Terrestrial and Freshwater Protected Sites

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

Our nature strategy, which transcends the climate COP and has direct implications on the biodiversity COP being hosted in Kunming shortly before, is three things. The first is that we want more finance for nature. We are taking a lead in this country, having doubled our international climate finance to £11.6 billion. We have committed to spending a big proportion of that new money on nature-based solutions. We want other countries to do similarly and to mobilise private finance. A second area is targets. The Aichi targets are impressive, but they are ignored by pretty much every country. We want to include a means to hold individual countries to account on those targets. Thirdly, we want to tackle the drivers of environmental destruction, such as dodgy land-use subsidies that incentivise environmental destruction and by cleaning up our supply chains. The UK is showing real leadership in both those areas.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, could the Minister confirm whether the Government have co-ordinated their efforts with the devolved Administrations on the strong protection of our land and freshwater environment?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

Many issues relating to biodiversity and nature are devolved. However, my department, Defra, is in routine negotiations and discussions with the DAs. In certain areas, we work particularly closely together. For instance, we have a target to plant 30,000 hectares of land a year by 2025. A great deal of that burden will be taken up by our friends in Scotland, so we are liaising closely on that and all issues relating to biodiversity and nature.