Convention on Biological Diversity

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your election, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) for his very kind words to me, and for securing today’s debate. What an incredible privilege it is to stand here as the Minister for nature in a Labour Government who will put this at the front and centre of our national missions.

My hon. Friend is a true champion of nature at home and abroad, and as a distinguished former Minister for biodiversity he has made tireless efforts to hold us, the UK, and all parties to the convention on biological diversity to the very highest standards. He deserves our thanks and commendation for that work. I also thank him for hosting the introduction to the International Conservation Caucus Foundation on Tuesday, where I had the chance to meet both the Colombian ambassador to the UK and representatives from Canada house. It was an important reminder of the fact that reversing nature loss is a global priority—one that we can achieve only by working in partnership with our friends around the world. We will need leadership, participation and commitment in equal measure to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and climate change.

As the MP for Coventry East, I am delighted to have the opportunity to listen and learn today on the UK’s approach to the next meeting on the convention on biological diversity, COP16, which, as my hon. Friend said, takes place in Colombia this October. It is a unique opportunity to begin to re-establish the UK as a global leader on nature and climate co-operation. Protecting and restoring biodiversity begins at home. Almost half our bird species and a quarter of our mammal species that have been assessed are at risk of extinction here in the UK. Precious landscapes in our national parks are in decline, with rivers, lakes and seas awash with sewage and chemical pollution.

We feel that loss and destruction of nature wherever we live. We remember our childhoods, looking out of the window at murmurations of starlings—across the Warwickshire countryside, in my case—and we think about how rare it is now to hear the cheeping of a sparrow in our gardens. More of our land is underwater, with our children getting sick after swimming in our seas and rivers.

This Labour Government are laser focused on restoring and protecting nature. In England, we will deliver a plan to hit the Environment Act targets, halting the decline of species by 2030. We will honour our international agreements to protect 30% of our land and seas by the same date, and we will ensure that England’s environmental improvement plan is fit for purpose. We will work collaboratively with our colleagues in the devolved Administrations on the shared challenges and opportunities that restoring nature brings. We will do that in partnership with civil society, communities, businesses and volunteers, to harness their creativity and insights.

[Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) for securing this debate. I recently attended a session led by the Wildlife Trust in my constituency on exactly the depletion about which the Minister is speaking. In my previous role as a county councillor I was aware of the previous Government’s efforts around local nature recovery partnerships and strategies. Can Minister clarify whether it is the intention of this Government to persist with those and, if it is, whether they will be adequately funded? One of their features under the last Government was a lack of funding to allow them to have the impact that we would all hope they would.

[Mary Creagh]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the intervention. The Secretary of State is today visiting the Purple Horizons project in the west midlands, an example of a huge nature recovery project extending across 10,000 hectares of vital heathlands, wetlands, woodlands and grasslands. That is an example of the partnership working that the hon. Gentleman talks about, with the local Wildlife Trust there, the council, the University of Birmingham and Lichfield district council. It is my firm intention, as we move towards the autumn statement and the spending reviews next year, that nature should take its place firmly at the heart of those discussions.

Nature is central to each of the missions that define this new Government. We know that being in nature promotes wellbeing and tackles poor mental health. Clean air helps to cut hospital emissions. Protecting landscapes that capture and store carbon helps us to meet our net zero targets, and training people for new jobs in new industries, restoring and protecting the natural world, will protect our economic growth.

Nature is the monopoly provider of everything we need to exist, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West has already said, but we stand at a moment in history where nature needs us to defend it. Without it there is no economy, no food, no health, no society. We are not merely observers; we are an integral part of nature and our future depends on protecting it. I look forward to working with my brilliant team of officials and my new ministerial colleagues at DEFRA to tackle the nature crisis.

At COP15 in Montreal, 196 countries agreed the landmark Global Biodiversity Framework to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. We look forward to COP16 and there is much on the agenda. My hon. Friend asked about attendance. Four Ministers from three different Departments attended the last conference on biodiversity. We do not yet have a detailed programme of events in Cali, which is completely normal at this stage, but once we do we will confirm precisely who will attend, and we will of course make that information available to the House. Hon. Members can rest assured, however, that this Government will send a very senior delegation from across Government so that the rest of the world will be in no doubt as to the crucial importance we place on the summit and on global co-operation on nature loss.

There are 33 items on the agenda for this COP, covering everything from marine protected areas to plant conservation. UK teams will be active on all of them, driving consensus and finding ambitious agreements to help to deliver the goals and targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework. We must speed up and scale up action at home and abroad.

However, there are three priorities we are following closely. First, the negotiations on digital sequence information, or DSI, aim to ensure that those communities that make available genetic data from biodiversity—trees, plants and fungi—receive benefits from doing so. This is a unique opportunity for global science and nature conservation: payments for using genetic information could unlock billions of dollars of finance for nature every year and ensure that nature is protected for future generations of not just scientists, but forest dwellers. UK negotiators are chairing the negotiations on this complex issue, and are making good progress towards ensuring that this COP will be able to take the exciting step of launching a new global fund for nature action.

On implementation, all parties need to take domestic action to fully implement the GBF. The first step is to publish the national biodiversity strategies and action plans, or NBSAPs. We have been working hard with the devolved Administrations to prepare a UK-wide plan—a single document—to show the policies and strategies that are in place. We will aim to publish that NBSAP as soon as possible ahead of COP16.

[Barry Gardiner]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her response. She will know that the reason for the 1 August deadline is to show our intent for the UK to be back out there at the forefront of this debate, which is precisely what she is talking about. I urge her to publish the plan by that date, so that it gets out with the other documents, even if it has to be revised later on—it is an iterative process and something that we can revise upwards—because it really is important that we show that intent.

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[Mary Creagh]

I am in passionate agreement with my hon. Friend. I assure him that it is one of the first submissions that I have seen as a Minister. We will absolutely do our best, and I will write to him should there be any issues around publication.

We need to mobilise finance from all sources and align global financial flows with the global biodiversity framework. Working with other donors, we have collectively pledged over £250 million to the new global biodiversity framework fund. The UK is contributing an initial £10 million. We are working with the multilateral development banks to mainstream—