on Parliament Square all being killed at the same time? This is a huge crime that goes largely unremarked on. What are the Government doing this year to support these women, to change some of the culture in the police and to take domestic violence more seriously? Let us not be looking at higher figure in 50 years’ time.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

Domestic violence is a subject that is near to everybody’s heart and we are doing all we can to support people to ensure that we do not have the situation described by the noble Baroness. I cannot answer for what the police are doing but I will go back to my noble friend Lady Williams and ask her to reply directly to the noble Baroness’s question.

Climate Change: COP 26

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baronesses, Lady Young and Lady Parminter, and I echo all that they have said. I also very much support Alok Sharma and our own Minister; I think that they played a blinder in Glasgow—the successful effort of the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, over deforestation was magnificent. However, as others have said, there were lots of pledges and new initiatives, but they do not total enough. The importance of the decision to make the next COP in Sharm el-Sheik a ratchet event cannot be overestimated. Humanity literally depends on it.

1 spent the whole of last week in Glasgow, where I went between events in the official zones and events in the fringe. The blue zone was a very ugly place; it is hard to imagine an entrance that was more unwelcoming. There was so much metal and wire and, while I appreciate the need for security, there are other ways of doing it. Once inside, you found yourself walking through narrow corridors in between the stands. All of them reflected the relevant financial might of each country; hence Saudi Arabia had an enormous stand and young women were standing around that were contracted for the job from the model agencies in Glasgow—we could have been at a car fair. Next door was Qatar, with models of beautiful net-zero buildings; but Qatar’s buildings are constructed by slave labour and it shows no signs of weaning itself off fossil fuels. The small countries had almost no space and no flashy rolling films or brochures. Are we meant to assume that their presence mattered less?

Gender-wise, it was appalling: there was one woman for every six men registered for the blue zone. And, for the record, the largest group of delegates was the oil industry, with 503 of them. The meat industry also put in a jolly good showing with 300 delegates. Of course, for the oil industry the investment paid off, as there was a downgrading on future restrictions on the speed of phasing out fossil fuels. President Biden is still handing out licences. Some two dozen projects—pipelines to new terminals—are under way in the US, which will cause emissions equal to 404 coal-fired power stations. Between 2020 and 2022, Shell will put in 21 new major oil and gas projects. As we have seen in these last two weeks, lobbying pays off.

The first time I approached the chain gates to the blue zone, there was a very small man wearing a long pale green robe with a headdress of orange feathers. The headdress came right over his head and down to the ground, as though he was travelling within his own arch. He did not have a ticket, it was raining and it was freezing. He was from the combined Amazon headwaters collective, and had flown across the world to plead for his culture’s right to exist. And he was not alone: on the streets and in the meeting rooms around the city there were groups of activists from all over. Revolutions, it is said, happen slowly to start with, and then they happen quickly. I think this is one that is going to happen quickly.

For all of us, and for the world, the next COP is our last chance. I urge the Government on this and, like others have said, would very much like the Minister to respond to question of whether Alok Sharma will be set up with his own department. If ever there was a time for work, it is now. It is time to double down on all our efforts. Lobbyists must be silenced and humanity must triumph. Will that happen, or will this be tucked away?

The early omens are not good: COP only finished on Saturday and yet, on Tuesday, I watched the entire “BBC News at Ten” and there was not one item about it. As a former newspaper editor, I know that when you are covering a war on a daily basis, there comes a strange moment when you realise that your readers are bored, so you bring your correspondent home. What you are effectively saying in the newspaper is “That war is over; we are not covering it any more—it’s okay, we’re not covering Sudan and Syria.” We must not let this happen now. Alok Sharma needs to be empowered to challenge every Government on earth to raise their game, and we must all have an obligation to be here to support him.

I return to my man in the green robe—I cannot really get him out of my head. We owe him, his family and his tribe their livelihoods. We have taken his, and it has empowered our culture and western society for many centuries now. It is time to change.