International Development White Paper

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

The Minister is absolutely right to say that international development and climate change are inseparable, and I commend him for his work in this area. However, many of my constituents have written to me to express frustration about how little the Government are doing at home to attain the sustainable developing goals, and they rightly ask how we can ask other countries to do what we are not doing ourselves. So what does the Minister think I should say to my constituents who are so concerned about the absence of any measures in the King’s Speech against fossil fuels and about tackling poverty at home?

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. and learned Member will have seen the huge commitment that Britain has made through the Green Climate Fund internationally. I think that we can be very proud of the leadership that we are giving through the green climate fund, of which we are now the co-chair. On UK achievement of the SDGs, she may recall that in 2019 there was an audit of how Britain was doing. Britain came out very well from that audit, and we will of course have a further audit in due course.