Oral Answers to Questions

Liam Conlon Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

It sounds as though the shadow Minister thinks that the entirety of agricultural land will be covered in solar. I have already said that it will be 0.4% by 2030, and it provides farmers with extra income. We have a national planning policy framework that prioritises using lower-quality land for such things. He says that he wants solar power on rooftops—well, we are doing that too.

[Liam Conlon (Beckenham and Penge) (Lab)]

9. What steps she is taking to improve biodiversity.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)]

This Government are putting the largest budget ever towards nature restoration, with more than £7 billion announced in the spending review. We have taken targeted action, including licensing the first wild beaver release since their extinction 400 years ago.

[Liam Conlon]

Fourteen years of Conservative government have left the UK as one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, undermining our economy and food systems. I welcome the Government’s recent actions to reverse this, including the new guidance to protect bees from pesticides and the introduction of legislation to help protect two thirds of the world’s oceans. Does the Minister agree that where the Conservatives have failed, this Government will take action at every level to protect nature and biodiversity for future generations?

[Mary Creagh]

I do agree. I know that my hon. Friend is a great champion on air quality in his constituency. While the Conservatives have pledged to scrap the Climate Change Act 2008 in the face of protest from business groups, scientists and even their former Prime Minister Theresa May, this Government will tackle the climate and nature crisis. I will be travelling to COP30 in Brazil in a couple of days, where I will discuss how we will embed nature into every element of climate action to tackle global nature loss on land and in the ocean.