Business of the House

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

As my right hon. Friend knows, the Secretary of State for Health will make a statement on this matter shortly, and there will be opportunities for her and other Members to ask him questions. This is an important issue, and she, as a local Member of Parliament, will take a close interest in it. I think it would be best for the House to wait to hear what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has to say before we consider what further debates on mandatory reporting might be necessary.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Later this year, the world will turn its attention to the conference of the parties in Paris in December and, before that, to the conference on sustainable development goals in September. In July, the conference on the financing of development, which is perhaps more important, will take place in Addis. Does the Leader of the House agree that it is important that we have a major debate on that conference in this Chamber in Government time, and that the Treasury should be represented at such a debate to explain to the House precisely what it will be doing to ensure the success of the sustainable development goals and of the United Nations framework convention on climate change in December?

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the importance of that whole sequence of conferences later this year. I remember agreeing, as Foreign Secretary, to give assistance and advice to France on the hosting of the Paris meeting, because we in this country have so much expertise on these issues. This is a matter for the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for International Development, so it would primarily be for them to take part in any such debates. The Treasury’s role is to help to supply the money, as is so often the case. I certainly hope that there will be debates on the matter, but I anticipate that they will now have to take place in the next Parliament. The Backbench Business Committee has a few remaining days in this Parliament, as I have announced, but it would be a matter for the Committee to decide whether we had a general debate on these or other issues.