Baroness Tonge
Main Page: Baroness Tonge (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Baroness Tonge (Ind LD)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Ashdown on securing this debate—and I must say that it was good to hear him in full cry, just like the old days. I wish to declare an interest as chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health, and point out a factor that is not in the title of the debate but which, thank goodness, the noble Lord, Lord King, addressed earlier. I call it population dynamics. It includes population size, the growth trends of the population, age structure and urbanisation. These are terribly important issues.
In two weeks’ time, my all-party group will launch a report we have been working on to coincide with World Population Day, entitled Population Dynamics and the Sustainable Development Goals. It includes sections on mass migration and conflict, because we were interested in the relationship between rapid population growth and the factors in the title of this debate. I hope noble Lords will read it. It follows a previous report of the group, four years ago, entitled The Return of the Population Factor and the paper from the Royal Society two years ago entitled People and the Planet.
These links must be made. Countries with high fertility rates and rapid population growth are mostly the fragile states with high proportions of young people with no access to education or employment. This leads to unrest, migration to find a better life—and conflict. In areas where they are suffering floods or desertification because of climate change, which my noble friend Lady Williams spoke about, they are even more likely to try to migrate or to start wars against other people, fighting over what is left of the land. Across the Arab world, millions of young men outnumber their fathers and grandfathers, are receiving no proper education and have no prospects for the future. Is it any wonder that they are attracted by extreme ideologies that offer a future and a purpose for their lives?
As the noble Lord, Lord King, said, people are afraid of mentioning population growth—or dynamics, which I prefer to call it—conjuring up as it does the previous century’s terrible attempts at coercive birth control. Birth control can be done voluntarily. Many countries are doing it, if supplies are available, and there is evidence worldwide that that is now happening. We must take it seriously. We must ensure at the lowest level that every woman has access to contraception to be able to have the number of children she wants. I am glad to say that the previous Government led the way. This way, not only will countries have fewer people to cope with in the future, but women will be empowered and able to take their rightful place in society. They cannot do that if they are just breeding machines. If women take their rightful place in society, it benefits everyone. The World Bank has shown that when women are empowered and take part in their society, the economy benefits.
My final point is that western developed democracies must take climate change seriously. We must cut the greed and energy consumption that is causing climate change and forcing people to flee the countries affected and come to our shores seeking a better life. Why should they not? I hope noble Lords will read our paper as I have given only a taste of it. Denial of climate change must stop and much greater efforts must be made to stabilise the number of people in this world. Action must be taken for all our sakes.