Global Biodiversity and Ecosystems: National Security
Debate between Adrian Ramsay and Anna Dixon(2 days, 8 hours ago)
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Adrian Ramsay
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making that point, and I completely agree. Like many Members in this Chamber, I signed the early-day motion calling for a national screening of the people’s emergency briefing. I know that a lot of Members will have hosted or attended screenings in their constituencies, as I have done. I have more coming up in my constituency in the coming weeks. It is incredibly powerful, even more powerful than the showing in November, because we can see how people are responding to that evidence. Of course, we need to look at the solutions as well as the problems, but I absolutely echo that call. I am interested in the Minister’s comments on the call for a national screening, so that we can be really clear on the scale of this challenge, which sadly does not get the same national profile as it did a few years ago. We need to increase that profile again.
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
I was with the hon. Gentleman at the national emergency briefing, and like him I have many constituents to whom I am grateful for organising local screenings. Does he agree that climate change is not only an emergency, but a public health emergency? That is clear not only from the heat deaths in the UK, but the global impact on public health of water scarcity and the spread of malaria to new regions. Does he also agree that we should continue to support the likes of the World Health Organisation in efforts to tackle what is both a climate and public health emergency?
Adrian Ramsay
The hon. Lady is absolutely right: this is a public health issue. Organisations such as the World Health Organisation are clear on that, and it is clear from Natural England’s oral evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee yesterday. It is clear not only that there will be risks to public health if action is not taken but that nature as national security infrastructure can help with positive health outcomes, and we really need to embrace that as a country.
Nature is a foundational element of national security, and nature depletion, biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate breakdown are not merely environmental problems. Collectively, they will lead to the ruin of critical systems on which lives and livelihoods depend. We are no longer confronted by individual isolated incidents, events or extinctions. What lies ahead is whole-system collapse. As nature provides essential services that protect people, food, water and the economy, it is infrastructure—our most critical infrastructure—and should be treated as such.
Further Education Institutions
Debate between Adrian Ramsay and Anna Dixon(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Anna Dixon
I will give way first to the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello).
Anna Dixon
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point—I was about to come on to the pay gap between teachers in schools and those in further education colleges. Teachers in further education colleges earn an average of £8,000 a year less than schoolteachers. I was not aware of the gap with higher education, but it is clearly important that there is a level playing field so that they can attract and retain teachers.
Adrian Ramsay
The hon. Lady has now pre-empted my intervention. I wanted to highlight that further education leaders I have spoken to, such as those from Suffolk New college, who run the Halesworth campus in my constituency, have highlighted that £8,000 to £10,000 gap in pay between FE lecturers and secondary education teachers teaching the same subjects. Does the hon. Lady agree that this needs to be addressed in order to tackle the challenge of retaining and recruiting staff?
Anna Dixon
I agree. Closing the gap in pay will be vital, particularly if we look at vocational areas where industry salaries are higher. In construction, engineering and digital, FE teachers earn around 11% less on average than their peers who work in industry. Even when colleges do manage to recruit, they are quickly enticed back to industry, so it is not enough to just ask employers to release their staff to support the teaching of these in-demand skills. How does the Government intend to address the teacher shortages in further education, attract people and offer incentives for businesses to release people?
The final point I will touch on is social mobility.