Sustainable Development Goals

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for securing this debate. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, with whom I always—I think—agree. No one can accuse the sustainable development goals of lacking ambition. The 17 SDGs, with their attendant 169 targets measured by 232 indicators, are by design all-encompassing, cover every dimension of human existence and do not neglect the planet that nourishes and sustains each and every living thing. They are indeed universal.

The debate is timely. Even as we speak, the UN high-level political forum on sustainable development is taking place, culminating in a three-day ministerial forum from 16 July to 18 July. I will therefore concentrate my comments primarily on our Government’s contribution to the high-level panel as we present our voluntary national review, among the 47 other VNRs that will be presented.

VNRs are one of the key requirements of the UN’s document, Transforming Our World, which framed the SDGs. Essentially, they report a county’s progress in implementing the SDGs on the domestic front. The document states that the reviews will be voluntary, state-led and involve ministerial and other relevant high-level participants, and will provide a platform for partnerships through the participation of major groups and stakeholders. In the UK, our Government have said that they intend to implement the SDGs and measure progress in delivery through the single departmental plans.

Are the single departmental plans effectively monitoring delivery of the SDGs on the domestic front? UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development, or UKSSD, is a cross-sector network of organisations which work together to drive action on the UN sustainable development goals in the UK. Its members say no, in a comprehensive report published in 2018, Measuring Up. Published only a few short months ago, in January 2019, the Environment Audit Committee’s report on the SDGs concludes that:

“In their present format, Single Departmental Plans are … inadequate as a means of delivering the SDGs in the UK”.


It does not help that the Government have failed to ensure that all SDG targets are embedded in single departmental plans and there are significant gaps in plans and accountability. What will the Government do about that?

The Department for International Development has been tasked with exercising overall control of cross-departmental delivery of the goals domestically. I have great respect for the work that DfID carries out in delivering the 0.7% ODA target in the international arena, but its record in keeping tabs on ODA spend by other government departments does not bode well for DfID’s role in monitoring delivery of the SDGs across all government departments. Can the Minister comment on the Environmental Audit Committee’s call for an independent body modelled on the Committee on Climate Change to review critically the UK’s progress on achieving the SDGs? I would welcome her opinion on that.

As mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, 111 countries have already presented their VNRs to the UN. The countries often cited as exemplars are those which deployed responsibility from the very top. In Germany, oversight for delivery of the SDGs lies with the office of the Chancellor and in Japan it is with the Prime Minister’s office. They have led from the front and ensured that both private and public sectors are included.

In Germany, the State Secretaries’ Committee for Sustainable Development steers implementation of the sustainable development strategy, and the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Sustainable Development monitors the German Government’s national sustainable development strategy. The German Council for Sustainable Development, an independent advisory council consisting of 15 high-profile public figures, represents the economic, environmental and social aspects of sustainable development in national and international dimensions. In presenting its VNR, Germany ticked all the boxes.

The leadership to deliver this agenda in the UK patently does not come from the very top. Secretaries of State are not taking full responsibility for their departments’ performance against relevant SDG targets, let alone the Prime Minister. When will a satisfactory framework to monitor, assess and incentivise action be put in place? How will we engage our civil society partners in a high-level advisory capacity to represent economic, environmental and social aspects of sustainable development, as requested by the UKSSD?

In this year’s high-level political panel on sustainability, the set of goals to be reviewed in depth includes goal 13: to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. Here, I pay tribute to the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and the noble Lord, Lord Rees of Ludlow, who both eloquently expressed their concerns on climate change.

Only a few weeks ago, our Parliament approved a Motion to declare an environment and climate emergency, and the Government have announced a legally- binding target of net zero emissions by 2050. However, in the Environmental Audit Committee’s investigation of the scale and impact of UK Export Finance’s support of fossil fuels in developing countries, the conclusion was that the UK is sabotaging its climate credentials by paying out “unacceptably high” fossil fuel subsidies to developing nations, while claiming to lead the world in tackling the climate crisis.

It is invidious to make money out of locking developing countries into soon-to-be- defunct infrastructure, especially when there are plenty of opportunities in clean, non-fossil fuel investment. The noble Lord, Lord Rees, mentioned “leapfrog” technology.

That is where we should be putting our money in developing countries. Will the Government change their policy and stop sending billions of pounds in subsidies to help build fossil-fuel power plants? Gas and diesel are no longer acceptable as a response. They will not bridge technologies; we are beyond them. We have to move to fossil-fuel-free means of generating energy.

Before I finish, I will say a few words about poverty and despair in the UK. I commend the speeches of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and—as I hope I can still refer to him—my noble friend Lord Loomba. As the fifth richest nation, with an aspiration to cement the “global Britain” brand on the international stage, we must lead by example and fix our fault lines at home. The EU referendum exposed those fault lines in dramatic fashion, as was starkly highlighted in the report of the UN special rapporteur on poverty, Professor Philip Alston. His damning report included the words:

“Changes to taxes and benefits have taken the highest toll on those least able to bear it”.


I am glad that the noble Lords I mentioned covered this in great depth.

To conclude, on 24 and 25 September this year, heads of state and of government will gather in New York to follow up and comprehensively review progress on the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. The event is the first UN summit on the SDGs since the adoption of the 2030 agenda in September 2015; it will be a defining moment on whether the SDGs’ ambition to transform our world will be realised by 2030. Our contribution will be key. We were instrumental to the universal acceptance of the SDG framework. All eyes will be on us to see whether we still have the appetite to play a central, transformative role or whether Brexit has sapped our energy and distorted our identity as a global player of standing. I hope that our Government will step up to the mark and demonstrate determination to meet the 2030 SDG ambitions.