Sustainable Development Goals

Joan Walley Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I will be brief. A report by the Environmental Audit Committee is tagged to this debate, and we hope it will inform the discussion and that Members will look at our detailed conclusions.

I welcome today’s debate and agree that we should enshrine in legislation the goal of 0.7%, irrespective of whether or not it has been agreed. The point I want to emphasise is that previously in the millennium development goals, insufficient attention was paid to environmental protection and sustainable development. In this year of opportunity, we must make sure that we in the UK and the European Union show the necessary leadership to get to where we need to be at the Paris negotiations with the climate change targets, and at the New York summit with the sustainable development goals.

Looking back at previous work on sustainability and initiatives such as local agenda 21, I feel that we do not yet have the mechanism across civil society, Parliament, Government and business to make sure that the objectives we all seek are not seen as merely academic, but are translated into policy in both developed and developing countries. The sustainable development goals are important for the UK, so that we do as we say and say as we do, giving us the integrity to lead by example.

Just as the International Development Committee and the European Scrutiny Committee are scrutinising the sustainable development goals, so did the Environmental Audit Committee. I noted with interest the letter that came through on 8 January in response to the European Scrutiny Committee report, which said that it is important to achieve

“a final framework of goals and targets that is simple, inspiring and workable while retaining the breadth and balance of the 17 goals”.

We must not water down those 17 goals. There are risks in watering them down if that means less emphasis on sustainable development. I hope the Minister will address that when he responds.

I note that in the same response the Government speak about the eradication of extreme poverty, but we must give the same amount of policy attention to the need to reduce inequalities. We must deal with sustainable development as well as inequalities internationally on the world stage and in our constituencies. I heard what my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell) said about children and the best start ever. As much as we do internationally, we must do at home. Tomorrow I am hosting a working group with the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists so that children in Stoke-on-Trent have the best possible start.

All these issues are important. I hope that in his reply the Minister will tell us a little about the climate change aspects and how we will ensure that that is embedded in all the sustainable development goals. I hope he can tell us how the green thread of environmental sustainability will similarly be embedded in those goals. I hope he will tell us how we will deal with the issues nationally. We have heard a lot about international development, but this is just as much a matter for the Treasury, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Cabinet Office and the Office for National Statistics, because we will need to monitor and audit the implementation of the sustainable development goals that we want to see agreed in New York.

Finally, this is about future generations—our children and grandchildren. We must do everything possible to communicate this policy through education for sustainable development, so that graduates are equipped by their training to apply the principles of sustainable development to the outcomes that we want from the sustainable development goals to be agreed in New York this year.