Environmental Sustainability: UK-Indonesia Collaboration

Debate between Alex Sobel and Jeremy Wright

Tuesday 23rd June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Alex Sobel]

Absolutely. If one looks at the geography of Indonesia and its different sized islands, such as Sumatra, New Guinea or Borneo, and the evolution of species on those islands over millions of years, that is what created these unique animal and plant species, which are found nowhere else in the world. The Indonesian Government have a unique responsibility among nations to preserve those species—once they are gone from the individual islands, they cannot be brought back, because they do not exist anywhere else. I have been to see the West Papua tree kangaroos in Chester zoo, but they cannot survive in Chester zoo—they have to survive in the wild. There is the difficulty of seeing such things in the wild, but it is important that we preserve their ecosystems.

To give time for the Front Benchers, I will finish by saying that the UK also needs to think about its own role, particularly in the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which has called for a moratorium on projects that impact on the habitat of Tapanuli orangutans until a conservation management plan for the species can be adopted. There are some excellent organisations based here in the UK—I will not list them, but each time colleagues and I visit the biodiversity COP, we are amazed by the great British organisations and charities that are world-leading and helping to preserve animal and plant species globally. I know that they and the UK Government can help work on a conservation management plan to save the Tapanuli orangutans. We are uniquely placed to help Indonesia, but it needs to want that help. We should offer everything that we can; hopefully we can secure not just the Tapanuli orangutan but also, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) said, the Sumatran tiger, as well as pangolins, tapirs, sun bears and cassowaries—a whole range of species that live in the same ecosystem in Batang Toru.

We must use this opportunity to enshrine sustainable and ethical human rights practices into our working relationship with Indonesia for the sake of West Papuans and other indigenous peoples, biodiversity and nature. If we do not do it now, when will we do it? Soon, we will start to lose some of this unique biodiversity.

[Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, not least for his remarkable display of self-control. We now come to the Front-Bench speeches, beginning with the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

Johnston Press: Administration

Debate between Alex Sobel and Jeremy Wright

Monday 19th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

As I have said, I think that we need to look carefully at the balance between the elements that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned. It is undoubtedly part of the structural challenge that we have been discussing this afternoon, and I do not believe that we can come up with the appropriate structural answer unless we have considered those elements properly.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

There are three Johnston Press titles in my constituency—

[Alex Sobel]

Thanks. One of those papers, The Yorkshire Post, is vital to our campaign for One Yorkshire devolution. Without The Yorkshire Post, we would not have been able to bring forward a diverse set of parties.

On 14 October, in The Observer, Roy Greenslade produced a devastating critique of the way in which what has happened to Johnston Press came to pass. When the banks failed, they were deemed to be too big to fail. Now the same thing has happened. When Johnston Press ceased to be a family firm, huge acquisitions were made based on debt. Will the Secretary of State be looking at future acquisitions, whether they are debt-backed or not, and will he be looking into the media industries?

[Jeremy Wright]

I think we must be concerned with all similar transactions in this space, because that is important for the reasons that we have given. The hon. Gentleman will understand why—as I have already said—I will not comment specifically on the way in which this transaction has been conducted.