Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I too welcome the noble Lord, Lord Whitehead, of Saint Mary’s, to his seat in your Lordships’ House and to the Dispatch Box. It was wonderful to hear such a green-minded speech; over the past few years, they have become more common here, but they are still very welcome. I particularly liked his commenting on protecting and repairing our ocean and high seas. It is absolutely crucial that we understand how much damage we have done already and that we try our best to recover it if we can.

The UK was one of the first countries to sign up to the UN agreement on the law of the sea, and we have been active in shaping the treaty, so it makes sense to pass this Bill as soon as possible. I want to flag up some reasons why this agreement is a good idea but also what protections Ministers should seek next. The good things are as follows. It is good for UK science: our very own National Oceanography Centre is one of the world leaders in ocean scientific research, and this Bill will ensure that marine science and technology can develop to further understand and meet the demands of a changing climate. It is good for marine life and ecosystems: our oceans are full of beautiful things, and protecting our oceans ensures that that beauty survives. We are far too careless about such a precious complex of ecosystems that we barely know anything about. It is also good for UK food security: a thriving sea is full of life, and some of that life can help to sustain our lives and our economy. We must regulate and manage the competition for marine genetic resources that can be used to support the development of new drugs, cosmetics, food and industrial processes.

But, currently, our oceans are collapsing under the strains of plastic pollution, bottom trawling, massive mining projects, toxic dumping and climate change. It is this combined assault on ecosystems that will collapse life in the seas. These problems make international treaties crucial and urgent. The scale of this agreement is huge. It will help to protect two-thirds of the world’s oceans. It has the kind of vision that will help us to deal with the rapidly developing impacts of climate change. However, as is usual with this Government and the last, Ministers are trying to grab additional powers via secondary legislation. It would make sense to increase parliamentary scrutiny of secondary powers. Good policy requires accountability.

We need to ensure that our Government listen to a range of experts, not just to those people with loads of cash who can use money and personal contacts to gain access to the detailed discussions. My biggest concerns are monitoring and enforcement: I simply do not understand how those two things will happen in any sort of efficient way. I would like us to become a world leader in pushing for the establishment of marine protected areas in places beyond national jurisdiction. We should be aiming to protect 30% of the world’s marine areas by 2030—and I do mean “protect”. For example, Greenpeace has found that 90% of our marine protected areas are not really protected at all. There is no meaningful site-wide regulation of the most destructive fishing activity. Greenpeace says of our MPA protection that it is rhetoric over reality, and I think this treaty could be the same. Being a world leader means enforcing the strictest regulation of the existing marine protected areas in UK territorial waters, with an end to bottom trawling and devastating mining operations. I hope that the Minister will help us to do that in a very fast way.

So far, the Trump Administration have not ratified the treaty and have pursued issuing deep-ocean mining licences unilaterally, ignoring the UN-backed International Seabed Authority. The demand for mining minerals is rising, when we barely know anything about our deep seabed. We must also end the public subsidy of pollution within freeports, as we saw up in Teesside, when the dredging of industrial chemicals that had been buried for decades allegedly led to the mass deaths of crabs and lobsters along the north-east coast of England. More deregulation of freeports will mean more environmental problems and more taxpayer money spent cleaning up the mess at a future date.

While I am sure that most here would like this Bill to pass so that we can sign up to international law, 30 days before the ratification, I would say that it does not go far enough to protect our ocean. Can the Minister tell me how strongly this Government will live up to the rhetoric?