Procurement Bill [Lords]

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 13th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kruger]

My right hon. Friend makes important points, and I recognise the difficulty of comparing our productivity figures with those of other countries. The comparison I am making is with our own recent history, but he is absolutely right in what he says. Indeed, the point about what is measured matters enormously. In our debates, we often make the mistake of thinking that the only things that matter are those that can be easily quantified. That is a great challenge we face, particularly in the social sector.

The Government are rightly committed to improving the efficiency and productivity of the public services—I absolutely support them on that—but we face another great challenge that does not get enough of a mention: the need to reduce demand on the system as a whole. We are spending so much not just because we are inefficient, but because the demand on the system is so high. I do not need to run through all the details of the enormous budgets we spend on social breakdowns and the consequences of social problems that we should have averted, in criminal justice, in the health budget, in what is called “social protection”. Some £150 billion is categorised under “social protection” in the public finances—not pensions, but paying for people who have tough lives. We should be seeking to reduce the cost of those budgets, because each one of those costs represents, in a sense, people in trouble. Both for financial and social reasons, we should be trying to reduce that expenditure.

How do we do that? We need social reform. I am not going to bore the House with long thoughts on that, but we need public sector reform, as has been mentioned a bit today, and that includes procurement reform. I acknowledge what Labour is suggesting in some of its amendments and in some of the speeches we have heard: an objection to the whole model of outsourcing. I recognise the objections to some of the failures of public service management—new public management—over the past generation, and some of the challenges of outsourcing and of competition in the public sector or for public services. However, I do not think insourcing everything is the answer. Reverting to a pre-1990 model of everything being delivered by the central state, as one of the amendments and Unison are championing, is not the right model. We need a better model of outsourcing that relies much more on civil society and, in particular, on the local, community-based services in which the UK is so rich and which do such a great job. We need to be able to measure their value properly and commission their services effectively. That is what this Bill aims to do.

I declare an interest, in that I set up and ran for many years projects working in prisons and with youth services. I have personal acquaintance with the challenge of EU procurement, not only social fund commissioning, but central and local government contracts. None of this is easy and I am familiar with all of that. I am familiar with the frustrations of getting on the frameworks; expressing interest; bidding through tenders; and being treated as bid candy on a long contract. I am also familiar with going through a pointless competition process where there is only one obvious provider—the one that helped to design the service—which still has to jump through loads of competitive hoops only for some other random provider to come in and swipe the contract; I speak bitterly from experience. The challenges that small social enterprises face are significant.

The difference between procurement and commissioning is not often acknowledged. We often have procurement departments doing work that is too complicated for them on their own. We need to have proper commissioning where people who are paying for a service work collaboratively with providers, stakeholders, service users and other parts of the system. Everybody needs to bring their assets, resources, skills and experience to co-design the service that is needed locally. The Bill brings us much closer to that model. I greatly welcome the measures that have been included, especially around the simplification of tendering. The single portal is an important development and it is good for transparency as well. The Tell Us Once registration is essential, as is the help that will be given to SMEs and social enterprises, including the active reduction in the barriers to tendering, lower reporting requirements and so on.

Most of all there is the shift from the most economically advantageous regime to the most advantageous regime. That small excision of the word “economically” is an important recognition of the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) was just making about the need to go beyond a purely commercial estimation of the value of social projects. I would go further. In 2020, I wrote a report for the Government who were trying to maximise and sustain the enormous contributions that communities were making during the first lockdown. I suggested that we recognise and declare that the whole of Government commissioning—the whole of public service spending—is to deliver social value for the public. Essentially, that is what we all believe and it should be stated much more explicitly in my view. I just bring the House’s attention back to the Conservative Government’s Social Value Act 2012, which gets those principles right.

I recognise that we need to take enormous steps forward. I honour what the Government have been doing around national security. I also honour the steps that have been taken to ensure greater opportunities for SMEs and social enterprises, and I commend the Bill to the House.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I wish to associate myself with the remarks made by hon. and right hon. Members across the House about the dangers of sourcing from high-risk countries and parts of countries and those implicated in serious human rights abuses. The appalling persecution of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang is a very powerful case in point that has been echoed by many Members around the House, and I agree very strongly with that.

I rise to speak to amendment 60 and new clause 17. I welcome the provisions in the Bill that aim to help small and medium-sized enterprises to access public contracts. SMEs are often best placed to meet the needs of the communities in which they operate, providing numerous social and economic benefits. Those benefits, often referred to as a social value, cannot simply be reduced to a tick-box exercise. Nor can we allow social value to amount only to crumbs of compensation from corporate giants, while they extract wealth from our communities. Wider economic, social and environmental priorities need to be built in from the start of every procurement process.

The UK spends about £300 billion a year on public procurement. We could question whether that is a good thing. That has already been hinted at—whether some of these services at least would be better off delivered in-house by public bodies themselves rather than via contracts. However, this is probably not the place to go into that debate. I want to focus on the need to use that procurement spend as a force for good—to keep wealth in local economies, to ensure that public money goes to responsible companies and not those that exploit people and nature, and to help us meet our climate goals and to preserve a liveable future for all of us. I want to see values, not just value, at the heart of the public procurement process in public life.

That brings me to amendment 60 on the national procurement policy statement, which sets out the strategic objectives that the Government want public procurement to achieve. The amendment would require the Government to assess and report on the impact of the national procurement policy statement on meeting environmental and climate targets and to set out any steps that they intend to take to meet them.

Thanks to the efforts of climate campaigners across the country, we are now seeing the net zero goal and the need for climate action acknowledged in strategies and policy statements across the public sector. But these acknowledgements remain meaningless unless we assess the real world impact of those statements. Are our plans to reduce emissions actually being implemented and are they working? The amendment would signal to contracting authorities and businesses that the Government are serious about aligning procurement with climate and environmental goals. It would also enable Government to see where policy might need to be strengthened if it is not having the intended impact.

New clause 17 would require public contracts that include the supply of food to be aligned with nutritional guidelines and to specify options suitable for a plant-based diet. We know that animal agriculture is one of the largest contributors to global heating and biodiversity loss, representing around 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation. More and more people are choosing to move to more plant-based eating and almost one quarter of people in Britain now follow a mainly or entirely meat-free diet.

The 2022 progress report to Parliament by the Climate Change Committee urges the Government not to ignore the role of diet and notes:

“Government can influence diet shifts, through mandating plant-based options in public settings”.

My amendment would require public contracts for the supply of food to be in line with the Eatwell Guide, which drew inspiration from the nutritional guidance of what was then Public Health England, developed in conjunction with the devolved nations. Analysis by the Carbon Trust found that, thanks to lower consumption of meat, dairy and sugary foods, the environmental footprint of the Eatwell diet is around one third lower than the current national diet.

In settings such as hospitals and schools, where good nutrition can make all the difference, our public sector should lead the way by offering nutritious and sustainable food. That is too often overridden by a narrow notion of value for money, resulting in vulnerable people being given food that does not meet nutritional guidelines. As we all remember, during the pandemic the Government were forced to U-turn on school meal vouchers after widespread outrage at the poor quality and quantity of food being distributed to families. That was not just one isolated failure; it was symptomatic of a political culture that thinks we can package up children’s nutrition, health or any public service and hand it over to whichever corporate giant says it will do it most cheaply. That is the culture that has to change.

Last year the all-party parliamentary group on the green new deal, which I co-chair, produced a report setting out how local community-based solutions are key to climate action. As part of that inquiry we heard from the Sustainable Food Places network, as well as from community farms and kitchens. A key recommendation that came up again and again was to use the procurement system to support more local food and plant-based diets.

The Government’s own food strategy proposes a target of at least 50% of food spend to be on food produced locally or to high environmental standards, a move I certainly applaud. However, nine months on from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs consultation, we are still awaiting the Government’s response.

Pioneering local authorities and public bodies are leading the way, and my constituency has had some notable successes. In 2020, Brighton received the first-ever Sustainable Food Places gold award. It has brought in improved standards for procurement as part of a wider campaign to get more people eating more vegetables and its school food supplier meets the Food for Life gold standard for championing healthy, local, climate-friendly food.

A more joined-up approach to food, climate and nature and a real commitment to supporting local businesses and community organisations would have huge benefits for our health and our local economies. In addition to the provisions in this new clause, I would therefore hope to see much more support for public bodies that want to put social value at the heart of procurement, to help them to find out how best to get sustainable food from local producers into public sector canteens.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

I rise to speak to my amendment 68, which was tabled with not just my signature on it, but those of the Chairman and the deputy Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.

The amendment is about value for money and evaluation. We have heard during the course of this debate that this excellent Bill, which covers an enormous amount of much-needed reform in this area, deals with about £300 billion-worth of taxpayers’ money every year. That is a vast amount of cash and it is vital that we spend it as effectively as we possibly can. It matters not just for the value for money that taxpayers get, but for the efficiency and effectiveness with which our public services are delivered. That ought to be a compelling dyad if there ever was one.

The aim of amendment 68 is to achieve that evaluation, which we have already heard about from the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. I stress that this is not just a cross-party amendment, with support from both Labour and Conservative Members and from the cross-party Public Accounts Committee. It also has a very unusual political coalition behind it, which includes not only the Centre for Policy Studies, the TaxPayers’ Alliance and the Adam Smith Institute—all good, solid free-market, centre-right think-tanks—but Transparency International, Spotlight on Corruption, the Campaign for Freedom of Information and the Centre for Public Data. In other words, it is a very unusual political coalition, backing something because it is right in principle and because it yields better value for taxpayers’ money.

I urge Ministers to give the amendment much closer attention. I appreciate that it is different from the equally important questions that we have also addressed during the course of this debate, about exploitation of workers, exploitation of Uyghurs and human rights abuses around the world. However, domestically, in the middle of a cost of living crisis, it really matters to everybody in our constituencies, the man and woman in the street and hard-working families up and down the country and it can make a prompt difference.

Covid 19 Inquiry: Judicial Review

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

This process started with the delivery of that section 21 notice; the earlier rule 9 notices were different in their construction. This is a wide request from the chair, which is perfectly legitimate, provided it is not including unambiguously irrelevant information—that is what we are focused on, only that. I must, once again, assert that every bit of information that is covid-related is not under any question at all—this is only about stuff that is unambiguously irrelevant.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I listened carefully to the Minister’s statement and I have never heard so much insulting verbiage. He says that

“it should be for the inquiry alone to judge the relevance of the material”,

but then directly contradicts himself by saying that the Government are going to do it. He says he respects Baroness Hallett’s position and then actively disrespects it by taking her inquiry to court. He then says that doing so

“does not touch the Government’s confidence in the inquiry.”

Has it occurred to him that it might just touch the public’s confidence, both in this Government and in the inquiry itself, and that in so doing it is adding insult to injury to bereaved people? It is also undermining public safety in the future, because if we do not know that an inquiry such as this is going to get to the heart of the matter, what confidence can we ever have that the Government will learn the lessons when we face the next pandemic, as we surely will?

[Jeremy Quin]

The last thing this Government or I would wish to do, in any way, is undermine confidence in this inquiry. I was fulsome in my respect for the inquiry and its chair for good reason: Baroness Hallett is an eminent former Court of Appeal judge and has had experience of other inquiries. As I say, 55,000 documents have been delivered already and everything in relation to covid for which the inquiry asks will be delivered. The only issue is on this narrow point about information that is unambiguously irrelevant. That is the point on which we are seeking the insight of the courts.

G7 Summit

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 22nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his appointment; I know he will do a superb job, and I agree with him. As the recent Hiroshima accords say, the relationship between the UK and Japan is the strongest that it has ever been across all areas. Whether on scientific collaboration, trade and economic growth, or indeed security, the partnership is strong, and the recent accords that we have signed will take it to even greater depth and levels of co-operation.

On the issue of auto manufacturing, I was pleased to meet the president of Nissan while I was in Tokyo, who had also recently met the Chancellor. As my right hon. Friend can see from the announcements, there is confidence in the UK economy, and we will continue to work closely with Japanese automakers to ensure that there is investment in the UK and that we can make the next generation of electric vehicles here.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The Prime Minister did finally mention climate change in his response to the Leader of the Opposition, but this G7 summit was a disaster for the climate, flying in the face of expert warnings that if we are serious about staying below 1.5 degrees, there can be no new exploration of oil and gas. While the communiqué acknowledged the new fund for loss and damage, it failed to deliver any new funding for it. Oxfam has estimated that the G7 countries owe the global south a staggering $8.7 trillion for the harm already caused by their excessive carbon emissions. Will the Prime Minister now lead the way on that fund, and commit to new and additional funding specifically for loss and damage in advance of the COP28 summit?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady obviously missed the fact that this was the first G7 commitment to stop building new coal plants. It was the first G7 collective renewable energy target, and it confirmed that the developed countries would meet their commitment to provide $100 billion in climate finance per annum—something that has been warmly welcomed. Again, I point her to what I said to the Leader of the Opposition. She failed to point out that of all the G7 countries, we have the best record on reducing climate emissions

Procurement Bill [Lords]

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I would welcome the opportunity to speak to my hon. Friend about any amendment he might table, and we would, of course, look at it seriously. I recognise the general point that this country has realised, as have all our friends, through covid and subsequently that it is incredibly important to understand our supply chains and to understand where our procurement comes from. The Bill will help us do that by enabling us to look through the entire supply chain—not just the top level, but deep inside—to make certain that we are able to stop suppliers that are effectively in misconduct, and to make certain that resilience is part of our thought process in procurement. I believe all those valuable assets are incorporated in this Bill, but I am more than happy to have further discussions with my hon. Friend.

I hope the House will forgive me if I make a little progress. Running through this Bill is a theme of greater transparency. Through the Bill, we will deliver world-leading standards of transparency in public procurement. It covers contracts awarded across the public sector, including by central and local government, arm’s length bodies, education authorities and health authorities. It also covers contracts awarded by publicly funded housing associations and by companies in the water, energy and transport sectors.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The Minister is being generous in giving way. Can he indicate whether the Government will accept the amendments made in the other place requiring contracting authorities to maximise environmental benefits when awarding contracts, and particularly to ensure compliance with the Climate Change Act 2008 and the Environment Acts? Does he accept that that should not be optional, as the climate emergency is so urgent that it ought to be required by this Bill?

[Jeremy Quin]

That urgency is why we have published procurement policy notes on our commitment to net zero, just as we have published them on social value. We are keen for the Bill’s wording not to be very prescriptive, because the Government will have to announce procurement policies from time to time. I totally accept that there is a case for ensuring that our net zero commitments are met, but putting them in the Bill, which would create a big, laborious process for SMEs and procurers, be they local councils or central Government, is not the right way forward.

This Bill sets out a strong framework that gives us far more powers, but it is then open to the Government to set out, through a national procurement policy statement, the focus on social value or environmental concerns. I hope the hon. Lady accepts that the procurement policy notes we have already published show our commitment to doing just that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Rayner]

I say to the right hon. Member that we do not have a system that works. That is pretty clear to me because we can see the disastrous waste that currently happens in the system, and because companies that should be rewarded with contracts are not, while others get around the system.

I think we should go further still by finally shedding light on the amount of taxpayers’ money being shelled out to tax havens. Labour will push for the Bill to introduce full transparency about whether suppliers pay UK taxes, as well as public country-by-country reporting by multinational corporations. A Labour Government would go further by using public procurement to drive up standards of responsible tax, including by asking big corporations and businesses publicly to shun avoidance and artificial presence in tax havens.

Transparency is not just a nice thing to have; it actually saves money. A lack of transparency in the procurement system reduces competition and increases costs, leaving the taxpayer to shoulder the burden, so the adoption of open transparent contracting makes good financial sense. It leads to a more competitive procurement process and, ultimately, to cost savings.

As I said earlier, being granted public money is a privilege, and suppliers should in turn uphold the highest standards in the workplace. The Bill is an opportunity to drive up standards across the economy and ensure that public procurement is used as a means to promote decent work throughout supply chains and to reward businesses that treat their workers right. We must back the workers and the employers who create Britain’s wealth by using procurement to raise the floor on working conditions for all. I hope that the Minister will engage openly in Committee with proposals to include good work and the promotion of quality employment as strategic priorities.

That brings me to outsourcing. This Government have become too dependent on handing away our public services on the cheap, and we are all paying the price. It is ideological and not based on sound service delivery. The Bill presents an opportunity to introduce measures to end the knee-jerk outsourcing trend and to ensure that, before any service is contracted out, public bodies consider whether work could not be better done in house. When I worked in local government, we coined the phrase “not outsourcing but rightsourcing”. That is what a Procurement Bill should facilitate.

The pandemic showed us that a decade of Tory Government had shattered the resilience of British businesses and services and of our local economies. Instead of handing out billions to British firms to deliver services, jobs and a better future, big contracts were given to Tory cronies and unqualified providers. The Tories eroded standards at work, encouraging a race to the bottom.

But it does not have to be this way. From the Welsh Government and London’s Labour Mayor to local governments in Manchester, Southwark and Preston, Labour in power is showing that things can be done better. What we need is a public procurement policy that the public can trust and that will make winning contracts a force for our country’s good. Not more sticking-plaster solutions but a Bill that will restore trust in the way public money is spent.

[Caroline Lucas]

I was trying to time my intervention for just as the right hon. Lady was finishing her remarks. Before she finishes, does she agree that one of the reasons why procurement is so brilliant is that it has a vital role to play in greening our economy? Again, the Bill does not go far enough on that. In particular, it does not include scope 3 emissions in supply chains, and the Government will not meet their own net zero targets unless they start accounting for those emissions. Does she agree that that is a big hole in the Bill?

[Angela Rayner]

Absolutely. I listened to the Minister’s response to the hon. Member’s question earlier, and it showed a lack of ambition. Those of us concerned about environmental factors, as we all should be, are also concerned that the Minister is not putting the necessary gusto into the Bill to ensure that those issues, including meeting the net zero targets, are really factored in. I hear a lot of words, but when it comes to the legislation that will enable us to do that, I do not see the practice being delivered. The next generation will hold the Government to account for the disaster they will be given if we do not act now. We know what the science says and what needs to be done, but this Bill does not do enough to ensure that it happens.

I want a Bill that will restore trust in how public money is spent, will have social and environmental factors in it, and will make British industry the best it can be so that workers in this country get the best they can get. I urge the Minister to use this opportunity to plough taxpayers’ money back into local communities so that we can make, buy and sell more in Britain, claw back our money when it is wasted, and outlaw VIP lanes once and for all.

Illegal Immigration

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The Prime Minister talks about fairness, yet what he set out is the very opposite of a fair and efficient system. The best way to stop desperate people from dying in small boats and to stop the criminal gangs is for the Government to promote more safe and legal routes. Why are they so incapable of doing that effectively? Why can he find 500 new staff for his Albanian scheme but only eight people to process the 11,000 asylum applications from Afghanistan? That means that, contrary to what the Foreign Secretary suggested in the Chamber barely an hour ago, there have been zero Afghans resettled from Afghanistan under the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme pathway 3 since January.

[The Prime Minister]

We have in fact safely settled more than 23,000 people from Afghanistan in this country. The hon. Member talks about safe and legal routes and actually, in the last year, we issued more humanitarian visas than in any other year since the second world war. That is the strength and depth of our compassion, and that is what we will always do, but we cannot have that compassion and generosity exploited by people who break the rules. There is nothing fair about that, and it does nothing to help the people we really need to target. That is what we will do.

G20

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right to raise that particular need of the Ukrainians. It is something that I have discussed a couple of times with President Zelensky, and I can assure my hon. Friend and the House that we are playing our part in providing funding and expertise to help resolve some of the issues. The Ukrainians, I know, are very grateful for that support.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The G20 communiqué urged all parties to finalise and adopt the forthcoming COP15 global biodiversity framework in Montreal. At this crisis time for nature, both globally and at home, the Prime Minister will know the importance of leading by example, so, as well as accelerating the UK’s domestic environmental agenda, will he ensure that he is not forced into another last-minute U-turn as we saw ahead of COP26? Will he commit now to attending COP15 in person and show that leadership?

[The Prime Minister]

I do not think that anyone could doubt our commitment to biodiversity and nature. It was something on which the United Kingdom proudly led at Glasgow last year to put it on the agenda. We will have a range of different people attending Montreal. I was very pleased that we ensured that the G20 communiqué reaffirmed the G20’s commitments to the targets that were set at COP. We fought very hard for that, and we should all be proud that it is there in the G20 communiqué.

COP27

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for all her work in this area, which she is rightly passionate about and where she has made an enormous difference. I look forward to receiving her continued advice on how we can deliver on our commitments. I am pleased to give her that reassurance. Actually, as she knows, the doubling of our international climate finance commitment was a catalyst for many other countries around the world doing the same. We want to ensure that all that money is spent, and spent well. That is what we will do.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The Prime Minister just said how important it is to keep our promises on climate finance, and I agree. Will he explain why he does not seem to agree with himself? His Government have not kept their climate promises. He has not delivered the $300 million that we still owe to the green climate and adaptation funds—when will we see that? Will he ensure that all new climate finance is new and additional and not being raided from an ever diminishing aid budget? Does he recognise that the moral obligation that he talks about must extend beyond mitigation and adaptation to address loss and damage? Will he support the establishment of a finance facility for loss and damage at COP27?

[The Prime Minister]

On loss and damage, I have already made the point that we established the Glasgow dialogue to see how best to take forward those discussions. I will not pre-empt the discussions happening at COP, but that is not the same as reparations—I think the hon. Lady understands that—which is not what is on the table. That is clear in the language that is being debated at COP.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Of course, it makes sense to ensure that we maximise the albeit declining production from the North sea to this country. To those who suggest—including, it must be said, the separatist Scottish National party—paying billions of pounds to foreign countries to supply gas that we have to have, rather than producing it in Scotland with Scottish jobs, I say that is frankly absurd, as he will recognise.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

In the context of the climate crisis, self-sufficiency cannot simply mean yet more new extraction and burning of fossil fuels. According to the UN, Governments still plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting global heating to 1.5°. To help us to assess production against climate targets, will the Minister urge all countries at COP27 to join Germany, France and Tuvalu in giving diplomatic support to the new global registry of fossil fuels that is designed to help us to do precisely that?

[Graham Stuart]

I thank the hon. Lady for what she said. Of course, it is important in this country to recognise that, given the Climate Change Act 2008, the fact that production here is from a declining basin, and that our production is expected to fall faster than is required for oil and gas around the world, producing that at home, with lower emissions for our gas than for liquefied natural gas, is a sensible way to go.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is a vociferous campaigner on that issue, as I learnt over the summer. He will know that local authorities determine these issues, but I reassure him that all large incinerators in England must comply with strict emission limits and receive permits only if plants do not cause any damage to human health. Hopefully, that is reassuring for him.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The Prime Minister’s reckless predecessor, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), took a wrecking ball to nature, prompting millions of members of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the National Trust and the Wildlife Trusts to rise up in opposition. Yesterday, he promised to fix her mistakes, as well as to uphold his party’s 2019 manifesto. If he is a man of his word, will he start by reversing the green light she gave to fracking, since it has been categorically shown not to be safe, and instead maintain the moratorium that was pledged in that very manifesto he promised to uphold?

[The Prime Minister]

I have already said that I stand by the manifesto on that. What I would say is that I am proud that this Government passed the landmark Environment Act 2021, putting in more protection for the natural environment than we have ever had, with a clear plan to deliver it. I can give the hon. Lady my commitment that we will deliver on all those ambitions, and that we will deliver on what we said at COP, because we care deeply about passing on to our children an environment that is in a better state than we found it ourselves.

Tributes to Her Late Majesty The Queen

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

It is a privilege to speak on behalf of the Green party of England and Wales and pay tribute to Queen Elizabeth II. Above all else, she was a mother, a grandmother and a great-grandmother. I know I speak for the people of Brighton, Pavilion when I offer my sincerest condolences, in particular to her immediate family and to her loved ones. They have lost someone very dear to them on a deeply personal level, and our thoughts are with them all.

But we have lost her too. Perhaps the most recognisable public figure in the world today, the Queen has been a uniquely enduring part of the fabric of our lives for nine remarkable decades. In moments of national crisis and in moments of national pride, she was always there. Through turbulence, through uncertainty, she was always there as a fixed point—as a steadying, guiding figure that we all felt we knew. And of course, for most of us, she is indeed the only monarch that we have ever known.

I, too, was drawn to the lines of Philip Larkin. Indeed, I find it symbolic that so many in the House have been drawn to the words that he wrote and which are engraved on a memorial in Queen Square in Bloomsbury, erected to mark Her Majesty’s silver jubilee. I hope the House will indulge me, as they bear repetition:

“In times when nothing stood

But worsened, or grew strange,

There was one constant good:

She did not change.”

Listening to the radio and watching the news over the past 24 hours or so, I have been struck by just how much that dependability and stability meant to people, by how many people’s lives the Queen touched in a very direct way, and by memories from those who met her of her deep humanity.

I know that there are millions of people in Britain who are not necessarily monarchists, but who are none the less deeply mourning the Queen; who feel a profound sense of loss; and who also had huge respect and admiration for her. They—we—saw in her an extraordinary work ethic, a deep stoicism and an extraordinary wisdom gained over so many years. We saw the values of selflessness and sense of duty, and also the personal side of her character: that humility, the kindness and the famous sense of humour that has been spoken about so much today. From the marmalade sandwiches allegedly secreted away in her iconic black handbag to joining James Bond on the zipwire, she was a Queen unafraid to be playful. So many people speak of the twinkle in her eye and of her genuine interest in the world, across which she travelled so extensively.

That determination to be seen to connect with people saw the Queen become the most travelled monarch in history, making more than 285 state visits. She broke many other records, too: she was not only our longest-serving monarch, but the one woman from the British royal family ever to have served in the armed forces and the only modern Head of State to have served during world war two. That all speaks to her driving purpose, that deep sense of duty.

Today, young and old, people of all faiths and none, royalists and republicans across our four nations, the Commonwealth and the world are united in recognition that she worked so tirelessly until the very last days of her remarkable life. From all walks of life and all corners of the globe, people want to pay their respects—and Her Majesty did inspire genuine respect, as well as admiration, love and affection. She is part of the world’s collective understanding of Britishness—the epitome of faith and steadfastness. I thank her for her devotion and for her dignity. Her enduring legacy will be as multifaceted as she herself was in life, but I believe that she would want the most abiding aspect of that legacy to be hope and solidarity, as symbolised by the double rainbow that stretched across the skies above Buckingham Palace yesterday, shortly after the announcement of her death. Rest in peace, Your Majesty, and thank you.