Ukraine

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

As I said in response to the noble Baroness’s question about Nord Stream 2, we do not believe that it is compatible with Russia’s aggressive actions. We remain opposed to it and we continue to raise our concerns with our allies and partners to highlight the strategic risks of this project.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, this might not be a popular question to ask, but it is a very dangerous situation. The House knows that one of the options is war if President Putin makes the fatal mistake of invading Ukraine, but just before entering the Chamber, I listened to Secretary of State Blinken make his statement that the United States has put questions to and answered questions from Russia. He made a point of saying that he will not reveal what the United States has said. The reason for that, as I understand it, is that if you are to have diplomacy and give it a chance, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, it is very difficult, and patient diplomacy takes a great deal of doing. Perhaps it is better that an element of space is given to enabling the negotiations to take place.

I remember the Cuban missile crisis from when I was a young person, and that was a terribly dangerous time but, as those who have read a little about it will remember, it was giving the other side the opportunity to withdraw and save face that stopped, in that case, a nuclear exchange. In this case, I hope it would stop a very unnecessary and deeply damaging war.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

The noble Lord is right, which is why, as I said, diplomacy is the only way out of the current situation. There are a number of forums through which diplomatic channels are open, and we want to use them; we are urging Russia to use them, as are our allies. We will try to make sure that we can de-escalate the situation because, as the noble Lord says, the quagmire of a long-running conflict would be catastrophic for all sides.

Covid-19

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

As the noble Lord will be aware, we have already purchased more antivirals than anywhere else in Europe, so we are on the front foot on this and will continue to be so. As new drugs become available, I am sure we will continue to do that. The noble Lord is absolutely right: we will be continuing to vaccinate those aged between 12 and 15. In England alone, we have already delivered over 1.7 million doses to that age group, and we are continuing to work on increasing take-up—for example, through repeat offers, ensuring information is translated into appropriate languages, and collaborating with leading social media platforms to direct young people and their parents to trusted sources of information.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the interesting things about the Statement is the complete absence of any reference to advice from the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Chief Medical Officer or the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, which is the Government’s chief advisory committee in the pandemic. Although the Minister says that the advice will be put in the Library of the House, can she assure us now that the advice received from the scientists accords with and supports the decision that the Government have taken?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

As I said in response to the first question from the noble Baroness, we considered a range of data in the decision-making and, of course, the views of the scientific community.

House of Lords: Governance

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Grand Committee

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand that it is in the nature of the rules of a debate such as this that, if there is a gap, I am allowed two minutes to fill it.

Next week, I am going to my first school to talk about this House. I have listened to this debate carefully and I shall study Hansard very carefully tomorrow because, if I am asked by a clever sixth-former, “Who runs this place?”, I need to have a very good answer. I thank the Senior Deputy Speaker for having this debate. I feel, in my case, as though it is part of my induction as a new Member—people know that I am a new Member —and, rather like civilisation in Britain, having more of these would be a very good thing. I am conscious, also, that governance is a very complex thing in a self-regulating House.

When I look at the House, I am conscious of the fact that we are all equal but there are different levels of participation nevertheless. There is a core—someone will know what it is; perhaps 450 or more—of Members who attend regularly. There is a penumbra who come on fewer occasions but make great contributions, and I suppose there are some Members whom we might call semi-detached. I have yet to meet any more than a small proportion of the total membership of the House.

I understand that Covid has made the most tremendous difference to the way in which this House operates. I suppose we are feeling our way back to what we consider normal. I am interested to hear today of all the different small decisions that Members feel have been taken without their being consulted; I think that there is quite a lot of unease about that in many places.

I am also very concerned about the public reputation of this House, which is why I did not expect to find myself agreeing with a great deal of what the noble Lord who has just spoken said in that regard. I have always thought that a future Conservative Government might well decide to go for broke and suggest abolition, so we must be careful as to how we present ourselves. More openness and transparency is a very good thing.

On the Chief Operating Officer, I can only assume that it is a proposal partly designed to take the burden off the Clerk of the Parliaments, who bears a very heavy load of responsibility. I have found in my short time here that the quality of the staff we have is amazingly good. It was a great pleasure, as part of my induction, to meet the Clerk of the Parliaments and talk about it. As for the townhall meetings, I look forward to seeing what they will be like, but anything that can help us to breathe life into the House we are supposed to be will be a very good thing.

COP 26

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I am sure my noble friend is aware that we have a Bill in the House of Commons looking at this area which will be coming to your Lordships’ House soon so we can discuss these issues. We are certainly looking to reinvigorate that sector. I will also just say that last year was the first year in which renewables were the primary source of the UK’s electricity and we have quadrupled the percentage of our electricity that comes from renewables but, of course, we need a mix in order to make sure that we have security of supply.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, do the Government accept that to some extent global climate change and global heating and biodiversity loss are two sides of the same coin? In furthering their work after COP 26, will the Government do more to include the effects on biodiversity loss of the policies they are promoting?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I completely agree with the noble Viscount. That is why we were so pleased, for instance, with the 140 leaders representing over 90% of the world’s forests pledging to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030. We also had 45 nations pledge action and investment to protect nature and to shift to more sustainable ways of farming and, as I mentioned earlier, there was action on the global ocean. The noble Viscount is absolutely right, and that is why we put this front and centre and included it in COP in a way that had not happened before. My colleague, my noble friend Lord Goldsmith, is leading this: he is passionate about it and will continue to talk to global colleagues in order to keep this agenda going forward.

G20 and COP 26 World Leaders Summit

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I have to confess that I was not aware of that, no, but I am very grateful that I am aware of it now. Certainly, the noble Lord is absolutely right that advancing technology and using technology will be some of the key things we need to do to ensure that we meet these ambitious targets. He may be interested to know that more than 40 leaders, for instance, have now joined the UK’s Glasgow Breakthroughs, which will turbocharge affordable green technologies in the most polluting sectors by 2030, including a $4 billion deal between the UEA and US, with the support of 30 others, for climate-smart agriculture and food systems, and $10 billion of funding from philanthropists and development banks to support energy access and clean energy transition in the global south. There are a lot of discussions going on within COP about how we can all come together in order to further develop and spread these technologies out, because, as he rightly says, this will be what we need in order to meet these targets.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

Can the Minister clarify one point about the hundred million doses? Is it the Government’s intention that they should all be distributed via COVAX, or will there be bilateral Government-to-Government action to provide doses to the many countries that need them?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

Obviously, we are working through COVAX a lot, but we have already had bilateral communication with other countries and have worked with them directly, so it will be a combination of both.