China’s Policy on its Uyghur Population

James Gray Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 300146 relating to China’s policy on its Uyghur population.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. This e-petition was started by Zayd Amjad. It asks that the Government impose sanctions on China over its treatment of Uyghur Muslims. Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group native to Xinjiang, China. They are reported to be subject to mass detention, surveillance, restriction of religious and cultural identities, as well as other gross human rights abuses. Over 1 million Uyghurs have been forced into re-education camps.

In the international community, awareness has been growing of the treatment of Uyghur people, and I know that it is a cause of concern for many on both sides of the House. We have already had debates in this House on the UK’s response to China’s treatment of its Uyghur population, notably an Adjournment debate led by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) and a Westminster Hall debate led by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael). I also understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) has written this weekend to the Foreign Secretary expressing her views. I thank all of them for bringing this important subject to the House’s attention.

The strength of feeling in favour of upholding of human rights across the world has been shown by the nearly 150,000 signatures on the petition. At the most recent UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the UK led on a formal joint statement setting out concern about the situations in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, with the support of 27 international partners. The petitioners argue that despite public pressure from the UN and growing public awareness, nothing substantial or concrete has been done to resolve the crisis and help the Uyghur people. The petition therefore argues that the use of Magnitsky sanctions is the most appropriate course of action.

Reports suggest that the Chinese Government are deliberately creating living conditions calculated to bring an end to the Uyghur population in Xinjiang. They include imposing measures intended to prevent births, and causing serious bodily and mental harm to members of the group. The suffering that the Uyghur Muslims have undergone, and sadly continue to undergo, is nothing short of horrifying. The Uyghur people who have escaped to Turkey have given interviews detailing the fear that they lived in in China; they tell of families torn apart, torture in camps, invasive surveillance, and forced and sometimes unknown sterilisation. Detainees in Xinjiang re-education camps have reported beatings, electric shocks and sleep and food deprivation. Reports of women who have faced forced sterilisation and abortions are alarmingly widespread.

The campaign against the Uyghurs is total. Many are forced into factory labour and transported to factories for up to a year before being allowed to return to their families. According to a report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Uyghurs are working in factories,

“Under conditions that strongly suggest forced labour”.

Conservative estimates suggest that more than 80,000 Uyghurs were transferred out of Xinjiang to work in factories from 2017 to 2019. One factory is given as a case study in the report. It is

“equipped with watchtowers, barbed-wire fences and police guard boxes.”

The image is dystopian, yet all too familiar for students of modern history. Reports of the sites, discipline and workers’ days read more like a prison than a place of work. They are constantly monitored and threatened with longer stints in factories if they do not comply.

The surveillance is total. China already takes its infamous mass surveillance to another level when policing its Uyghur population. Movement is restricted and phones and behaviours monitored in minute detail. Uyghurs living in China have no privacy. They are even required to submit biometric data to the police. Social media activity, travel and even which door they use to enter their house are all tracked by the police. Identification cards must be swiped in schools, banks and parks. No movement goes untracked.

The Chinese Government have justified the existence of camps and surveillance as a part of measures designed to prevent religious extremism, but it is not just religious extremism that the Chinese Government target; it is any practising of Islam at all. The events in Xinjiang are a threat to religious freedom throughout the world. Mosques have been destroyed, and halal and Ramadan banned. The signs of religious radicalism laid out include common behaviour among devout Uyghur such as the wearing of long beards, the study of Arabic and praying outside mosques. Even those who give up alcohol or cigarettes have been branded extremists and are noted by the authorities. Uyghur Muslims do not have the right to their religion, to their bodies, or to freedom of expression. The system is policed through directives given to officials in Xinjiang. The directives do not mention judicial procedures, but call for the detention of anyone who displays so-called “symptoms” of radicalism or anti-Government views. The international community should be gravely concerned.

The petition calls for action and asks the Government to take any necessary steps to stop such breaches of human rights. It specifically calls for the use of Magnitsky sanctions, named after the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was arrested and charged after uncovering Russian tax officials had defrauded Hermitage Capital, a company he was advising. In jail, Mr Magnitsky was refused medical treatment, and there is evidence he was beaten. Sadly, he sadly died in police custody in 2009. Since that time, his former employer, Bill Browder, has campaigned for the implementation of Magnitsky sanctions across the world. He argues that individual sanctions act as a more effective deterrent than broad-based sanctions, which often have the most impact on the poorest in society, not on privileged Government officials.

Notably, the first Magnitsky sanctions were enacted by the United States in 2012. Congress passed the world’s first Magnitsky Act after efforts by the late Senator John McCain. The Act imposed sanctions on a list of Russian officials who were believed to be responsible for serious human rights violations, freezing any US assets that they held and banning them from entry into the United States. The UK implemented its version just this year. It applies to human rights violators around the world. Our laws allow sanctions such as banning travel to the UK and the freezing of assets of listed individuals.

The Magnitsky sanctions are effective because sterling is a valuable global currency to hold. By having their assets frozen in Britain, sanctioned individuals are unable to have assets or continue to do their business. The sanctions also come with the stigma of no longer being allowed to enter the country or to own residences. The addition of names to the list of sanctioned individuals is in the power of the Foreign Secretary. Those who can be sanctioned include people who act on behalf of a state to violate other human rights, such as the right not to be subject to torture, the right to be free from slavery or forced labour and, above all, the right to life. The Government have already used such powers to sanction the killers of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul. Also sanctioned were Russian officials who were allegedly involved in the mistreatment of Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow jail.

Crucially, we have sanctioned organisations that are involved in forced labour in North Korea. Given the evidence that the Uyghur population are being used for forced labour in Xinjiang, I see no reason why similar sanctions should not be taken out on organisations that benefit from this labour. In fact, our American allies have already implemented sanctions on Chinese Government agencies and senior officials who run companies and farms in Xinjiang province. The suffering of the Uyghur Muslims is rightly receiving international attention.

As the petition mentions, the UN has already made statements regarding the treatment of the Uyghur people. The UN statement demanded that the Chinese Government comply with international obligations to respect human rights and freedom of religion. It also called for China to allow UN human rights monitors access to detention centres in order to ensure that human rights standards are being met. Outside Europe, countries also publicly opposed China’s policy in Xinjiang. Malaysia declined to deport Uyghur asylum seekers back to China in 2019, and Turkey’s Foreign Minister condemned China for its treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang.

Despite the announcements by the UN and the British Government’s expressed outrage at China’s policies in Xinjiang, nothing is changing. The British Government therefore need to realise that more must be done. In response to the petition, they have said:

“We have grave concerns about the gross human rights abuses being perpetrated in Xinjiang.”

Although I am pleased to see the Foreign Secretary speak out against human rights abuses, now is the time for action. Although I understand that imposing sanctions on individuals is a difficult process, the petitioners and I ask that it is expediated as a matter of urgency.

Along with other countries at the UN, the UK has condemned China’s actions, yet Uyghur Muslims in China continue to face persecution. The next steps therefore must be taken to oppose China’s treatment of Uyghurs. The Government have said that they

“will continue to urge the Chinese authorities to change their approach in Xinjiang and respect international human rights norms,”

but they are not speculating about future sanction designations. Their argument for this is that it

“may reduce the impact of those future designations.”

Concern over the treatment of Uyghur Muslims is widespread in Britain. The Muslim Council of Britain has urged the Government to take strong action. In a letter to the Foreign Secretary, it voices its fears that, without tangible actions, the abuses will not stop and more lives will be lost.

Our country takes pride in its commitment to uphold human rights and to fight for equality. To that end, the Government should aim not only to confront China over its treatment of the Uyghurs, but to encourage others to do the same. To do nothing in the face of such human rights abuses is to allow the continuing suffering of many. We have an abundance of evidence in the form of leaked documents, satellite imagery and the harrowing testimony of victims. We cannot continue to listen to the mounting evidence and do nothing substantial with it.

The petition urges the Government not just to speculate on the sanctions, but to act. As I mentioned, America has already taken that step, and we should be looking to do the same. Sanctions are stronger when more people enforce them. It is our duty to protect those whose human rights are being violated. China is undeniably an economic powerhouse, but we cannot let its strength in world economics shield it so as to allow atrocities and human rights violations.

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Order. Before we move on, I point out that one speaker, the hon. Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer), has withdrawn and, as a result, we have been able to insert between the hon. Members for Harborough (Neil O'Brien) and for Henley (John Howell) the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran). She and the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) will of course realise that they may not speak from where they are sitting at the moment. One seat is available on the horseshoe, if either of them wants it, although the hon. Member for Isle of Wight might need to smarten up before he takes his seat there.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I hope that I am suitably smart to continue—

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Very smart!

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I am glad. That is very kind of you, Mr Gray.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) on a powerful speech to begin this brilliant debate. It is important that he laid out many of the issues before us, and he did so with great power and oratory. I commend him for that. This is not an issue that should in any way divide those of us who are present today, I hope, but rather it will unite us, in the best traditions of this House.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) asked to be recommended to the debate, although he was unable to join it. I said I would do so, if you do not mind him being on the record, Mr Gray. It is by the by, because he will not be coming to speak—you do not need to worry about that.

The key thing to say is that the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China—now formed of 18 countries, from east to west around the world, on the left and on the right—helped to sponsor Adrian Zenz’s first report on the Uyghurs. I am not saying that people were not aware of the issue, but the report has reignited it with some of his findings. The findings come from official Chinese documents that relate directly to individual officials—I will come back to that, in response to the point made by the hon. Member for Islwyn about Magnitsky sanctions, because there are individuals party to this named in the papers by the Chinese Government.

Adrian Zenz made the point clearly that at least 1 million Uyghurs—up to nearly 3 million—have been detained in Xinjiang in the re-education camps. I will not go into the details about the camps, because the hon. Gentleman made those clear, but detainees reported often being subject to forced labour, political indoctrination and torture. Almost 400 internment camps have been built, with dozens more still under development and yet to be built.

We all saw the film that was shown to the Chinese ambassador on “The Andrew Marr Show”. The ambassador preferred not to recognise anything said to him, but the reality is that those things were redolent of a time that we thought had gone—treatment of human beings that, looking back in history, we thought we had finally banished, but not so. The hon. Member for Islwyn made all those points about the treatment of the Uyghurs, the torture, and the forced sterilisation of Uyghur women, which was exposed in those documents and is a shocking tale, and the preferment of non-ethnically Uyghur in the Uyghur territories. All are a terrible indictment.

I want to raise something else, because the long hand of those involved in such repression reaches out way beyond China now. About 5,000 Uyghurs live in Australia, most of them former refugees and their families. They told a parliamentary inquiry about frequent intimidation and harassment, such as WeeChat calls from family members back in China that were held in the presence of Chinese law-enforcement people, warning Uyghurs in Australia not to speak unfavourably about the Chinese Government lest something happen to those family members.

One Uyghur received a message from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security after attending a Tiananmen Square memorial, warning that his actions would have an impact on his family. The wife of the president of the Uyghur Association of Victoria said:

“I have left my homeland but I continue to live in fear. If I speak out for my people inside my homeland, I am afraid of retaliation on my family left behind. If I don’t speak out, I feel guilty of keeping the freedom and democracy all just for myself in a free country.”

That is shocking. We know beyond doubt that what is being done to the Uighur population in Xinjiang province is, in my view, a form of genocide. It is a deliberate attempt to eradicate a whole ethnic group.

They are not alone. Only a week ago I held a debate about similar things that are happening to Tibetans. During that debate, the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) told me that in Inner Mongolia we are beginning to see the start of exactly the same process. This is not a one-off; it is policy that comes straight down from the Chinese Communist party and the Government. It is their way of supressing any potential angry rows, debates or pressure, and it is appalling.

We know about all this stuff. I mentioned the birth suppression and the way in which population growth rates have fallen by 84% in the two largest Uyghur prefectures between 2015 and 2018, and it declined further in 2019. Such activities could meet the term genocide—I believe that they do. We accept religious freedoms and freedom of speech, which are normal here, but now alien in China.

If one adds those factors to the way that China is behaving in Hong Kong—with the arrest of peaceful protestors, their movement back to China for an unfair hearing and the likelihood of their never being seen again—its threats towards Taiwan, its involvement in taking over the South China sea, against the UN’s own statements about its lack of any historic presence in the area, and its clashes with the Indian army on the border with India, then we are beginning to see a pattern of arrogant and determined behaviour by a Government who care nothing about the reaction of the international community.

What can we do? The hon. Member for Islwyn touched on the Magnitsky amendments that we have made that apply to officials. The Minister knows that I think there is now enough evidence from Xinjiang and the official documents to move on many of those officials. I accept that they are not the top people, but that will send a strong signal to the Government that we, and the rest of the free world, will no longer tolerate it.

That gives us all that we need to start. The House of Lords has added new clause 68 to the Trade Bill. I publicise that here because it is important. I hope and believe that we will support the new clause when the Bill returns to the Commons. The clause makes it clear that we cannot trade with counties that are guilty of genocide. Our High Court will make the decision about whether there is enough evidence. We will no longer have to worry about going to the UN to watch the Chinese and their allies block that; that will allow us to do it independently. Under the charter we have a responsibility to act as a nation.

Mr Gray, I will stop now as I know that other Members wish to speak. There are a huge number of areas in which we can act, not just in Magnitsky. We can implement sanctions and mount evidence suggesting violations specified by the global human rights sanctions regulations. We can ensure that we implement sanctions against officials who are responsible in other areas, such as Tibet and even Hong Kong. We need to act in line with the petition, which has given us clear evidence that the British public have formed their own opinion. If we are not careful, we will be running behind them, rather than leading them. Our purpose, I believe, is to call this out and no longer accept it. As the hon. Member for Islwyn said, no matter how much trade is worth to us, it is not worth that for the loss of those lives.

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Order. We have 45 minutes until I call the two Front Benchers. Without applying a formal time limit, there are 13 speakers, which means about four or five minutes each, if that is at all possible and as a courtesy to one another. I call Shabana Mahmood.

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. It is almost a month since I secured an Adjournment debate on the plight of the Uyghur people. I had hoped that we would see more progress since that debate on 9 September. I had hoped that we would see the imposition of so-called Magnitsky sanctions against key individuals from the Chinese Communist party, but sadly we are no further on, and the plight of the Uyghur people, against whom, I am quite clear, the Chinese Communist party is perpetrating genocide, becomes ever more desperate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) and the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) have both given a huge amount of detail about what the Uyghurs are suffering as a result of the actions of the Chinese Government. They have detailed issues around forced sterilisations, the drop in the birth rate—a drop of almost a third in Xinjiang province—mass detentions, slave labour, and the destruction of culture and heritage. Families are being torn asunder, and we all wonder, as we look on in horror, how much more the Uyghurs will endure as the world simply watches, impotent and unable to act.

I have pressed the Minister before on his rationale for not pursuing Magnitsky sanctions. When I questioned him in September, he told me that I was right to press him on this point. I believe that I am right to do so. Members who make similar arguments about Magnitsky sanctions are right to do so too. It is completely unclear why the Government are still dragging their feet. The case for the imposition of sanctions against individuals, about whom we have clear evidence, has been made. What is the roadblock? I would like the Minister to explain what the roadblock is, because we deserve to know. Too many Members across the House have been pressing him on this point, and have got very little out of the Government.

Since that Adjournment debate in September, the Government have moved with lightning speed on the imposition of Magnitsky-style sanctions against individuals connected to the regime in Belarus and the rigged re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko. It was announced that sanctions were being drawn up on 24 September, and they were imposed on 29 September. It took merely days. I contrast that with what is happening to the Uyghur people, and the actions that the Government are still considering against key individuals in the Chinese Government. We have many years-worth of evidence, and months and months of review from our Government, but still no action.

We have heard that the Americans have taken action and imposed sanctions against key individuals in the regime. What is the reason for the UK not following suit? The legal tests have been met, but perhaps there are political tests—and ever-shifting political tests—that have not been met. If that is the case, that is a low moment for our Government. As the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green has said, no amount of trade can wipe out the actions of a regime that is committed, in the case of the Uyghur population, to genocide.

I echo the remarks that have been made about the amendment tabled by Lord Alton in the Lords to the Trade Bill. I hope that when the Bill returns to the Floor of the House of Commons, Labour spokespeople will support that amendment, and I hope that the shadow Minister will enlighten us on that today. I hope that the amendment receives cross-party support, because it is an important step and is one of the legal innovations that I told the Minister we must consider, given that we all know that the United Nations is a bit of a busted flush on the issue. The Chinese, with their veto in the Security Council and the buying up of influence we have seen in the last few years, will be able to ensure that any UN process is frustrated and even prevented from getting off the ground.

We therefore need more innovative and legal approaches, and empowering our own High Court to nullify trade agreements with regimes where the trade partner is, with good evidence, believed to have perpetrated a genocide, would be an important step forward. It would be a way for our country, with our long commitment to the rule of law and to calling out egregious human rights abuses, wherever they occur in the world, to make a real contribution.

I therefore hope that approach has support across the House. I will certainly seek to support it. I hope that the Government can bring forward such measures. If there are concerns that such mechanisms may be used in vexatious ways before our High Court, may I say to the Minister that we can come up with thresholds and tests that must be met before the High Court could make such a declaration? It is, however, an important thing for us to consider. It is an important step for us to take, and I hope it will happen.

Finally, I have a couple of quick remarks about UK supply chains in relation to Chinese production of personal protective equipment and, in particular, ventilators procured by our Government for use during the pandemic. There is a clear, real risk that personal protective equipment and ventilators that have ended up in use in our health system in the last few months, procured at great cost in the middle of an international emergency, may well have come about as a result of forced labour of the Uyghur people. If that is the case, that is an unconscionable breach.

We must do much more as a country to ensure that forced labour, slave labour and the labour of the Uyghur people is not found in either the clothes we wear and the technology we use or the kit that our national health service uses. Allowing for the international emergency, there are many more questions for the Government to answer about the checks that took place to ensure that Uyghur labour was not being used for the procurement of things now in our health service. I hope that the Minister can enlighten us today.

In my view, all legal tests have been met for our Government to act. It is time for the Minister to stop repeating the words he has given to all of us before and lay out some practical action, because the time has long passed for us to act against the Chinese Government.

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

That was seven minutes. It should be four or five minutes, if at all possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Order. Several Members wish to speak. They have three minutes each. I call Siobhain McDonagh.

Antarctica: Science and Diplomacy

James Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Westminster Hall

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Antarctica science and diplomacy.

The world today faces probably the greatest challenge it has faced for thousands of years. Unless we do something about it—something dramatic and urgent—we face environmental catastrophe not only in the Antarctic, but across the globe. That applies especially, but not only, to climate change.

Antarctica is living proof of what we are currently facing with regard to climate change. We must do something about Antarctica, and by doing something about it we can also help the rest of the globe. By focusing on every aspect of life on the great white continent and its governance, I hope that this debate will help environmental considerations elsewhere.

I start by welcoming you to the Chair, Mr Robertson, and by calling attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am chairman of the all-party group for the polar regions, which is largely funded by the Mamont Foundation, and I personally have enjoyed a great deal of hospitality and indeed travel in the colder parts of the world courtesy of my friend, a great polar explorer and philanthropist, Dr Frederik Paulsen, who has done great work at both the north and south poles.

Dr Paulsen also inspired my interest in the poles, together with my great mate and drinking companion, probably the greatest polar explorer in Britain today, Sir David Hempleman-Adams, who has done enormous work. I pay tribute to them for inspiring my interest in the polar regions. That may be a minor interest in Parliament, and I may be the only person with it, but none the less in my view it is an extremely important one.

The APPG has been running for five years under the direction, first, of Dr Duncan Depledge, who set it up with me, and, more recently, of Sophie Montagne. I thank them both for the magnificent work they have done. The APPG has achieved great things in raising polar issues in Parliament. As well as our regular meetings and written briefings, the “Polar Notes”, which we do once a month, we have taken groups of colleagues on expeditions right up to the north end of Spitzbergen, to Greenland, and this year to Iceland. We hope this year to take an expedition to Canadian Nunavut to visit some of the most remote Inuit communities on Earth. Hon. Members will hear more about that.

Last year—admittedly, unfortunately, in the middle of a general election, but we cannot be blamed for that—we arranged the first ever Antarctic Parliamentarians Assembly, in which representatives from 18 nations around the world came together here in London on 2 and 3 December to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Antarctic treaty. It was a magnificent diplomatic triumph that we were able to get a statement bringing together China, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, the UK and a whole variety of those other 18 nations from across the globe. The Assembly agreed some very outspoken and robust conclusions, and I hope that the other Antarctic nations will have taken account of it.

In all that work I have been very much helped by the polar regions department of the Foreign Office, under the de facto ambassador to the poles, Jane Rumble, who has been doing the job for a few years now, ably assisted by Stuart Doubleday. They do a great job together. I have also been helped by that other great British institution, the British Antarctic Survey, so ably led by Dame Jane Francis, and the Natural Environment Research Council under Henry Burgess. Theirs might not be the most glamorous of public jobs, but they do fantastic work in those two regions of the world—regions that may well hold keys to other parts of the globe—so I salute them for all they do.

Antarctica is the last great wilderness of the world, about which just about everyone on the street knows something, and more or less nobody knows everything. Most people know that Antarctica is a continent of the size of the United States and Mexico put together. It is a huge continent, an enormous continent, covered in ice. Almost every single inch is covered by ice—not quite every inch, but nearly. It is a mile thick across the continent, and three miles thick at the deepest point. It is huge, vast ice and there is nothing else there. It is an interesting continent, because there are no trees, towns, villages, roads or people, apart from scientists—and brave people they are. It is an entire wilderness, consisting purely of ice. Most people know that that is where polar bears come from. But do they?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mrs Heather Wheeler)]

Penguins.

[James Gray]

Almost nobody picked me up on that. If we asked people out there, they would say, “Antarctica? Oh yes—polar bears.” But that is not the case. Polar bears are in the north, penguins in the south. It is important to remember that. The north is a sea, the Arctic ocean; the south is landmass, covered by ice. It is completely different.

Most people probably know about Scott and about Roald Amundsen. Most people might know a bit about Shackleton, although that is rather specialist knowledge. However, at least until the great Sir David Attenborough highlighted these issues for us all in “Blue Planet II” and more recently in “Seven Worlds, One Planet”—both superb TV productions—most people did not know much more about Antarctica. I hope that today’s debate will help to spread the word about the great white continent and some of the challenges it faces.

I particularly wanted to hold the debate today because it is within a day of the 200th anniversary of the first occasion on which the continent was sighted. A Russian by the name of Bellingshausen claimed in retrospect—he did not claim it at the time—to have sighted the continent for the first time on 27 January 1820. In 1819, the previous year, I am glad to say that a Brit, William Smith, had sighted the islands to the north of the continent and subsequently made a landing there. He came back in 1820 with a Royal Naval officer, Edmund Bransfield, and they definitely sighted the continent on 30 January 1820, a couple of days later than Bellingshausen claimed to have done so. I think it was a great British first sighting.

Is it not astonishing that that happened after the battle of Waterloo? By that time, this country was entering into the industrial revolution, yet we had not even sighted Antarctica, far less landed on it. We followed that up: Weddell sailed 74° south a couple of years later and discovered what would become the Weddell sea, and in 1841 James Clark Ross, on HMS Erebus and Terror—ships famous because they were subsequently lost on the Franklin expedition, seeking the north-west passage—got through the ice, into the Ross sea and right up to what is now known as the Ross ice shelf. Then, of course, came the great era of Antarctic exploration, just before the first world war, with Scott, Amundsen, Shackleton and all that. We know about all that.

Rather curiously, after the first world war not much happened in Antarctica until well after the second world war. The importance of the continent for the world’s climate in particular, its potential for scientific discovery and the need to save it from either commercial exploitation or militarisation became known from about 1950 onwards. That led to the signing of a huge milestone in diplomatic activity, the Antarctic treaty, the 60th anniversary of which we celebrated during the Antarctic Parliamentarians Assembly just before Christmas.

In the 60 years since we signed the Antarctic treaty, it has ensured that there is neither commercial exploitation nor any kind of militarisation on the continent. It is kept for peace and for science, and it is entirely free of commerce. That in itself must be a significant diplomatic triumph. One can think of no other treaty in the world that has preserved an entire continent for 60 years so far and, I hope, for many years to come. I am glad that Britain took a leading part in arranging the Antarctic treaty 60 years ago.

Now, however, we must move forward from the relatively peaceful times we have had in Antarctica over the past couple of hundred years, because some astonishing and appalling things are occurring down there. Unless we do something about it now, significant changes will come in Antarctica. I remember attending the Earth Summit in Rio as long ago as 1992, when I was a special adviser to the then Secretary of State. It was a great summit, but we have not done the things we claimed we would do. We have allowed climate change to get worse and worse ever since, and Antarctica not only suffers the worst consequences of climate change, but creates and amplifies it.

It is interesting that at last year’s conference of the parties in Paris, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change targets did not include the Antarctic ice sheet at all. The Paris COP predictions of a 40 cm rise in the oceans did not take into account the Antarctic ice sheet. Including the Antarctic ice sheet would likely more than double that figure.

Amazingly, the Antarctic ice sheet contains 70% of the world’s fresh water. Think of that: 70% of all the fresh water in the world is in the Antarctic ice sheet, which is definitely showing signs of melting and collapsing into the sea at a most alarming rate. A couple of years ago, an iceberg the size of Manhattan broke off from the Thwaites glacier, leading to a serious international study led by the British and Americans. If the ice sheet were to collapse, water levels could rise by up to 12 feet. The northern hemisphere could be particularly affected by that, because of the way in which oceans flow. If that were to occur, we would not be able to sit in this Chamber—unless we had our snorkelling equipment. We would be well under water.

My friends at the British Antarctic Survey have just come back from a season on the Thwaites glacier carrying out probably the largest and most complex scientific field campaign ever undertaken, to try to discover exactly what is happening to it. They drilled several holes through the ice, to try to provide insight into what happens when the warm water that is increasingly coming south—the Southern ocean is warming up—meets the ice. They think the answer is that the warm water undermines the ice to the extent that, sooner or later, the ice shelf breaks off. That seems to be what happened with that huge iceberg just a couple of years ago. They have deployed robots under the ice, to try to see what is happening down there, and installed a whole host of instruments to measure the effects on the glacier.

The west Antarctic ice sheet is one of the most dramatic pieces of evidence in the world of climate change and of the catastrophe that awaits us if we do not do something about it. This debate is not about climate change, but when looking at the great white continent, the Antarctic, it is terribly important that we think seriously about it. I hope the Minister will do that in a significant way when she responds.

We in the UK have led science in the Antarctic since the very earliest days. There are about 50 research stations there from virtually every nation in the world, including Mongolia, if I am not wrong. When I visited the south pole about three or four years ago—I flew out; I did not ski—I was disappointed by the American permanent research station down there. It is a great, huge black thing stuck on the pole itself, ruining what Scott and Amundsen saw all those years ago.

The flags around the south pole itself were alternately American, British, Norwegian, American, British and so on. For the sake of my photographs, I went around and took all the American flags down and replaced them with Norwegian and British flags, because it is the Amundsen-Scott base. As a result they were very good photographs, but the Americans came out of their base and stuck all the American flags back up again. I meant no disrespect to my great friends in America, but none the less I think Scott and Amundsen would have been surprised by the huge presence of Americans at the base itself.

The British Antarctic Survey does great work. It is refurbishing our base in Rothera, on the peninsula, and of course recently commissioned, and has nearly completed, the RRS Sir David Attenborough, which will make a huge and significant contribution to polar research in both the south and the north.

Last year’s Antarctic circumnavigation navigation expedition—on a Russian ship, the Akademik Tryoshnikov—by Dr Paulsen, who funds us, was the first to take 80 scientists, many of them British. They circumnavigated the entire Antarctic content, taking samples all the way round. That is one of the most significant contributions to Antarctic science for many years. We do a huge amount for science.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent and informative speech. I have several declarations of interest to make, including that my mother is in Antarctica at the moment—possibly with the Minister’s relatives. We are blessed with the science that the hon. Gentleman mentions. My niece works on a research project on microbial life in glaciers and has mentioned to me work taking place in Antarctica, under the auspices of Aberystwyth University. Does he agree that we need to support and value that scientific research? That microbial life may offer the clues to address all sorts of problems, as well as having unintended consequences, which will also need researching.

[James Gray]

I am most grateful to the hon. Lady—my constituency neighbour, more or less—for her important contribution. She is absolutely right: the work we are doing now in the south is incredibly important science. However, it is becoming more and more expensive, and we need to increase the amount we spend, through BAS and in other ways, to improve our scientific research. Antarctica is the most brilliant place to research things, quite apart from the continent itself, but we need to significantly increase spending on it, which is well worth doing.

These and so many other challenges and opportunities have been managed so well under the Antarctic treaty. In 1959, 12 countries, the main claimants, came together to agree the treaty. It is a short document, with only 14 articles—often the best documents are the shortest—but has been one of the most effective and long-lasting of all diplomatic treaties. It has achieved its aim of preserving the continent for peace and science, and as a result the continent is unique in having had no military conflict in the 67 turbulent years since it was first signed, which is quite some going.

In the 1980s, the treaty was followed up by the convention on the conservation of Antarctic marine living resources—CCAMLR—which has done great work in regulating and conserving fish stocks and other mammals in the Antarctic and the Southern oceans. That was followed by the environment protection protocol in the early ’90s, which effectively established Antarctica as a natural reserve. That protocol ensures the biosecurity of the continent and regulates tourism, which we think will become a significantly increased problem over the years to come. It plateaued slightly after the banking crisis in 2008, but we now predict its exponential growth, as the hon. Lady mentioned a moment ago, over the next three to five years.

We have to think carefully about how we handle the biosecurity consequences, and the consequences for the continent, of allowing people to visit it. Most people like to go ashore at least once, to one of the places with penguins and so on, but the consequences of that could be severe. I spent some time a couple of years back in South Georgia, which had become entirely covered by rats, which came ashore from whaling ships in 19th and 20th centuries, and also, incidentally, by reindeer. Only by eradicating the rats and the reindeer, which was an enormously expensive and complicated job, has South Georgia managed to more or less return to its pristine, original condition. We would not want that to happen on the Antarctic continent, which at the moment it is more or less pristine; there are signs of some cross-contamination, but by and large the continent is the pure wilderness that it always was. We must make sure that the increase in tourism, and perhaps in fishing and other activities, does not in any shape, size or form contaminate that.

International agreements, such as that to be discussed in Glasgow later this year, could learn an awful lot from the way in which the Antarctic treaty system, CCAMLR and the protocol have worked over the years. They have been a huge success in environmental terms, and we could learn some lessons from that with regard to the future of the global climate.

Britain has truly led the world in terms of science and diplomacy, and we should be proud of that, but there is an awful lot more to be done. We have championed marine protected areas around the world. In particular, in a miracle of international diplomacy, last year we had the Ross sea, just off the continent, designated as an MPA, which was superb. The Weddell sea is the biggest sea down there and an absolutely fantastic bit of ocean, but the ice is retreating on it. We are desperately trying to get it recognised as an MPA, but we are being thwarted by the Russians and Chinese, both of whom see the potential for commercially fishing it. We must overcome that. We must preserve the rich biodiversity and mammal life in the Southern ocean and, to some lesser degree, the Antarctic ocean as well.

With climate change and the growth in fishing and tourism, the treaty system needs to redouble its efforts on biosecurity in Antarctica and avoid the worst consequences that we have seen in South Georgia. The treaty parties must remain vigilant and ensure that the co-operation of the past 60 years continues and endures into the future.

It was for that reason that, as I mentioned, we took the opportunity last December of calling together Parliaments—parliamentarians—from all the Antarctic treaty countries. Eighteen countries came, and those were the leaders; we hope that when the event occurs again in two years’ time, there will be more than that. We think that Parliaments have an extremely important role in preserving the Antarctic continent and doing all the things that we have talked about with regard to peace and diplomacy and science. Governments tend to suffer from inertia or perhaps even self-interest. That is reasonable enough: the Government’s job is to look after their country. Parliamentarians are answerable to their electorate and have a very important role to play in holding their Government to account and making them do things that the Government would not necessarily otherwise want to do. It is popular pressure, after all, that has accelerated the drive towards combating climate change. There is so much more that we as parliamentarians can do here by talking about Antarctica and, incidentally, about the Arctic and encouraging the Government to do the right thing, which they might not otherwise do.

That is why we created the assembly last year. It was enormously successful. We had briefings from international scientists, tourism experts and policy makers about the work of the treaty and the challenges ahead. That was the first day. On the second day, we produced a statement, which I think will be looked back on as an important statement in the history of Antarctica. It was outspokenly robust. This was not a committee producing—what is that saying about a camel being a horse designed by a committee? It was not one of those. It was actually an extremely robust, clearly worded and sensible statement, and I hope that it will be an important beacon in the years that lie ahead.

We agreed that it would be a biannual assembly. The Arctic parliamentarians already do this every two years, so we agreed on a biannual assembly, the second one, in two years’ time, being in the southern hemisphere and probably—we hope—in Australia. We it will be a much bigger organisation than it was this time round, although that was a good start for what we hope will become a very long-term and important organisation.

Britain has led the world in the 200 years since the first sighting of Antarctica—it was 200 years ago today or thereabouts—and in the 60 years since the signing of the treaty. We have led the world in exploration, and I pay tribute to the great British explorers, who have done fantastic work over the years. We have led the world in scientific research, particularly from, but not limited to, the British Antarctic Survey. And we led the world in diplomatic negotiations leading to the establishment of the continent as a haven for peace and nature and scientific research. It is terribly important that we now, in a similar way, lead the world in seeking a solution to climate change, without which the future for Antarctica and for all of us looks pretty bleak. We here in the UK have pledged to uphold the Antarctic treaty and to continue to invest heavily in Antarctic research. In COP26 and elsewhere, we must now pledge ourselves to strain every sinew to combat climate change.

This week is the 200th anniversary of the first sighting of the great white continent by Bellingshausen, or perhaps by Bransfield. If we do not combat climate change and its consequences, our descendants will not live to celebrate the 400th anniversary.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Gray]

I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend so soon; she is making an excellent speech. If it is any reassurance, the Chinese were at the Antarctic parliamentarians assembly before Christmas and they signed up to the statement and showed no inclination of any kind whatever to breach the Antarctic treaty now or in the future, so I think we can be assured that the Chinese are firmly on side.

[Dr Johnson]

That is fantastic news. I am pleased to know that all countries will work together to preserve that fantastic continent and I am therefore hopeful that we will be able to sign another Antarctic treaty lasting for another 75 years.

It seems ironic that it is the fossil fuels and the possibility of finding them that make Antarctica alluring to foreign powers but are also the thing that is causing its demise. I was interested to read a BBC report from Justin Rowlatt today. He had a very exciting visit, by the sound of it, to Antarctica and has talked about the challenges that he faced just in getting to the ice sheet and being able to stay there and see what was happening, because of the storms. The report describes the east Antarctic ice sheet as being on land and about a mile thick, being relatively stable and not really sinking into the sea, and being relatively unchanged, but it describes the west of Antarctica as being ice largely floating rather than on land. That is a smaller proportion of Antarctica—only 20%—but it is much more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, of global warming, and therefore to melting into the sea.

The Thwaites glacier, which my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire described, is about the size of Britain, but is melting. Unfortunately, there seems to be a bit of a vicious circle, in that the more it melts, the faster it starts to melt. That glacier alone, although only a small part of Antarctica as a whole, could, if it melted completely, cause sea levels to rise by more than half a metre. The effect of that, particularly on low-lying areas of the world and the populations that live there, would be almost immeasurable.

The Antarctic serves as a bellwether for the changing climate. Some data recently produced by Antarctic scientists suggest that there is now an onset of irreversible ice sheet instability—the cycle going so far that we will not be able to reverse it. That would lead to sea levels rising by several metres, which would have catastrophic effects.

I congratulate the Government on what they have done to protect those bits of the marine environment that they can down near the south of the world, particularly in the 4 million sq km of marine protected area, including around South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. That was described by my hon. Friend earlier, but I will stress again what he said. We need to have the Weddell sea as a marine protected area and to work with countries around the world to make that happen. I understand that there is a little bit of resistance, but the hope is that we will be able to overcome that. We have opportunities, particularly as we host the international climate change conference this year, to bring that issue right to the fore. I am interested in what the Government are doing to try to stop the potentially irreversible depletion of ice sheets before it is too late.

Finally, I want briefly to talk about science. Much of the knowledge about climate change has been gathered by brilliant British scientists. They have made a brilliant contribution to polar and climate science. In fact, in the period from 2011 to 2015, the UK produced the second greatest number of scientific papers in relation to Antarctica. It is crucial that we inspire a new generation of polar scientists. I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) say that her mother and her niece are engaged in this field, suggesting multi-generational interest in Antarctica. It is great that they are both women. As a Conservative party vice chairman, I am interested in how to encourage more girls to study science, technology, engineering and maths. I am interested in projects such as Homeward Bound, which took 100 women from 33 countries on a three-week expedition at the end of last year, visiting 10 bases and research stations over three weeks, with the aim of getting women interested in Antarctica, giving confidence to female scientists and inspiring younger girls to consider this field of science. That kind of programme will help to bridge the gender equality gap in science. Currently, 72% of those researching globally are men; we need to get women in there too.

It is vital that the UK continues to lead the other signatories to the Antarctic treaty in fulfilling its objective to preserve the continent for peace and science, and ensures that another treaty is in place when this one runs out in 2048.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mrs Heather Wheeler)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) for securing this important debate. I pay tribute to him for his work as chair of the all-party group on polar regions. It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I commend my hon. Friend’s impeccable timing. As we have heard, the debate comes slap bang between the anniversary of when the Russians claim to have discovered Antarctica and when we believe Edward Bransfield and the Royal Navy did—very diplomatic! My colleague the Minister for the Polar Regions, Lord Tariq Ahmad of Wimbledon, sits in the other place, so it is my pleasure to respond on behalf of the Government. I, too, thank my officials at the FCO for their diligent work for us all on this issue.

I very much agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire and others have said today. The United Kingdom is an Antarctic nation. We have a proud history of exploring, studying and protecting the continent. We remain committed to our territorial claim to the British Antarctic Territory and to the links between Antarctica and our South Atlantic overseas territories. We can leave historians to debate who actually spotted Antarctica first. The 200th anniversary is a perfect opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to the continent and to push for greater environmental protection, as has been mentioned so much today.

Science has been and remains a key part of the work. It was integral to the creation of the Antarctic treaty 60 years ago. It is explicitly named as the primary Antarctic activity, and its importance has continued to grow since the treaty was signed. It is good to hear about female scientists getting stuck in. We are indebted to numerous people involved in such important work for us.

The United Kingdom is at the forefront of efforts to study the continent. We are second only to the United States in terms of the volume and impact of our science, and the British Antarctic Survey is a world leader in its field. We want BAS to continue performing at this level. That is why we are investing £300 million in the new state-of-the-art polar research ship—the RRS Sir David Attenborough—and upgrading our research stations.

Scientists from British universities and other institutions use BAS vessels, aircraft and bases to understand global changes in weather, biodiversity and ocean currents. They contribute to UK Government objectives, including on climate change, energy security, global food security, innovation and economic growth. Thanks to the scientists, we now know that Antarctica drives the global ocean and atmosphere and is fundamental to understanding our planet. Antarctica is a unique place and a barometer of the global impacts of climate change. The challenges of operating there mean that international co-operation is essential.

[James Gray]

I am most grateful to the Minister for her firm commitment to continuing the work she has described. On the question of climate change, should responsibility within the Government primarily be with the Foreign Office? I think it should be because, as she says, Antarctica is the responsibility of the Foreign Office. Alternatively, is it primarily a responsibility of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—and which should it be?

[Mrs Wheeler]

There is even better news: the Prime Minister will chair the Cabinet Committee on Climate Change in the run-up to the conference of the parties in November, in Glasgow, and I do not think there can be a higher authority than that.

An example of international scientific co-operation is the Thwaites glacier research programme, a UK and US-led project studying the west Antarctic ice sheet, which is crucial to understanding the size and speed of sea level rise caused by the melting of the Antarctic. Colleagues may have seen reports about it on the BBC this morning. BAS scientists are also part of an international project to extract cores of ice up to 1.5 million years old. Those will help us to understand how carbon dioxide levels have varied in the past and, in turn, help to predict future changes. In the year when the UK is hosting the UN climate summit, COP26, in Glasgow, that sort of vital research can show the world that what happens in Antarctica matters to all of us. Changes observed by scientists in the polar regions show how crucial it is that we agree a new comprehensive deal in Glasgow to address climate change. That will be a tough test of international diplomacy, but we are ambitious and determined. Science shows us that we have no choice.

Diplomacy is also crucial to preserve Antarctica for the long term. The UK is playing its part. For example, British diplomats are working with our scientists to improve protection for the emperor penguin by having it declared a specially protected species. As the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) mentioned, my brother and sister-in-law have been there recently and are on their way back to Santiago as I speak.

We are, as several hon. Members have mentioned, committed to creating a network of marine protected areas in the Southern ocean. Our success in the designation of MPAs across our family of British overseas territories provides valuable insight. The first Antarctic MPA, close to the South Orkney islands, was a British proposal. We are also co-proponents and vocal advocates of two further large-scale MPAs, in east Antarctica and the Weddell sea. To answer my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), our Government are calling on those countries that are blocking progress on the proposed MPAs—particularly China and Russia—to engage more constructively so that together we can deliver the long-promised network of marine protection across the Southern ocean.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire warned of countries seeking to challenge or undermine the Antarctic treaty, and I share his concerns. In response, again, to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham, I can refute any suggestion that the Antarctic treaty’s environmental protocol, and its ban on commercial mining in Antarctica, expire in 2048. That is fake news. The protocol does contain a 50-year review mechanism. However, the ban on commercial mining cannot be changed without consensus on an alternative approach. The UK would not support any lessening of environmental protection in Antarctica and I do not believe that many other countries would either.

I want finally to highlight the role that parliamentarians can play in preserving Antarctica for science. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire for organising the first Antarctic Parliamentarians Assembly last month, to mark the 60th anniversary of the Antarctic treaty. It was encouraging that representatives from 18 countries took part, from across the global political spectrum. They indicated full support for the principles and objectives of the treaty and sent a clear signal to Governments and policy makers around the world to remain ambitious with regard to the protection of Antarctica. I know that they will hold Governments to account for our actions.

The Government are committed to both Antarctic science and Antarctic diplomacy. The UK is a world leader on Antarctica, thanks to the expertise of our diplomats and scientists, and the valuable support from many UK-based Antarctic organisations. Two hundred years after Edward Bransfield sighted the continent, we continue to learn more about it. The United Kingdom will continue to lead the way in efforts to study and protect it for the benefit of the whole planet, and I thank all hon. Members for their contributions today. I am much obliged to them.

[James Gray]

I am enormously encouraged and enthused by what we have heard in the Chamber today. There has been not a single dissenting voice and what has been said echoes what nations around the world equally feel—that in Antarctica we have a world gem, which needs to be preserved for all time to come. Nations from China to Russia, and from here to America, accept that that is the case, and the Antarctic treaty crystallises that view. I am hugely encouraged by the passion and enthusiasm with which the Minister has expressed her support for Antarctica, despite the fact that it is not, I think, her primary responsibility in the Foreign Office—she is better at hot places than cold places. Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition have been equally clear about the subject in all that has been said, and that is hugely important. The Scottish National party may be nearer the Arctic than the Antarctic, but none the less its support is equally welcome. I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) for what she has said.

Looking back, for 10 or 20 years there was no mention in Parliament of the Arctic or the Antarctic—leaving aside the good work on the Antarctic Act 2013 done by my friend Neil Carmichael, to whom I pay tribute, when he was the Member for Stroud, and a very good report produced by the House of Lords three or four years ago. I pay tribute to those who run the all-party parliamentary group on the polar regions and am glad that it has raised the profile of both polar regions in this place. I hope that the debate, and the APA, with some of the trips that we do, will take that work further. Both the Arctic and the Antarctic are of enormous significance in the world—much more than they were a few years ago—and it is right that we in Parliament should pay good attention to them. I am most grateful to all those who took part in the debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Antarctica science and diplomacy.

Britain in the World

James Gray Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

We will look at all the mechanisms—whether debates in this Chamber, or the operation and scrutiny of the Select Committees—and, indeed, we already welcome the input of individual MPs, caucuses and Select Committees in the normal way. We will make sure that there is proper scrutiny and that we can bring as many people together as possible in charting the course for the UK as we go forward.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend not agree with me that there have been many security and defence reviews over the years and they have all been hampered by one thing in particular, which is that they happened at precisely the same moment as a comprehensive spending review? I very much welcome his announcement of this very extensive review—it is the right time to do it—but does he not agree that it must be done independently of the Treasury? We must decide what Britain is for and what assets we need to achieve that, and then only subsequently—a year later—should the Treasury become involved.

[Dominic Raab]

I am not sure it is likely to work exactly as my hon. Friend suggests, but I do take his point. We need to be very clear in our minds about the strategy we are charting and then reconcile our means, including our financial means, to those ends, so he makes an important point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry]

I am not giving way to the hon. Gentleman again, so he can sit down.

[James Gray]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am a little unclear about the precise ruling on this matter, but a moment or two ago, the right hon. Lady, who speaks from the Front Bench for the Labour party, described the Prime Minister as a cowardly liar. Is that really within the highest standards that we use this House?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I am sure that the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) will know that I was listening very carefully and my interpretation was that, had she said that any Member of this House was a cowardly lion, or words to that effect, I would have stopped her. I have given her the benefit of the doubt, in that she was drawing an allegory from a well-known work of fiction, but it is marginal, and I think she knows that.

Amazon Deforestation

James Gray Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this extremely important debate, and I apologise for missing the first few moments of his speech. He is of course right to call attention to the vast increase in deforestation that has occurred this year, but it is also right to put that in the context—he mentioned this in passing—of the very significant reduction in deforestation. As recently as 2004, it was 10,500 square miles a year. Last year, it was 4,000 square miles. This year, as he correctly mentioned, it has gone back up again. It is right to say that the Brazilian Government have been doing their best, albeit this year there seems to have been an extremely worrying reversal.

[Daniel Zeichner]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point: there has been progress. The problem is that something has happened. That is what I will come on to.

The threat of natural loss as a consequence of these changes is very real and is under way, but the political situation that underpins this issue deserves careful and considered attention because, as the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) pointed out, something has changed. It is hard not to conclude that the environmental damage is a direct consequence of a change in policy direction and political attitudes.

That brings me to President Bolsonaro—clearly a controversial figure, although by no means the only controversial figure on the world stage at the moment—whose attitude to climate change is worth highlighting. Back in December 2018, at the 24th conference of the parties to the United Nations framework convention on climate change, the Brazilian Government promised that their carbon emissions would decrease by 37% by 2025, and by 43% by 2030, compared with 2005 levels. However, since President Bolsonaro took office in January there has been a clear change. He is widely considered to be sceptical of actions to curb climate change, and in his election campaign he said he would take Brazil out of the Paris climate change accord—a note, I fear, from the Trump playbook. He has back-peddled a little and has argued that he may not do that so long as Brazil’s control over the Amazon remains intact. I have to say that I do not think these are issues to be negotiated. We should all be working to preserve such an important part of our environment.

This summer the world watched on with huge anxiety as forest fires burned in the Amazon, with many attributing blame to forest clearance policies. The Rainforest Alliance says that satellite data show an 84% increase in fires compared with the same period in 2018. The Brazilian Government deny a causal link, but the disagreement has led to fierce international controversy. It was recently reported that at the UN

“Bolsonaro…launched a cantankerous and conspiratorial defence of his environmental record, blaming Emmanuel Macron and the ‘deceitful’ media for hyping this year’s fires in the Amazon. In a combative 30-minute address to the UN general assembly, Bolsonaro denied—contrary to the evidence—that the world’s largest rainforest was ‘being devastated or consumed by fire, as the media deceitfully says’.”

Similarly, The Guardian has reported that

“Bolsonaro is set to unveil draft legislation that would allow commercial mining in indigenous territories, something currently outlawed, despite overwhelming opposition from voters.”

Clearly there are differences of view, but I find it hard not to conclude that the Brazilian President’s pro-development agenda is having a clear and dangerous impact, and that the clearing of the rainforest will be used to allow further development of mining and agriculture.

If we conclude that we all have an interest in this issue because of the impact on the global climate, the question becomes, “What do we do?” The petition calls for trade sanctions, a measure that the Government have not adopted or advocated so far. The Government state in their response to the petition:

“The United Kingdom shares concerns about deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, and the severe impact on the climate, biodiversity and livelihoods. However, key to tackling these issues is to work with Brazil to find solutions rather than imposing sanctions.”

I am afraid that I must characterise that as a “do nothing” response, or rather a “do a tiny little bit to maybe give us some cover” response, because the Government also stated:

“In response to the recent forest fires, the Prime Minister pledged a further £10 million at the G7 summit on 25 August. This contribution is an expansion of an existing project: Partnerships for Forests.”

The rainforest is burning and the Prime Minister has offered a water pistol—maybe he could have sent an unused water cannon.

Remember the scale of the challenge that we face. The Government’s actions hardly equate to the “rapid”, “unprecedented” and “far-reaching” transitions that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change called for in its report last year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Moon. I do not think it will surprise anyone that I am not going to adopt the same conciliatory tone as the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies). The situation we face is far too serious to adopt such an approach. As we heard, the Amazon is being wilfully destroyed. It remains the biggest rainforest in the world and a vital check on climate change. The seriousness of the situation cannot be overestimated and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) said, there are people gathered outside this building who want us to take it seriously.

I make no apologies for referring to a debate I led in this Chamber in March 2009 about the impact of livestock on the environment. I read my speech back and I actually think it was rather good, but the Minister’s response was appalling; she went on at some length about how she really liked her mum’s shepherd’s pie. I would like to think we have made progress since then, but although we are talking about the issue more, we certainly have not made as much progress as I hoped we would back then.

Extensive cattle ranching is the primary culprit for deforestation in virtually every Amazon country. It accounts for 80% of current deforestation and is responsible for the release of 340 million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere every year. That is equivalent to 3.4% of current global emissions. The Brazilian Amazon is home to approximately 200 million head of cattle and is the largest exporter in the world, supplying around a quarter of the global market.

The impact of cattle ranching and deforestation was first publicised by conservationists in the early 1980s—they coined the phrase “the hamburger connection”—but it was fairly small business back then. Government incentives, and improvements in the road and electricity networks and in meat processing facilities, spurred the industry on. Then, with the devaluation of the currency and much of Brazil’s herd being declared free of foot and mouth disease, exports exploded, which led to the current deforestation situation.

Typically, deforestation starts not with animal agriculture but when roads are cut through the forest to open it up for logging and mining. Once the forest along the road has been cleared, commercial or subsistence farmers move in and start growing crops. However, forest soils are too nutrient-poor and fragile to sustain crops for long, so after two or three years, when the soil is depleted, crop yields fall and farmers let the grass grow and move on. That is when the ranchers move in. Little investment is needed to start raising cattle on cheap or abandoned land where grass is already growing, and the returns can be high, at least for a while. However, after five to 10 years, over-grazing and nutrient loss turn rainforest land that was once filled with biodiversity into an eroded wasteland, so ranchers have to look for somewhere else to move on to.

As we heard, deforestation causes irreversible environmental damage if it is not checked in time. The clearing and burning of forests releases billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Scientists estimate that deforestation causes roughly a quarter of all human-induced carbon emissions, and then there is the loss of biodiversity. I have not been to Brazil, but I have been to countries such as Belize; the extent to which the rainforest remains undiscovered and unexplored is amazing. There is so much more to be discovered. Forests are home to more than 13 million distinct species, representing more than two thirds of the world’s plants and animals. Obviously, if their habitats are destroyed, many will be at risk of extinction. When the trees are gone, the soil becomes depleted, which often leads to water pollution as the soil gets washed away. That is something for which we in this country must accept responsibility.

[James Gray]

The hon. Lady is making an extremely powerful speech, with which I entirely agree. What she says about the catastrophe in the rainforest, which I have visited many times, is absolutely true. Surely, however, the point of the debate is not so much to say how awful it all is but to ask what we can do about it. The petitioners request trade sanctions against Brazil. The question is how efficacious that would be in persuading the current Government of Brazil to go back to what the Government there were doing only a year ago.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I will get to what I think needs to be done. Sanctions could play a part, but change in consumption habits could play a much bigger part, and that is something we each have some control over.

In their recent “Risky Business” report, WWF and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds estimate that more than 40% of the UK’s overseas land footprint—nearly 6 million hectares—is in countries that are at high or very high risk of deforestation and of having weak governance and poor labour standards. The more I read about it, the more I see the links between this trade and modern slavery and human rights abuses, with people being displaced from their land, and so on; they are all part and parcel of the same thing.

WWF and the RSPB looked at seven key agricultural commodities imported into the UK: beef and leather, cocoa, palm oil, pulp and paper, rubber, soy, and timber. Of those, beef and leather account for by far the largest proportion of our land footprint overseas, despite the fact that we produce almost 80% of our own beef in the UK and import a lot from Ireland. However, the actual picture is much worse, because we must look at animal feed, too. In the EU, around 90% of soy imports are for livestock feed, so it is not just a case of beef from Argentina or Brazil being bad and British beef being fine, as I often hear people try to argue. Yes, there is a case for pasture-fed livestock—I chair the all-party parliamentary group on agroecology for sustainable food and farming, of which the Pasture-Fed Livestock Association is an active member—but that is not what we are talking about.

Every year, the UK consumes around 3.3 million tonnes of soy, more than 75% of which is related to meat consumption, either as imported animal feed or as soy embedded in imported meat products. We must also consider the feed for chickens that lay eggs, and the feed for dairy herds, as well as soya bean oil, which is the second most widely used vegetable oil after palm oil. This has happened to me many times, but I remember the former farming Minister, Jim Paice, trying to tell me that that was all down to more people eating veggie burgers. I assure people that is not the case. That figure may have gone up in recent years, but I think it is still well below 5%—but yes, it is all the vegetarians’ and vegans’ fault, as usual.

It is interesting to compare what has happened with soy bean oil and palm oil. We import nearly three times as much soy bean oil as palm oil, yet it is palm oil that has tended to receive the attention of environmentalists, probably because of the orangutans. Some 21% of global palm oil production is now certified, whereas soy certified by the Round Table on Responsible Soy or ProTerra accounts for only about 2% of global production.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Zac Goldsmith]

I commend my hon. Friend for all her work on this issue. She is absolutely right, and that is why, when the Prime Minister spoke at the UN, he emphasised the importance of investing in nature as a means of tackling climate change. She mentions forests, and they are an obvious example. About 1 billion people depend on forests for their survival, and protecting and restoring forests alleviates poverty, tackles climate change and helps to reverse the biodiversity loss that we have seen over recent years.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

First, may I welcome my hon. Friend to his well-deserved place at the Dispatch Box? The environmental world rejoices that he is there, and I know he will do an outstandingly good job. Does he agree that it is a perfectly legitimate use of aid funds to spend money on climate change reduction and climate change battling as well as on the mitigation of the worst effects of climate change? That helps in a global sense, and it also helps to mitigate the worst effects for the poorest people in the world.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. He is exactly right to say that we will have no hope at all of tackling poverty globally if we do not take a bigger interest in preventing climate change and the annihilation of the natural world that we have seen in recent decades. The people on the frontline in relation to nature destruction are the world’s poorest people. They are the people who depend most directly on the natural world, so he is absolutely right.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary met other Foreign Ministers at Gymnich earlier in the week. He has made clear the concern that we have about those fires. He has also made absolutely clear the importance that we believe trade has to building economies in South America and in the far east, which encourages a better response to such tragedies.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Deforestation in the Amazon is indeed a catastrophe of global and generational proportions. We must of course do the right things about it and I very much welcome the pressure that the Minister has described, but is he not also aware of the fact that the deforestation of the Amazon has decreased quite considerably over the last 20 years, and that while it was very, very bad, it is very much less bad than it was; and equally that the level of decrease, therefore, in the size of the forest has been reduced? Does the Minister therefore agree that this is a domestic matter for the Brazilian Government and that we must persuade them to do the right thing, rather than confronting or berating them?

[Christopher Pincher]

I certainly think it is better to talk than to engage in megaphone hectoring. Deforestation has increased over the last few years. It has in fact been increasing in Brazil since 2015—some time before the present Government took office. I think it is right that we engage with them—that we try to persuade them to use sensible methods to reduce and stop this problem. It is an international concern, and that is why we have raised it, and will continue to raise it, with the Brazilian authorities.

Blue Belt Programme: South Sandwich Islands

James Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Zac Goldsmith]

I thank my right hon. Friend very much for his intervention, and I agree with him 100%. I put on the record my thanks to him and my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), who led the campaign in Parliament and can take a lot of credit for the Government’s current position.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Zac Goldsmith]

May I ask my hon. Friend to hold off for a second? I know what he is going to ask me.

The overseas territories are enormously important breeding grounds for endangered turtles, a third of the world’s albatrosses, a quarter of the world’s penguins, and the world’s largest coral atoll. In what remains to this day, I think, the biggest conservation commitment ever made by any Government ever, our Government pledged to protect over 4 million square kilometres across those overseas territories by 2020. Altogether, that is an area bigger than India. That commitment makes us world leaders in ocean protection, and it is hard to think of a better illustration of global Britain.

[James Gray]

I remind the House that, as set out in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, I visited South Georgia at the expense of the Commissioner for South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands last year.

Does my hon. Friend welcome the Government’s announcement this morning that, partly as a result of his pressure, they are to extend the no-take boundaries around South Georgia from 12 to 31 miles; that they will extend the marine protected area around the whole of the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands maritime zone, meaning that 173,000 square kilometres will now be entirely protected from commercial fishing; and that they intend to close the South Sandwich Islands trench region—the most important bit—to all commercial fisheries? I hope he welcomes that announcement.

[Zac Goldsmith]

Of course, I hugely welcome that announcement. I will come to that in a few moments, but my speech will first canter through some of the overseas territories and some of the work that we are doing and need to do. The move that my hon. Friend referred to puts to rest a lot of the arguments against full protection, but I will come to that, and we will no doubt have an argument in due course.

I have described a great commitment of which we can be proud, but alone it is not enough. We need to make good on it, properly, and we need go further. Before I go into detail on the Blue Belt, I hope that the Minister will confirm that funding for the Blue Belt will be assured beyond 2020. It stands at £4.8 million per year and given what we get for that, it is spectacularly good value for money.

I want to look more broadly at the actual Blue Belt commitments. In some areas where we have made promises, we have delivered spectacularly. The Pitcairn islands in the Pacific ocean, for example, are surrounded by the most pristine marine environment anywhere on earth. It is just magnificent that the Government have permanently closed those waters, which cover around 840,000 square kilometres, to commercial fishing. It is one of the largest protected areas in the world.

Tristan da Cunha, a tiny island in the south Atlantic, has waters with vast populations of seals, southern right whales and blue sharks, as well as being home to great numbers of seabirds and rockhopper penguins. The Government have committed to protecting the full 750,000 sq km of Tristan’s waters by 2020. I hope that the Minister will confirm that we will make good on that commitment and that we will help the tiny local population by protecting the area from illegal fishing.

In 2016, the Government committed to a marine protected area of 450,000 sq km around St Helena in the south Atlantic ocean. It is an area bigger than Germany and has more than 40 endemic species, including whale sharks, turtles and humpback whales. The aspiration is to develop a sustainable one-by-one—one hook to catch one fish at a time—tuna fishery in its own marine protected area. At this stage, however, St Helena has yet to ban industrial long-lining from its waters. The Government clearly need to work with the local population to put that right, as a matter of urgency.

Ascension Island, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) mentioned, has 450,000 sq km of ocean and the second-largest green turtle breeding population in the Atlantic. It is a hotspot for sharks, tuna and swordfish. The Government are committed to protecting at least 50% of the area by 2019, but nothing stops them from going further and protecting the whole area. I understand that the island’s Council is itself minded to back 100% protection, but they are looking for assurances from the Government that they will not then be saddled with the costs of satellite monitoring for effective enforcement. They calculate, incidentally, that it would be cheaper to protect the whole area, rather than half, so that should not be a barrier. I hope that the Minister will address that point.

Viewers of the extraordinary “Blue Planet II” series will know that the greatest gift that the Government can give the oceans lies further south in, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) has just referenced, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. That is why the title of this debate names the area specifically. Those tiny, uninhabited islands are a near-pristine global biodiversity hotspot. A full quarter of the global population of penguins live here, alongside recovering populations of whales and seals, and unique marine habitats.

The local Government designated the whole 1 million sq km around the islands as an MPA in 2012. However, although the fisheries around South Georgia are without doubt managed to a high standard, until this morning only 2% of the total waters were fully protected. I understand from the news today that that area has been increased from 2% to 23%, which is fantastic news, but the remaining 77% is still technically open to fishing, and that could easily change. There is a huge groundswell of opinion among scientists, non-governmental organisations and colleagues in this House behind the campaign fully to protect the waters around the South Sandwich Islands in particular, which is about 500,000 sq km, roughly half of the whole MPA.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Gray]

My hon. Friend is most generous in giving way. The point he makes is that there has been no commercial fishing in this area for 25 years. However, there is no prospect that there will be in the next 25 years, so what he is proposing and campaigning for is tokenistic in the extreme. Will he not simply take this opportunity to welcome the fact that the Government have now protected the krill fisheries for an extra two months, banned HFO—heavy fuel oil—vessels from the area and taken a variety of other environmental steps to protect it in the way that he wants? Merely calling for more and more protection in a tokenistic and campaigning way achieves nothing but the alienation of local people.

[Zac Goldsmith]

To suggest that we should not protect an area because it has not yet been destroyed is madness; the same argument could equally have been used against pretty much any one of the world’s nature reserves, including the national parks that are a source of pride in this country. The fact that the area has not been exploited and that an industry has not yet been able to develop there is precisely why it needs protection. Were a fishing industry to emerge and develop in that area, the prospect of removing it would become inconceivable—vastly expensive, hugely disruptive and politically difficult —and so not happen. Because the area has not been fished and is pretty much pristine, it requires the protection for which the campaigners are rightly asking.

Politically, as I said, such a move would demonstrate the UK’s willingness to lead by example, but I would go further than that. If we are not willing to protect that pristine, unfished, global biodiversity gem, how could anyone take seriously our commitment to support the protection of 30% of the world’s oceans? One cannot be achieved without committing to the other. Despite great leadership on that issue, the Foreign Office seems to have hit the buffers somewhat. Those involved, on the inside and on the outside, are, frankly, scratching their heads. Whatever the block, I strongly urge Ministers to be decisive, to be bold and just to get on with it.

Ukraine-Russia Relations

James Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. On the economic damage, we estimate at present that Mariupol and Berdiansk have seen economic throughput reduce in their ports by some 43% and 30% respectively in the past nine months, so the actions that he referred to have had a profound effect. I am not personally aware of the legal position on redress, but I am sure that the United Kingdom Government will do anything that they can to provide support.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

HMS Echo is due to be deployed to the Black sea in the new year in support of Ukraine. She is a lightly armed oceanographic survey vessel. Would not it be a strong message to Russia if we were to bring that deployment forward, and perhaps also, without any form of escalation, consider deploying her to the Azov sea?

[Alistair Burt]

I am not aware of any plans to change any of the deployments that have been planned and considered. Of course, while we must continue to do exactly what we have said we will, no one is looking for any escalation in these circumstances.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I think that is a slightly different point from the policy we are drawing up for the wider oceans around the world and around our overseas territories. The UK has declared large-scale marine protected areas around five overseas territories, leading to about 3 million square kilometres of protected ocean. That is a massive achievement, which we wish to build on in any way we can.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, CCAMLR, meets in October and will consider three new marine protected areas around Antarctica—particularly, as my right hon. Friend mentioned, the Weddell sea. However, it appears likely that, as happened in previous years, Russia and China in particular might well block those proposals. What further action can we take between now and October to bring real pressure to bear on Russia and China to bring in these MPAs, which are so vital for the preservation of our Antarctic wildlife?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I think it is fair to say that the UK is very much a world leader on oceans policy of this sort, and I hope that any kind of environmental standards that we wish to set in our oceans are not blocked for any political purposes by countries such as Russia. We are all on the same planet, we need to preserve our oceans, and I hope that our scientific lead in this area will also give us the political authority to reach the sort of agreements that we want to.

Blue Belt Programme: Marine Protected Areas

James Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

We now come to an important debate on the Blue Belt programme. I should advise the Chamber that we expect a Division imminently, in which case I shall have to suspend the sitting for 15 minutes.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Blue Belt programme for marine protection.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. You and I share a birthday, 7 November, although we were not born in the same year. Thank you for undertaking to chair this debate.

I am told that Sir David Attenborough’s one great regret in life is that he has not done enough to protect the world’s environment. Well, he does not need me or anyone else in this House to reassure him that he has probably done more than any other human being to protect the world’s environment, and I cannot think of a better way of marking that contribution than the very welcome decision to name the Natural Environment Research Council’s new polar research ship, to be launched next year, not Boaty McBoatface, as some people had predicted, but the RRS Sir David Attenborough. That is a fitting tribute to a very great man.

The BBC’s “Blue Planet II” and Sir David’s stark warnings about the threats posed to the world’s oceans from over-fishing, plastics and, of course, climate change will stand for a very long time as a beacon of all that is wrong in our oceans, but it is also a clarion call for “action this day”, as Churchill would have put it. It is a call to all of us in this House to do what we can to lead the world in a variety of environmental initiatives, including taking steps to protect the waters around Great Britain, Northern Ireland and our 14 overseas territories.

However, before dealing with that, it is worth noting that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister recently reaffirmed our commitment to tackling climate change and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committed us to taking action on plastics in the oceans. Both those initiatives are very much to be welcomed. The Wildlife Trusts, among others, have called for the Government to develop a national marine strategy to safeguard the cleanliness and biodiversity of our own territorial waters after we leave the EU.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman is saying. I congratulate him on securing this debate and remind him that we recently had a long debate on marine conservation. I hope that he will join the all-party group that a number of us are setting up—it is a cross-party group—on marine conservation.

[James Gray]

I will be glad to do so. I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for bringing the group to my notice, although I do have one caveat, which I will come to later.

The important point about Brexit is that it must not mean a lessening of any of the environmental standards in our oceans. Her Majesty’s Government must commit to ensuring that they are all higher than would have been the case had we remained a member of the EU.

A full commitment to marine protected areas and the Government’s Blue Belt programme is of course central to all that. The Conservative party manifesto for this year’s general election committed us to working with the overseas territories to create a network of MPAs covering more than 2 million square miles of the waters for which the UK is ultimately responsible. That is a fantastic opportunity for us to do what is right in our own waters, but also to lead the world by example across the whole spectrum of ocean conservation.

I salute the great many people who have called for the Blue Belt programme and are active in seeking its implementation, especially my right hon. Friend the Minister here today, my hon. Friend the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation—together with his father and brother, if I may say so—and, in particular, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), whom I am very glad to see here today, and my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith). They have worked incredibly hard in advocating the Blue Belt programme. As a result of it, we have already seen the UK designate new MPAs around South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, St Helena and Pitcairn. We are further committed to designating MPAs around Ascension and Tristan da Cunha by 2020.

As chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for the polar regions, I take a particular interest in South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, which sit on the cusp of the Southern ocean and Antarctica. There, the UK has a real responsibility. After all, it was largely our whalers and sealers who wrought so much of the appalling environmental damage there in the 18th and 19th centuries. They left behind something of an environmental catastrophe, particularly on South Georgia. We also have a huge responsibility because South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands is an area of such outstanding scientific importance, both for the study of marine ecosystems and for monitoring the effects of climate change, sitting as it does on the cusp of two great oceans.

I particularly look forward, therefore, to further news on the exciting project to be called, I think, Discovery 100, which would result in a huge investment of private funds in the further preservation of the heritage of South Georgia, as well as its biodiversity following the enormously successful rat eradication programme over the past few years. I hope that Discovery 100 might also make provision for international scientific research facilities on the island. 

The establishment of an MPA around South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands in 2012 and its strengthening in 2013 were important steps towards correcting the damage previously done and preventing anything similar from happening in the future. The Blue Belt programme is now driving forward efforts to establish MPAs around Antarctica, although quite rightly that has to be done through the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. The CCAMLR agreement is incredibly important from a conservation standpoint and is a critical pillar of the Antarctic treaty system, so we must do nothing that risks undermining it. Because the Antarctic treaty suspends all territorial claims to Antarctica, including our own claim to the British Antarctic Territory, it is only through international consensus that MPAs can be established around Antarctica, including the British Antarctic Territory.

In 2009, the UK helped secure the consensus for the first Antarctic MPA, covering an area south of the South Orkney Islands. Last year, CCAMLR agreed an MPA for the Ross Sea region, and I am delighted that, despite a few setbacks this year, the Government remain committed to working towards securing international agreement on designating additional MPAs in East Antarctica, the Weddell sea and the Western Antarctic peninsula.

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

As a Member who represents a coastal constituency, I well understand the importance of marine conservation, and I am very happy to support the Blue Belt programme. Is my hon. Friend aware of the Sky News Ocean Rescue campaign, which is today highlighting Antarctica and the challenges that it faces as a consequence of overuse of plastics and other pollution around the world?

[James Gray]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing that to my notice. In his short time in the House so far, he has been assiduous in championing the interests of the oceans off his own constituency and elsewhere around the world. I am most grateful to him for that. If I may, I will come back to the Sky television programme in a moment.

There is more to be done. For example, there are—I think that my hon. Friend referred to this briefly—current debates about whether the MPA around South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands is sufficient and whether the protections already in place could or should be further enhanced. I think that the Sky TV programme is about that. A review of the MPA is under way at the moment, with recommendations due to be published next year.

An organisation known as the Great British Oceans coalition, which consists of six major environmental conservation organisations, has said that it wants to see protection of the area around the South Sandwich Islands in particular enhanced to the fullest degree. Doing that, it argues, would help the UK to reaffirm our ambition of becoming a global leader of efforts to protect the world’s oceans. It would also send a strong message to other CCAMLR members that the UK is committed to driving forward international efforts to establish MPAs around Antarctica in particular. Those are of course extremely laudable aims that broadly reflect the intent of the Blue Belt programme, and it is vital that we should not fail to capitalise on the momentum generated by “Blue Planet II”, so I am broadly supportive of the aims and efforts of the Great British Oceans coalition. We all want the UK to be a global leader in marine protection, but there is a debate to be had about how best to achieve that, particularly without disturbing the delicate CCAMLR discussions on MPAs around Antarctica.

Unlike with other overseas territories, for the past 35 years or so the UK has allowed South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands to be covered by CCAMLR rules on fisheries management. The reason for that is simple. South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands lie within the Southern ocean convergence and share the same wildlife as Antarctica. South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands are also, however, counterclaimed by Argentina—a matter that we are well aware of in this House. By allowing the islands to fall under CCAMLR, the UK is able to manage those waters effectively within the international consensus of CCAMLR. Working through CCAMLR therefore underpins British sovereignty of the waters, which seems to me to be extremely important. It also helps to foster greater international co-operation around Antarctica and the Southern ocean, and, as I mentioned a moment ago, that co-operation promotes conservation efforts across the entire white continent and its surrounding waters.

After all, since 2012 the South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands MPA has managed the local fishery and protected globally significant wildlife very adequately indeed. There is just one small commercial fishery licensed by the UK, which amounts to no more than two vessels fishing for one month a year and taking around 60 to 80 tonnes of fish in the waters. Those two boats also supply scientific data to CCAMLR, which is no easy task. Were it not for the fact that we allow those two vessels to fish for profit in the highly regulated South Georgia fishery, it would be too expensive for them to go there and we would therefore lose the scientific data we currently provide to CCAMLR. In other words, were this fishery to be closed, as some are calling for and the coalition seems to be calling for, the UK would no longer be able to control fishing in the area as effectively.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

It is clear that the hon. Gentleman feels passionately about this issue, but the campaign that he refers to for the South Sandwich Islands has made it clear that a scientifically credible stock assessment is not incompatible with a fully protected reserve. Does he agree, therefore, that there is an opportunity to retain a small scientifically robust stock assessment alongside the full protection that the coalition is calling for?

[James Gray]

That is a matter that needs to be discussed, and it will be interesting to hear how the Minister responds to that point later in the debate. Of course it would be possible for the two fishery vessels to continue to do their scientific research there at the same time as there being full protection, but we have already got full protection of those waters under the long-standing MPA that is already there. I am not certain that what is proposed by the coalition would necessarily add anything to that. However, it might well undermine our ability to provide that scientific data and it might invite other CCAMLR members to say that it is not being done properly and therefore they—the other CCAMLR members—have some kind of right to do that scientific fishing research in the area. I therefore think there are downsides, as well as upsides, to what the coalition proposes. It is a delicate political decision, which the Minister might refer to in his response.

There could, therefore, be a perversity in what the coalition demand—namely, that more fish will be caught in the area as a result, rather than less. That is something that we have to be extremely careful about. There may be innovative solutions to the problem, particularly surrounding enforcement of the MPA, perhaps using the latest satellite technology, and further discussion may well be warranted about how the UK can best protect the waters around South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and revitalise international efforts to increase protection around the world.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important and timely debate. As I understand, one of the Foreign Office’s concerns about the new larger reserve around the South Sandwich Islands is that it might result in a displaced krill fishery, but no krill have actually been caught around the South Sandwich Islands commercially for 25 years. I am concerned that those concerns have not been properly thought through, and that the opportunity to create a 500,000 sq km exclusion zone in this pristine water, with the conditions that my hon. Friend refers to, will be missed.

[James Gray]

My right hon. Friend, who knows a great deal about these matters, makes two points. One is that there will be some interference with the krill fishing, which has not actually occurred for many years. That is not one of our concerns: there is no such fishing, therefore it is not something we would necessarily be concerned about. His second point is that we might somehow be sacrificing the opportunity for this fantastic protected area. That protected area already exists under the MPA. We already have that protection for the waters around the South Sandwich Islands, and therefore I am not certain that what is being proposed would necessarily add very much to it.

My right hon. Friend mentioned the Foreign Office. I pay particular tribute to the department in the Foreign Office that runs these matters, in particular the outstandingly good Jane Rumble, who has done this work for many years and knows more about Antarctica than most of us know about anything else. I certainly do not want to be thought to be blocking efforts to enhance marine protection around South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Antarctica or anywhere else in the world, but we do need to be aware of the law of unintended consequences. I think that what my right hon. Friend proposes may suffer from exactly that law—in other words, protection for the South Sandwich Islands may be the worse if what he proposes is allowed to occur.

The public reaction to “Blue Planet II” offers us one of those rare opportunities to make a real difference in the world, and that must now be seized. We must remind audiences at home and in the world of our utmost commitment to the Blue Belt programme. The Government must listen carefully to the latest proposals for the South Sandwich Islands, but they must never forget that those also form part of a bigger picture of environmental protection and marine conservation in Antarctica and the Southern ocean. The Blue Belt programme of marine protected areas around the 14 British overseas territories is world-leading. I hope that in his response the Minister will reassert our commitment to it and our determination to lead the world in the ocean protection so passionately demanded, most notably by Sir David Attenborough, and now by a fast-growing percentage of the British electorate as well.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

If we have the consent of the Member in charge, we are in receipt of an extraordinarily generous offer from Her Majesty’s Government. The Minister has agreed to confine his remarks to eight minutes, which means that we have five minutes of time if anyone else wants to make a contribution. If no one wishes to take your offer, Minister, the floor is yours.