Deforestation in the Amazon
Kerry McCarthy Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Hollobone, for calling me to speak, and happy new year to you; it is a pleasure to see you in the Chair.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) on his persistence on this issue and on securing this debate. As he said, deforestation in the Amazon is a devastating emergency, not just in its impact on the climate but in terms of biodiversity. The Amazon is known as the lungs of the Earth because of its immense capacity for carbon storage, but it is now being reported that the Amazon may be a net emitter of carbon because of relentless deforestation. It is absolutely tragic that we have reached that stage. That deforestation is not just tacitly supported by the Bolsonaro regime, but driven by it.
With the conference of the parties to the convention on biological diversity set to meet this year in China, it is important to flag up the biodiversity issue. The Amazon is said to be home to 10% of the known species on Earth. The rainforest may also be home to tiny little frogs or other creatures that have not been discovered yet, but none the less add to the richness of life on Earth.
As has been said, the situation is getting worse. In 2021, deforestation in the Amazon rose by 22% to the highest level since 2006. The World Wide Fund for Nature estimates that if current deforestation and degradation rates continue, about 40% of the Amazon rainforest will be lost by 2050. That process is primarily being driven by the clearing of land to grow commodities such as beef, soya for cattle food and palm oil, as well as by illegal logging.
It is a difficult call for developing countries when they have natural resources that could be exploited. I am very much in the “preserve our natural resources” camp rather than the “plunder them” camp. However, as we have seen in the past, for example with Ecuador and its Yasuní national park—it rivals the Galápagos for biodiversity, but there are mineral reserves in the park that could be exploited—if an impoverished country has the key to riches in its own backyard, it is difficult for a Government who seek to relieve poverty in that country.
We see the same thing with small island developing states or poorer coastal states. Do they exploit their marine environment, and allow overfishing and the plundering of what resources they have, or do they seek to protect it for future generations? I think that Mozambique is the best example of this situation at the moment. The country’s people could be totally lifted out of poverty because of the country’s fossil fuel reserves, but at the same time that would be a massive risk to biodiversity and in terms of the climate impact.
The UK Government could do more. The UK is the centre of green finance, but I think we could also do more to promote some of the mechanisms that are in place, for example with blue bonds, which carbon emitters can use for biodiversity offsetting to pay such countries, so that they do not have to exploit their natural reserves. I do not think that Brazil is quite in that camp, in that it is a wealthier country than some of those. Also, what is being done in Brazil is not being driven by commercial common sense. It is a rush for riches in the short term and, as the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) said, it is entirely counterproductive, because in the end they will just raze it to the ground and destroy any richness in the soil, and they will be in a position where they have destroyed all their natural assets.
We need to act. As the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell has said, because of public pressure and the growing horror at what Bolsonaro is doing, we are starting to see supermarkets, for example, saying that they will not sell meat that is linked to deforestation in the Amazon. I read an article recently about cheese that is indirectly linked to deforestation; it can be traced back through the supply chain to deforestation. It is good that supermarkets and consumers are acting.
As we are in Veganuary, people would expect me to talk about the way that consumers are choosing to reduce their meat consumption. Not everybody has to go vegan, obviously, but it would support sustainable farming in this country if people who were seeking to reduce their meat consumption sought to buy locally produced meat from sustainably reared animals, such as grass-fed animals—if they cannot go the whole hog by going vegan. It is not just about whether the beef comes from countries that are complicit in deforestation; it is about where the cattle feed and feed for other animals comes from.
I have mentioned what supermarkets, other corporates and consumers are doing. The Government also need to act, and the Environment Act 2021 was a wasted opportunity to act on deforestation. Its provisions cover only illegal deforestation, which ignores the fact that much overseas deforestation is in line with local laws. I know that the Act was not the property of the Minister’s Department, but I plead with her for the Government to think about strengthening those provisions on deforestation when the secondary legislation comes forward. The evidence is there that that must be done if the measures are to be at all effective.
It is not clear when the Government’s proposals will come into force. The consultation that was recently launched suggests that it could take up to four or five years to implement them if all key commodities are covered at once. That is hardly an urgent legislative solution. At COP26, Brazil itself set a slightly baffling target to end illegal deforestation by 2028—I say “slightly baffling” because we do not really know what that means. There is every chance that Brazil could just move the goalposts and make legal what is now illegal—what does it mean by legal deforestation? If the UK’s own provisions do not come into effect until 2026-27, that will not really help the situation in the Amazon in the meantime.
As we have heard, this year the Brazilian Senate will vote on legislation that would make it far easier to legally seize and deforest land in the Amazon, which is something that WWF has been warning about for months. The due diligence provisions in the Environment Act are an improvement, but they fall far short of what is needed. It is also worth noting that they are considerably less ambitious than what the European Union is doing. The EU’s proposals will cover supply chains linked to illegal and legal deforestation, so I do not see any reason why the UK cannot do the same.
The UK provisions fall far short of addressing links between UK financial institutions and deforestation. The Government refused, on Report, to support amendments to the Environment Bill that would have prevented UK financial institutions from funding firms linked to deforestation. I moved one of those amendments in the Environment Bill Committee. I simply do not see the justification for the Government’s refusal. Global Witness has estimated that HSBC made $5.1 million from supporting beef trading and producing activities at just three Brazilian agribusinesses in the last five years.
Although Government Members have expressed concern about Amazon deforestation, they have been silent about the recent Australian trade deal, despite Australia’s abysmal record on deforestation. It is actually the only developed nation on WWF’s list of global deforestation hotspots. We know that Australian beef farming has been directly linked to 13,500 hectares of deforestation since 2018, yet the UK has now signed a trade agreement to promote imports of Australian beef. Again, this is at the expense of UK farmers. I can see the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton nodding at that. This is something that we continually press. The whole point of Brexit and negotiating our own trade deals was meant to be to protect our own. Obviously, I was on the remain side; I did not really subscribe to that viewpoint. However, now that Brexit is a given, surely we should be protecting British farmers and not importing products when, in the process, we are complicit in supporting deforestation in other countries. We need consistency in our international approach to deforestation. We cannot sell out our principles in our desperation to sign trade deals.
It is not just the rainforest that is under threat in the Amazon; other natural ecosystems are rapidly being lost. Mangrove forests are being destroyed at a rate of 1.2% a year to make way for shrimp farms and tourist hotspots. Mangrove forests can store up to four times more carbon than rainforests and play an important part in climate adaptation, protecting coastlines and so on. They must be part of any effective conservation strategy. I suspect the Minister has not considered this, but will she speak to her colleagues about whether we can expand the list of forest risk commodities to cover shrimp, to avoid further mangrove destruction?
Finally, we have been here before. The New York declaration on forests—a similar agreement—was signed in 2014, but has done little to halt global deforestation. Given that we have the presidency of COP for the next year, now is the time to ensure that we bring in an agreement that achieves something.
Vicky Ford
The importance of private sector investment and the transparency of the supply chains, which I will come to, are key to unlocking those trillions in investment that will come through the supply chain and investment. That $8.7 trillion announced at COP was deeply impressive, but others should step up to the mark, because their own customers will expect them to do so.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell also mentioned the importance of trade. I reassure him that any future bilateral trade agreements with Mercosur member countries, including Brazil, will be in line with international obligations, including our commitment to a high level of protection for the environment.
At COP26, 12 of the world’s largest companies, which manage half of all global trade in commodities linked to deforestation, announced that they would lay out a road map for action by COP27, which is due to take place in Egypt. Eight financial institutions and agribusiness companies also announced commitments worth $3 billion to support soy and cattle production in the Amazon without the need for deforestation or land conversion.
The UK is also working on other projects with global partners to help protect the Amazon. Last February, for example, together with Indonesia, we established the forest, agriculture and commodity trade dialogue, known as FACT, which brings together countries that are major producers and consumers of agricultural commodities, including in the Amazon region, to protect forests while promoting sustainable development and trade. At COP26, 28 participants, including us, Brazil, Peru and Colombia, launched the FACT road map.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton and the hon. Member for Bristol East also mentioned the importance of sustainable agriculture. Since 2012, the UK has invested more than £60 million to promote sustainable agriculture in Brazil through the low-carbon agriculture programme known as Rural Sustentável, which promotes agricultural technologies such as integrated crop-livestock-forestry systems. Phase 1, which ended in 2019, reached more than 18,500 beneficiaries in the Amazon and Atlantic forest biomes, and delivered a sevenfold increase in livestock productivity, bringing more than 46,000 hectares of land under sustainable management and reducing carbon emissions by 52% compared with the baseline scenario. By the end of phase 2 in 2024, we expect to have prevented another 132,000 hectares of deforestation across the Cerrado, Caatinga and Amazon biomes.
Kerry McCarthy
Will the Minister explain the logic of putting British money into such projects but allowing Bolsonaro other things? That is a pittance compared to what is happening on the negative side. Is it not just throwing away our money, when we could achieve far more if we were able to stop the deforestation that is happening elsewhere in the country?
Vicky Ford
I will come on to comments about Brazil, but let me say that, absolutely, from the perspective of the Brazilian people and the future of Brazil, being able to tap into those trillions in private sector investment and global supply chains that want to follow sustainable investment is key to their prosperity. If Brazil does not deliver on the promises that it made at COP, it will miss out on the ability to tap into that consumer demand and private sector investment that want to help tackle deforestation and protect the environment. It is therefore in the economic interests of the people of Brazil and of their Government that they deliver on those promises made at COP.
In the run-up to COP26, however, the Amazon countries demonstrated vital leadership in the key commitments that they made. Colombia, for example, enshrined in its climate action law a commitment to net zero deforestation and to protecting 30% of its land and ocean resources by 2030. Peru raised its emissions reduction target from 30% to 40% by 2030, with particular commitments to halting and reversing deforestation, as well as protecting oceans. Brazil increased its national emissions reduction target from 43% to 50% by 2030. That includes specific targets to stop all illegal deforestation in the Amazon by 2028, and to reforest 18 million hectares by 2030.
We know that it will be hard work for President Bolsonaro to turn those commitments into reality. I understand from press announcements that he has recently been taken into hospital, and I am sure that everybody in this place wishes him a speedy recovery. As I have just said, it is absolutely vital, both for the prosperity of the Brazilian people and for the protection of the environment, that those promises are turned into reality. If any future Brazilian Government were to choose to disregard the contribution of the private sector, that would weaken confidence and hit the pockets of the people of Brazil.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell also noted that the recent deforestation numbers are deeply concerning. Deforestation in the Amazon basin has increased by 20% in the last year. We will continue to work with and support the Brazilian Government, businesses and civil society organisations.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton, the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) and others mentioned indigenous people. Without the active participation of those who call the Amazon home, we will not be able to tackle deforestation. Around 6,000 indigenous territories and protected areas cover around half of the Amazon basin. That is why the UK brought together Government and philanthropic donors at COP26 to pledge at least £1.7 billion over the next four years.
The UK is also taking robust action as a consumer country. Through the Environment Act 2021, our world-leading due diligence legislation will tackle illegal deforestation in UK supply chains, looking in particular at commodities that we think play the largest roles in deforestation, including cattle, cocoa, coffee, maize, rubber, palm oil and soy. The hon. Member for Bristol East mentioned shrimp farming, and I thank her for doing so. I encourage those with evidence to submit it through DEFRA’s consultation, which is open until 11 March.
My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) mentioned the need for clearer labelling. What lies behind any deforestation-free labelling is the credibility of supply chains, so we are already working with Brazilian businesses and the Brazilian Government to firm up traceability and transparency of deforestation to help support that work on deforestation-free supply chains.
To conclude, there was genuine progress at COP, but never before have nature and forests been so central to the climate agenda, and never before have so many countries come together to help protect the Amazon. Countries in the region are showing real leadership. The task ahead remains difficult, but we are committed to working with Governments and other key players in the region to help them turn commitments into action.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kerry McCarthy Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
James Cleverly
As my ministerial colleagues have just said, the hon. Gentleman answers his question in his question. I pay tribute to the generosity of spirit of the people of the UK—all parts of the UK—who have contributed to humanitarian relief causes. I also pay tribute, of course, to the excellent work of the FCDO members of staff who are based in East Kilbride; they do fantastic work .
Kerry McCarthy
May I ask the Minister specifically what support is being made available to the small island states? They have climate vulnerability—they are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events—and they have been devastated financially by the pandemic, but the metrics that are used to calculate whether they count as least-developed countries often do not take into account those particular vulnerabilities. What is he doing to ensure that aid will get to them, and that debt relief is also considered?
James Cleverly
The hon. Member makes an important point, and we take our responsibility to small island nations seriously. That issue does not necessarily fall within the humanitarian spend, which is designed for more acute need, but we will of course, through things like COP26, take into consideration the factors that are difficult for small nations to deal with, whether they be island nations or otherwise, and that will always remain a serious piece of work in the FCDO.
Official Development Assistance and the British Council
Kerry McCarthy Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]
As this is the second time I have spoken on this topic recently, I do not want to repeat everything I said first time around, other than that I still believe that it is morally reprehensible that the Government have reneged on their commitment to spend 0.7% on aid and are prepared to override by backdoor means the will of the House, which voted in 2015 for that commitment to be enshrined in law.
The global pandemic has been used as an excuse for these cuts, but we are the only G7 country that has resorted to such measures. We know that there is an underlying agenda and it is not just because of the pandemic. It has been evident for some years that many on the Government Benches have been trying to undermine the case for aid spending for a long time, either because they do not believe that helping those in extreme poverty around the world should be a priority or because they believe that voters do not believe that. Until now, that agenda has been a matter of some subterfuge, but with the spending review of 2020 it burst out into the open. Of course, not all Government Members think in the way I have described, and I am pleased that by virtue of this estimates debate we have had the second opportunity this month for them—including the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May)—to make that very clear.
When we talk about reducing 0.7% to 0.5%, it may sound like small numbers, but the reality is that £5 billion has been cut from our aid spending since 2019. The Government have tried to mask the impact of the cuts by combining previous DFID budget subheadings into a single line in the estimates, strategic priorities and other programme spending, but they cannot hide what the headline numbers say: both capital and resource spending under that subheading have been drastically slashed. Although we have not had transparency from the Government, we have heard today and in the debate earlier this month about the impact the cuts will have on our overseas aid programmes in respect of health, education, livelihoods, gender equality, water sanitation and much more. We should be talking about not the impact on programmes but the impact on people. There are real people out there who will not get the healthcare, education or family planning that they need, who will go to bed hungry each day, and who will die, because of the Government’s decision.
Saving people’s lives and lifting them out of extreme poverty, particularly in the wake of a pandemic that has had a huge impact in less-developed countries, absolutely must be a priority, but submissions to the International Development Committee’s inquiry show that aid cuts have also harmed numerous environmental charities. Climate Action Network said that there was a lot of uncertainty, with the organisation not knowing where the cuts to climate and environmental programmes were going to fall. Yet it looks as if CDC Group, with its £700 million fossil fuel portfolio—which Tearfund highlighted in its submission to the Committee—will be unaffected. That shows completely the wrong priorities from the Government in the run-up to COP26.
Another charity, Temwa, had a project ready to go in Malawi to fund more sustainable farming practices, only for the Government to axe a £250,000 grant at the very last minute. I have been to Malawi and seen the long-entrenched poverty there. Of all the countries I have visited, it was the one that it seemed most difficult to help. It is not a country that is rich in natural resources and it does not have many routes out of poverty. I have been to Kenya and Rwanda with the all-party group on agriculture and food for development and seen at first hand just how much difference agricultural programmes can make with even small-scale funding, so £250,000 in Malawi could be absolutely transformative.
MPs have been contacted by the Galapagos Conservation Trust, which says that grants to the trust to conduct research on the prevention and removal of plastic waste were cut by 64% this year, and that funding for future years is not guaranteed. Fifty jobs are now at stake. Each year, 1 million tonnes of plastic waste leak into the ocean from the Pacific coastline of central and south America, and without action that amount will double by 2025, threatening an area where more than 20% of unique marine species live.
I refuse to believe that the people in this country do not want the UK Government to take action to stop plastic pollution on the horrendous scale I just described, or to help Malawi to improve its farming sector. I refuse to believe that people are happy to support cuts that will deny people in developing countries vaccines, maternal healthcare, family planning services and education for all. I just do not believe that this country is like that. I hope the Government will realise that, too, and restore spending to where it should be.
Deforestation in the Amazon
Kerry McCarthy Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr McCabe. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) on securing this debate. I hope he is not too offended if I say that I find myself agreeing with him an awful lot more these days, now that he is on the Back Benches, than I did when he was in Government.
Yesterday was World Rainforest Day, and it would be wonderful if we were here to celebrate all the wonders of the rainforest—the huge range of biodiversity and the fact that it is a habitat that is home to many rare and exotic species, as the right hon. Gentleman said. Instead, this is a very depressing day because, as has been said, the rainforests are under threat and are disappearing at a very worrying rate. Deforestation continues to devastate many havens of biodiversity around the world. It is driven by a variety of economic drivers, including infrastructure construction, logging, extractive industries and land conversion for livestock and feed crops such as soy.
The Amazon is a huge global resource in terms of its environmental contribution and is home to around 10% of known species. It stores around 76 billion tonnes of carbon. Clearly, we have a responsibility to do all that we can to protect it, but there was a devastating 13% increase in Amazonian deforestation in 2020, with over 11,000 sq kms of deforestation. Unfortunately, as has been said, the UK is driving this deforestation with our domestic consumption.
As was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), in 2017 only 27% of soy consumed in the UK was certified as deforestation free, meaning that the rest was not. Supermarkets, such as Tesco, have well-documented links to meat firms tied to deforestation. I know some supermarkets have spoken about trying to stamp out those connections in their supply chains, and I welcome that move.
It is very rare that I take issue with anything my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North says, but I have to correct him about what he said earlier. The main driver by far in the expansion of soy production, which has almost doubled in recent years, is increased meat consumption. The main use of soy is livestock feed. Soybean oil is also used in cooking, cosmetics and soap and soy is used in industrial processes.
According to WWF, 80% of the world soybean crop is fed to livestock and according to Oilseed & Grain News, which I am sure we all read avidly every night, it is 85%, but that is where the bulk of it goes. I have had these run-ins with a former agriculture Minister in previous Parliaments. He is not in Parliament any more, but on quite a few occasions he stood up and said, “It’s all the vegans and their veggie burgers that’s causing this problem.” It really is not, although with the move to plant-based diets, the best thing people can eat is plants and not processed food anyway.
Many of us have been raising this subject for some time. A year ago I asked a question of the International Trade Secretary:
“Between 2013 and 2019, British financial institutions provided over $2 billion in financial backing to Brazilian beef companies linked to Amazon deforestation. How can we ensure that there is greater transparency in our supply chains so that we are not unwittingly, through exports from Brazil, contributing to such environmental degradation?”—[Official Report, 18 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 939.]
I got a vague answer that they were working on “supply chain” issues.
In January this year, I asked about this issue again at International Trade questions. I mentioned my recent correspondence with the Brazilian ambassador that started after I had mentioned the problems with biofuel when I was leading for Labour on a statutory instrument about the renewable transport fuels obligation, which I am sure the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell knows about. The Brazilians took issue with something I said, and we entered into a chain of correspondence, which was basically the Brazilians saying that deforestation was not a problem.
I mentioned this correspondence at International Trade questions and raised with the Trade Minister recent, very worrying reports in the press about Brazilian beef farms, where working conditions were said to be akin to modern slavery. I asked if the Government would make any future bilateral trade deal conditional on Brazil taking action to protect workers and prevent deforestation. I note that the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell said that there should be no trade deal agreed with Brazil until these issues are resolved.
In reply to my question, the Minister said that
“the United Kingdom has already committed £259 million to Brazil through its international climate finance programme to tackle deforestation.”—[Official Report, 14 January 2021; Vol. 687, c. 471.]
He mentioned the early movers programme, which rewards pioneers in forest conservation, and a programme led by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that has prevented the clearance of around 430,000 acres in Brazil. DEFRA stopping the clearance of 430,000 acres sounds really good, but under the Bolsonaro Administration deforestation is at a 12-year high.
As The Guardian has reported, at least 11,000 sq kms were razed between August 2019 and July 2020. That is roughly 2,740,000 acres in the space of less than a year. For all our efforts, we are just giving with one hand while Bolsonaro is destroying all that work with the other.
The Government had an opportunity to address this issue in the Environment Bill. I lose track with the Environment Bill because it took so long to go through Parliament. At one point, I tabled some amendments but they are lost in the mists of time. I was pleased that the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) tabled his amendments at the final stage. I was pleased that the Government went halfway by including measures in the Bill to impose a due diligence obligation on the supply chains of UK firms, forcing them to tackle illegal deforestation. As has been said, and as I have tried to raise in Parliament with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the issue should not just be about illegal deforestation, because we know that so many of the activities that contribute to deforestation are legal, and Bolsonaro has been relaxing legal protections. We also know that there is very little enforcement and that companies can act with impunity. The Environment Secretary replied by saying that many countries have laws on deforestation in place, and that there was evidence that the failure to enforce was the problem, but I do not accept that.
We have heard what is happening in Brazil. As has been said, it is not just that some states are pushing ahead with measures to weaken legal protections. There are also serious concerns that they lack the mechanisms. Even if the political will was there, which I do not think there is, they do not have the mechanisms to identify what is legally and illegally produced. Clearly, a distinction between legal and illegal deforestation is not good enough.
As has been said by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton, UK financial support for firms linked to deforestation goes far deeper than many of us would expect. Analysis from Feedback shows that even the parliamentary pension fund has investments in big meat firms such as JBS, which have been repeatedly linked to deforestation. I hope that that is something we can take up after this debate, because we should set an example in this place by severing all our financial links to forest risk commodities.
I agree with the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell that what is happening in Brazil is tragic and cannot be accepted. I agree with his argument that it has been officially sanctioned by Bolsonaro and that our Government need to act. I thank organisations such as WWF, CAFOD and Global Witness for their tireless efforts to raise awareness of the issue and to try to ensure that the Environment Bill includes measures to address it. I very much hope that now the Bill is in the other place we can take stronger action.
I hope the Minister can shed some light on how the Government plan to rectify the glaring holes in their proposals on deforestation. I accept that she is a Foreign Office Minister, but there is a link with DEFRA and the Department for International Trade, and I hope that ahead of COP and the convention on biological diversity she talks to all her colleagues and tries to secure firm action on this.
Myanmar
Kerry McCarthy Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Nigel Adams
I thank my right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for his question. We are absolutely working through the G7 and engaging the UN Human Rights Council. As I said, we are urgently convening the UN Security Council. We have, of course, engaged with our American friends at both official level and at Foreign Secretary level. Over the next day, we will be making sure that Myanmar is high up the agenda. We are using such opportunities to drive forward the international response and, as I said, we will not stand a subversion of democracy.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]
I have been privileged to visit Myanmar with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and as an observer at the NLD’s first party conference, which was a time of great optimism that was sadly not entirely fulfilled. It is now clear that we could have handled things differently in that interim period by applying more pressure for constitutional reform and reducing the power of the military. Will the Minister say a bit more about what we hope to achieve by sanctions now, other than the restoration of democracy and Aung San Suu Kyi’s release from detention? What are our slightly longer-term goals in terms of trying to reduce the power of the military and putting Myanmar on a more democratic footing?
Nigel Adams
I think the reasons behind the Magnitsky-style sanctions announced a few months ago were pretty clear. We are absolutely clear that there were human rights violations in Myanmar and, I repeat, we sanctioned all six of the individuals named by the UN fact-finding mission report. We will obviously work closely with our international partners to consider next steps in this regard, but the UK Government’s priorities at this immediate time are to ensure that the military leaders revoke the state of emergency, release those held, including Aung San Suu Kyi, and reconvene the elected National Assembly.
Uyghur Slave Labour: Xinjiang
Kerry McCarthy Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Nigel Adams
Absolutely. Again, my hon. Friend is right to raise this matter. We did so yesterday directly with the Chinese embassy. The Chinese ambassador is regularly summoned to the FCDO—one would think that he would have his own car parking space by now, given the number of times that he has visited. The Foreign Secretary has raised our serious concerns about the situation in Xinjiang directly with his counterpart, Foreign Minister and State Councillor Wang Yi, on a number of occasions, most recently in July.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
It has been nearly two years since the Environmental Audit Committee published its report into fast fashion. During that inquiry, we heard disturbing evidence about practices in the cotton trade in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and about bondage child labour in the cotton mills of Tamil Nadu, and there was also reference to prison camps in China as well. The Government rejected nearly all of our recommendations, including a requirement for due diligence checks on the supply chain. Does the Minister regard that as a missed opportunity, and what progress has been made in the past two years since that warning sign was raised by the Environmental Audit Committee?
Nigel Adams
The hon. Lady is right to raise this. As I have mentioned on a number of occasions, we will be strengthening the Modern Slavery Act. That will be done at the earliest opportunity when parliamentary time allows. Since the work that she refers to, we have also been carrying out extensive work across Government on this particular issue and, as I have said to other hon. and right hon. Members, I ask her to have just a little bit of patience into the new year and she will be able to see the further work that the Government come forward with.
China: Labour Programme in Tibet
Kerry McCarthy Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone. I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for bringing the report to the House’s attention. A constituent of mine will be particularly grateful that he mentioned the plight of the Falun Gong and concerns about forced organ harvesting, as she has been waging a long campaign to bring that to public attention.
I also congratulate the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on all the work that he has done as co-chair of the all-party group for Tibet and his latest legislative move. A couple of years ago, as a vice-chair of the all-party group for Tibet, I had the pleasure of travelling to Dharamsala with him and the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law), where we met the Tibetan Parliament in exile. Everything he said about the peace-loving, respectful nature of the people we met is absolutely true. We have welcomed Tibetan exiles to Parliament on a number of occasions, from the hugely impressive Lobsang Sangay, the Sikyong—the political leader—of the Government in exile to Buddhist monks. I echo what he said about the humanity of the people and their desire for a peaceful solution to the situation in Tibet, as well as the grave injustice they have suffered over the years.
In Bristol, we have an active local group of people from the Tibetan diaspora, some of whom recently embarked on a walk from Bristol to London to raise awareness of their cause. I was there to see them off at the start of their walk by the plinth where the statue of Edward Colston was recently pulled down by Black Lives Matter campaigners. Obviously that statue marked another great injustice, so it was by fitting that they set off from that site. I know that those local campaigners are grateful that this matter is being discussed in the House today.
The report is worrying, and especially so when put in the context of China’s wider human rights abuses. The coercive training regimes in Tibet are not on the industrial scale of those in in Xinjiang, and is not yet any evidence of extra-judicial internment, but it does bear worrying hallmarks of the treatment of the Uyghur Muslims. The training of surplus labourers to “remove backwards thinking” and to teach Chinese language, work and ethics is the latest chapter in a long-running campaign to dilute Tibetan identity and assimilate Tibet in the Chinese provinces. Some 500,000 Tibetans have been recruited to the programme, which is disturbing when we consider that the population numbers only 3 million. Of the half a million people put into the re-education camps, 10,000 are monks and nuns, as has been mentioned. Conditions in those camps are so harsh that, according to recent reports, one nun was driven to suicide.
Outside the camps, the efforts to sinicize Tibetan Buddhism continue. China has recently demolished two historic Buddhist academic institutions, Larung Gar and Yachen Gar. Tibetans are being detained for sharing photos of the Dalai Lama, sharing books written in Tibetan, and even speaking to relatives about the importance of the Tibetan language. That is a clear, orchestrated attempt to remove Tibetan culture from Tibet.
What is happening in Tibet is reminiscent not only of Xinjiang but of Hong Kong, albeit for different reasons. The 17-point agreement lays out a framework for Tibet not dissimilar to Hong Kong’s one country, two systems rule; but as in Hong Kong, that agreement is being eroded over time.
I want to speak briefly about the brave Tibetans who have spoken up against China’s environmental crimes in the region, and who have faced imprisonment and fines. I was particularly distressed to hear what the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said about goats being destroyed. It is obviously wrong, when there are human rights abuses on such a massive scale, to be upset by what is happening to goats, but I think it is symptomatic of the wilful destruction of the Tibetan people’s way of life in the plateau.
The Tibetan plateau is not only a vital geopolitical region; it is home to the world’s largest ice storage outside the north and south poles, yet a quarter of its ice has been lost since 1970. Even if we limit global warming to 1.5°C, up to two thirds of the region’s remaining glaciers will disappear by the end of the century. At the moment the Paris climate accords bind us to 2°C rather than 1.5°C, but we are not even on track for that. Currently, it is very possible that the earth will be 4°C hotter by the end of the century. When we think that the temperature difference between the present day and the last ice age was only 6°C, that puts into context how massive an environmental catastrophe it would be.
It is not just a question of global warming. The Mekong, Yangtze, Ganges and Indus rivers all have their source in Tibet, and 1.6 billion people are supported by the rivers. The melting of the third pole will have a catastrophic effect on those people, and there will be global ramifications. Banks will burst and livelihoods will be destroyed; there will be an unprecedented refugee crisis, but there will also be an effect on geopolitical relations in the regions. Indo-Chinese relations could turn ugly. We need to question the environmental record of the CCP in Tibet, just as we do its human rights record.
A couple of years ago, I was involved in a campaign with Free Tibet. Liverpool football club had entered into a sponsorship deal with Tibet Water Resources, a company that extracted and bottled water from Tibetan glaciers. I think the football club did not have the slightest idea that there was anything wrong. Those involved probably thought it sounded like an incredibly environmentally sound, pure type of project. We drew to their attention the fact that they were facilitating, condoning and in some way complicit in what China was doing in exploiting the natural resources of the region. I am glad to say that after a year that sponsorship deal was dropped.
On the question of the trading relationship with China, it is obviously an incredibly important business partner of ours, but there needs to be a point where we put principles before our own economic interest. From 2011 to 2015 I was in the shadow Foreign Office team for Labour. As well as covering the part of the world that we are talking about, I had the shadow human rights brief. In September 2013, William Hague and Vince Cable launched with great fanfare the business and human rights action plan. We were the first country to present that sort of national action plan to implement the UN guiding principles developed by the former special representative to the UN Secretary-General, John Ruggie. Warm words were spoken—I think that William Hague used a phrase about two beating hearts of UK foreign policy: the business side and the human rights side—but only a couple of months later, in December 2013, David Cameron, the then Prime Minister, led the largest ever trade delegation to China. I asked questions about to what extent this business and human rights action plan in any way influenced that trade mission, and the answer became very clear. I remember a Minister from the Lords coming along to a meeting of the all-party parliamentary China group and saying it was not his job to think about human rights; he was a Trade Minister, and his job was to do the trade side of things.
The same was true for a number of other countries, as well. Nick Clegg went to Colombia, and I asked whether human rights were discussed there; in fact, I ended up making an official complaint because his answers were so hopeless. David Cameron went to Saudi Arabia, and it is quite amusing to look at the answers I got back when I asked if human rights were discussed. I was told, “We discussed a wide range of issues,” so I asked again, and was told that “Nothing was off the table.” There were endless permutations of those sorts of phrases, and it became clear to me that this business and human rights action plan was not worth the paper it was written on. That was very sad, because I think the intention was there to develop a more ethical foreign policy.
To conclude, we cannot allow countries such as China to act in this manner with impunity. The Government need to seriously consider Magnitsky sanctions on officials with ties to the situation in Tibet, as well as to human rights abuses elsewhere in China. We should not pick and choose which human rights abuses we condemn and which by our silence we condone; instead, we should stand up unequivocally for human rights throughout the world.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kerry McCarthy Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
Wendy Morton
With specific regard to Belarus, the hon. Gentleman raises a very important point around defence co-operation. The UK shares a co-operative relationship with the Belarusian armed forces, including mutual learning, winter survival training, language tuition and peacekeeping, but in the light of recent events we have suspended all defence engagement with Belarus.
Kerry McCarthy
There are protesters outside Parliament today trying to draw attention to the situation in Belarus. I hope that the Minister will find time to pop out to meet them, as it is really important that we talk to members of the diaspora community here. The EU is currently drawing up a list of Belarusian officials who they will make subject to asset freezes and travel bans. Is the UK looking to do likewise, and if not, why not?
Wendy Morton
The hon. Lady makes a very important point. She can rest assured that we will, at the very least, match that list.
Hong Kong National Security Legislation: UK Response
Kerry McCarthy Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Dominic Raab
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments, and he is absolutely right to pay tribute to the Home Office and the Home Secretary for assiduously working on this with my Department and others for months. We will stand up for freedom of religion and freedom of expression wherever it stands and whichever minority or group is seeking to avail itself of it. That is a point of principle—that is what we are about—and that applies to Christian minorities and to the Uighur Muslims as well. We have, of course, my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), the Prime Minister’s special envoy specifically dedicated to working around the world on this issue.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
As the Foreign Secretary has acknowledged, there is concern not just about what is happening in Hong Kong but also the treatment of the Uighur Muslims and Falun Gong practitioners and what is happening not just in terms of human rights abuses in Tibet but the terrible environmental destruction going on there, too. The Foreign Secretary mentioned the asymmetric economic power of China, and also implied that, basically, China’s refusal to engage on human rights dialogue means it can get away with doing whatever it wants; is that really the case?
Dominic Raab
I thank the hon. Lady for her question and understand the spirit in which she asked it. She made some important points, and the asymmetric economic size and growth of China is a fact and the important thing we can do is engage with China as it rises and wishes to take up the mantle of being a leading member of the international community—trying to shape the rules of the international system, which it is undoubtedly trying to do, as we can see from the number of elections in which it runs in international organisations—working with our partners to say, “I’m sorry, but unless you’re willing to live up to the obligations and responsibilities that come with that role, you won’t get the kind of support that will allow you to realise those aspirations.” I have had previous conversations with State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on this subject and I will continue to engage with him as constructively as possible at any moment in time, but of course it requires the Chinese Government to be willing to engage on their side as well.
Australian Bushfires
Kerry McCarthy Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Mrs Wheeler
I thank my right hon. Friend—who is a very good friend—for that question. Interestingly, sometimes in times of adversity really nasty people come out of the woodwork. I do not want any help that the British people give via charities in Australia or whatever other method to be affected by scammers, so if British citizens want to give or help in any way, will they please double-check that any charity they give money to is registered with the Australian Charity Commission? It would be a tragedy if the good will of people in this country was abused.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I was really quite shocked that in her statement the Minister did not mention climate change once; it is surely the context in which all this is happening. When my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) did raise the issue very eloquently, the Minister had to rummage in her folder to find something to say. The fact is that Australia is the largest emitter per capita of any major nation, yet its Government are still not committed to decarbonisation. The COP25 talks were a complete failure, and we have not even had a written ministerial statement on them. When are the Government going to step up to the plate, show leadership, talk to Australia and say that it has to get with the agenda?
Mrs Wheeler
Please forgive me for suggesting that talk is cheap. Australia is a signatory to the Paris agreement and is committed to a 26% to 28% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions on 2005 levels by 2030. In addition—because there are intelligent people in this room—a number of Australian states have already committed to net zero by 2050. Ahead of COP26, we will look forward to working with all Paris agreement signatories to increase global climate ambition in line with that agreement.