Climate Change: Migration

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, it is always interesting for me when I speak on behalf of my Benches and yet agree with every single world that has been said by all previous speakers in the debate. I congratulate the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, on bringing this debate to us. In many respects, this is the issue of our time, in this generation, and it is incumbent on us, as leaders of this generation in the world, to ensure that we correct—or at least ameliorate—some of the issues and start to have some solutions so that we do not pass this issue on to another generation who will be even less equipped than us to address it.

I left the debate on the Abraham Accords in Grand Committee, in which I spoke, early in order to be in the Chamber for this debate. In Grand Committee, we referenced the natural disasters in Morocco and Libya. Although it was a debate on the geopolitical relationships between countries on the one hand, noble Lords were also seeking to address the impact of climate and people movement in the Gulf, Middle East and north Africa, as we are in this debate. They are connected, as are so many areas. It is interesting that the Home Office Minister is responding to this debate; the Home Office is, in many respects, a recipient department that probably sees itself as having to try to address this issue, whereas the Foreign Office and the Treasury are departments in government that we need to hold to account because they have more tools available to them to address the root causes. I will return to that issue in a moment.

I regret to say that we are a long way from having a fully integrated government approach on the climate emergency and its consequences when it comes to the movement of people. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans was right: the debate in the Chamber on the Horn of Africa meant that we could have a debate on the impact on the individual human, rather than simply all the statistics and figures. However, the statistics and figures, with which the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, started, are stark. The Groundswell report by the World Bank, from which I believe he sourced his statistics, indicated that the 260 million people who are likely to migrate as a result of climate change are doing so within their own countries.

The backcloth of the debate is not only natural disasters and the climate emergency. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, myself and others, including the Minister, are veterans of the Illegal Migration Bill. I regret to say that we saw then how the Government were quite willing to weaponise the fear around the statistics on the number of people being forcibly displaced. The Home Secretary said that 105 million people are on the move and are coming here—of course they were not. Migration being used as a tool to create fear for political purposes is not unique to our Government; this is, regrettably, becoming a trend in other countries that are among the richest in the world.

When we look at the World Bank statistics, they require global consideration. In east Asia and the Pacific, the World Bank estimates that 49 million people will be displaced in their own countries owing to climate change. In south Asia, it is 40 million. The noble and right reverend Lord indicated that the figure is 86 million in sub-Saharan Africa and 17 million in Latin America. These are enormous figures. We have seen, in certain areas, ways to try to address the issue.

The World Bank indicated that it could be addressed if we act now to cut global greenhouse gases, to integrate climate migration into green, resilient and inclusive development planning, to plan for each phase of the migration, with proper strategic planning of countries working together, and to invest in understanding the drivers. The World Bank indicated that the numbers that I cited could be reduced by up to 80% if we act—so all is not lost. Therefore, the focus must be on how Governments such as the UK’s can be leaders in that action.

Unfortunately, in many respects, we are being embarrassed by other countries that are most affected and are taking the lead themselves. Over the summer, and at the moment—this was referenced in Questions earlier in the Chamber—African countries have signed a continental agreement to address climate mobility, led by Kenya and Uganda, at the Africa climate summit in Nairobi. John Kerry was there, representing the US President, and the IOM and the other networks were putting together a strategy. I would be grateful if the Minister could indicate who represented the UK at the Africa climate summit in Nairobi. I hope that there was ministerial representation, but, if that was not that case, I hope the Minister will be able to indicate who represented us.

The Government have also, regrettably, stepped back from a leadership role. That is not just my position—the Minister might not be surprised to hear me say that. That was from a former Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, who resigned because he felt that the Government were resiling from a leadership role. I will quote from his resignation letter. He said:

“More worrying, the UK has visibly stepped off the world stage and withdrawn our leadership on climate and nature. Too often we are simply absent from key international fora”.


He went on:

“The problem is not that the government is hostile to the environment, it is that you, our prime minister, are simply uninterested. That signal, or lack of it, has trickled down through Whitehall and caused a kind of paralysis”.


Now ministerial leadership can change, and we can see, hopefully, some differences in approach. But that seems unlikely. What is harder to reverse are the devastating reductions referenced by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, with regards to official development assistance. The very tools which the UK worked with our partners not only to design and fund but to make sure would be effective—thought leadership, financial support at scale, and implementation—have been cut dramatically.

It was the hottest month on record in July this year in this country. At that time, the Government released figures showing that they had cut at least £85 million from the funding of international climate programmes. The UK has reported to the OECD that in 2019-20, we supported the Rio commitment by £1.8 billion. The latest report to the OECD is that has been drastically cut to £449 million. This is not just a case of citing other statistics. These are programmes which have been either reduced massively or cut altogether, and the UK was the global leader in support for them.

The International Development Minister, Andrew Mitchell, reported to Parliament’s International Development Committee and revealed how much the reduced funding was affecting climate programmes. For example, the international forest unit will lose £38 million after being cut by 51%. The adaptation, nature and resilience department is being halved by 51%, losing £23 million—despite Ministers saying that the UK needs to do more to help lower-income countries adapt to the effects of climate change. Adaptation was mentioned by the right reverend Prelate. We have pulled back in so many areas from supporting those countries that can least support themselves for adaptation.

The UK partnership for accelerating climate transition is being cut by 49%. Known as PACT, the programme works to accelerate partner countries’ transition to low-carbon development and help aid eligible countries meet their climate targets. These are not academic reductions; these are reductions that will make an impact on our ability to address the very crisis that is causing the migration. So I hope that the Minister will be able to say that the Home Office is leading—with other departments in Government—a change of direction. I suspect that we may not hear that, but we cannot wait. This is an emergency. The UK cannot simply be having our political discussions debated upon us receiving; we need to be part of solving the problems. We need a change of policy and that is urgent.