State of Climate and Nature
Debate between Mary Creagh and Caroline Nokes(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)
With permission, I would like to make a statement about the nature and climate crisis. Nature is the monopoly provider of everything we need to live. We are living through the Anthropocene, an age where human activity is now the dominant influence on our planet’s climate and ecosystems. We are seeing its consequences: pollution, climate change and mass extinction. Last year, the Energy Secretary gave the first ever statement to this House on the crisis. One year on, I am here to set out the Government’s commitment to tackle those challenges.
Climate change drives nature loss, and nature loss drives climate change. We must tackle both. Droughts and floods are disrupting harvests, straining supply chains, and pushing up costs. Our nature security assessment published in January shows that if the current rate of biodiversity loss continues, every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse, from the coral reefs that protect our coastlines to the peatlands that store carbon and prevent floods.
The UK’s climate is getting hotter and wetter, with more extreme events—2025 was the UK’s hottest year since records began. In the heatwaves in May and June this year, the Met Office reported that as many as 2,700 people may have died, railway tracks buckled, over 1,000 schools closed, and the London ambulance service had its busiest day on record. Since 1901, the UK’s sea level has risen by about 20 cm, but that rate is accelerating, because two thirds of this rise has happened in just the last 30 years. That is why this Labour Government are stepping up, leading globally on nature recovery, climate mitigation and adaptation. In the UK, we are working in partnership with local communities, businesses, conservationists and farmers. Before the Paris agreement, the world was on track for around 4° of warming; now, national commitments put us on course for around 2.5° degrees. There is so much more to do, but this represents real progress.
In December, we launched our environmental improvement plan, which, for the first time, set out delivery plans to underpin our targets to restore nature, boost our recycling rates and protect our environmental security. Since then, we have published the land use framework, the water White Paper and the farming road map. We have invested a record £2.65 billion in flood resilience, invested in new food waste collection services and invested £1 billion in our national biosecurity infrastructure in Weybridge. Over the next three years, we will invest more than £7 billion in nature—the largest investment in nature ever. That includes £5.9 billion for environmental farming schemes, £816 million for tree planting and £85 million for peatland restoration.
Last October, we published the carbon budget and growth delivery plan to set out how the UK will continue to reduce emissions in order to lower bills for consumers and secure good jobs for British people. Last month, the majority of Members in this place voted to cut emissions by almost 87% from 1990 levels for the carbon budget 7 period, which runs from 2038 to 2042. Under this Government, more than £100 billion of private investment in the net zero economy has been announced.
We have done much on mitigation. However, following advice from the Climate Change Committee, we are setting stronger objectives for climate adaptation. We are building our resilience for a minimum of 2° of warming by 2050 and supporting combined authorities to increase their resilience to climate change, too.
In 2024, we saw a single year exceed 1.5° of warming, which is why we are committed to working with our domestic and international partners to keep the Paris agreement goal of limiting temperatures to a rise of 1.5°C. Global warming is likely to reach 1.5° in around 2030, but 1.5° is and will remain the right limit. Every fraction of a degree of warming reduces the severity of impacts on people and nature worldwide. Every species saved reduces the risk of losses to the ecosystems we rely on—pollination, disease prevention, and food and climate regulation.
The key to delivering our nature and climate goals is how we use our land and seas. Our land use framework shows that we have enough land to achieve our priorities across economic growth, housing, food production, climate and nature recovery. However, we must make better decisions about how we use our land. We are moving from paper-based systems to making land digital and opening up the Land Registry free for all. Today, we have published an interactive story map of our spatial evidence to support decision makers to use their land more effectively.
The UK has also committed to protect and conserve 30% of our land and seas for nature by 2030. Today, we are publishing the 30 by 30 delivery plan for land in England and guidance to land managers on how to implement it. In May, we announced the £30 million wildlife-rich habitat fund, and today we are providing an additional £37 million a year for the next three years for national parks and national landscapes.
This is a whole-of-Government effort. This weekend, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office ratified the biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction agreement to create marine protected areas on the high seas, covering nearly two thirds of the world’s oceans. Funded by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Advanced Research and Invention Agency is investing £81 million in its forecasting tipping points programme. The Ministry of Defence is developing climate security analysis and critical emerging technologies to support energy resilience for the UK and our armed forces. The Department for Education is investing £710 million out to 2030 to improve the condition of school and college buildings, reducing their emissions and bills, and increasing their resilience to climate change so that they last for decades to come.
I am delighted that in my constituency of Coventry East, Richard Lee primary school and Potters Green primary school are installing new solar panels. At Courthouse Green school, I opened a sensory garden built by the pupils’ eco team to bring nature closer to children.
This week, I am visiting the Great North Bog to see successful peatland restoration in action, and later in the week I will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the first four national parks—a legacy of the great 1945 Labour Government. Tomorrow, we launch a competition for young people to join our new youth climate and nature panel. These young people will offer their expert insight to Government as we deliver for climate and nature action through outreach.
From introducing wild beavers to planting three new national forests and creating nine new river walks, this Labour Government are bringing nature closer to people. We will all benefit from a more resilient, more prosperous and greener country. As my right hon. Friend the Energy Secretary said in his statement last year,
“We have been at our best in the House when we have worked across parties on these issues.”—[Official Report, 14 July 2025; Vol. 771, c. 31.]
By preparing our country and our citizens for the climate and nature crises, we are showing leadership internationally. This Government are acting now to protect the world in which we live, which we pass on to future generations. I commend this statement to the House.
Mary Creagh
I am disappointed by the nature and tone of the hon. Gentleman’s response to our attempts to right some of the wrongs left behind by the previous Government.
The hon. Gentleman asked in particular about the Planning and Infrastructure Act. What we have done through that Act is introduce strategic policy statements to prioritise outcomes over process, so that Natural England and the Environment Agency can speed up decision making while maintaining high environmental standards. We have given them £100 million over three years to fund specialist staff and modern digital systems to cut costly delays for planners.
It was clear when we came into government that the status quo for development and nature was simply not working. Fragmented site-by-site environmental requirements and increasing costs were adding to the delays to the much-needed housing and infrastructure that this country needs. It was not working for nature either, and the condition of many of our most important habitats and species was continuing to decline. The nature restoration fund will support development and ensure that the money spent by developers on environmental mitigation delivers more. It is a simple levy payment that Natural England will use to deliver impactful conservation measures at scale instead of having a piecemeal approach.
Let me talk a little about peat. Some 80% of England’s peatlands are degraded. We are investing £85 million in their restoration by 2030. Since we have come into government, approximately 10,000 hectares of peatlands have been brought into restoration through our nature for climate peatland grant scheme. Last week we announced £44 million for lowland peat—which I do not think the hon. Gentleman’s Government invested in—and we expect another 4,000 hectares to be restored this year. We have the target, which his Government set, to restore an additional 40,000 hectares by 2030.
Rotational burning is a contributory factor to 80% of peatlands being degraded. It makes it difficult to restore peat to its natural hydrology and impossible to return it to its natural state. It is also really bad for air quality locally. It damages peatlands, shifts species composition, disrupts the hydrology of peat and, crucially, releases stored carbon, increasing vulnerability to wildfire. Wetter, healthy and functioning peatlands are much more resilient to the impacts of wildfire.
We have published our farming road map, and through the new environmental land management schemes, we are supporting smaller farmers—those organic farmers that were excluded from the larger schemes that the hon. Gentleman talked about. We are spatially targeting, so that we get bigger, better and more joined-up protected areas for nature and wildlife.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
I welcome the Government’s statement. My hon. Friend the Minister is right to say that climate change drives nature loss and nature loss drives climate change—we must tackle them hand in hand. I met this week with Moors for the Future, who spoke about peatland and the importance of working with land managers. I have to say, they were very much more of the view of my hon. Friend than of the shadow Minister, who we just heard from.
The Minister is right to talk about the importance of adaptation, which we need massively to improve, so will she tell us when the next iteration of the national adaptation plan will come out? The one under the previous Government was widely criticised, and we need to know more. A plan that looks only at adaptation will fail, as that must be secondary to mitigation.
Finally, what more can we do in our approach? It is right to say that farmers are fundamental to success in improving our nature outcomes, and it is regrettable that this Government got off on such a bad foot with them. What can she tell us about how we can rebuild that relationship? Ultimately, we must work hand in hand with farmers and sustainable farming if we are going to achieve what we need for nature?
Mary Creagh
Through some of our landscape recovery projects we are seeing farm clusters get behind the new idea of leveraging in private finance to work alongside public investment, but it is also about understanding their role in a multifunctional and multi-use landscape. In the uplands in the Lake district, for example, it is about working to restore peat so that it can hold much more water in the land to prevent run-off, which can overwhelm the towns and villages below the peatlands and the bogs. We understand the role that nature can play in protecting run-off from farms—particularly agricultural run-off—so it may be a case of, for example, planting trees along river banks and ensuring that there is no run-off into the rivers, reducing their phosphate.
My hon. Friend asked me about the national adaptation plan. We are committed to an ambitious fourth national adaptation programme in 2028. I have requested advice from the Climate Change Committee on appropriate planning assumptions to inform our approach, but we are investing in those flood defences through £104 billion in private investment for new water infrastructure and, crucially, the launch of the local authority climate service to support local authorities to respond to flooding and, now, heatwaves.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
I thank the Minister for early sight of the statement.
On my way into Kendal this morning, before I came down to Parliament, I observed the jarring reality of fields yellowing in the dry heat and the River Kent so low that I could see the bedrock. Alongside it, defensive walls were being built on the banks of the river in the aftermath of devastating floods—a reminder that climate change has brought extreme weather. It has brought different threats at different times, but they have been equally challenging and dangerous. I am afraid that those who continue to deny climate change look more foolish by the day. We see the danger of climate change especially in the terrifying wildfires in the Peak district—a reminder that we do not protect nature if we completely remove livestock and the human beings that manage nature.
The Government aim to reclaim 30% of our land and seas for nature. I welcome that, and much of the action plan, but 70% of England’s landmass is agricultural land. Does the Minister agree that we must start by ensuring that all farmers have access to environmental schemes—not just those who apply for them the quickest? Will she give more detail on the welcome proposal that the Liberal Democrats have long fought for to now permit those who farm common land to access payments to help restore nature in our most precious landscapes like the Lake district, the Peaks and Dartmoor?
Farmers estimate that hot weather this year will cost them 20% of their harvest. What is the Minister’s plan to remove barriers so that farmers can build on-farm reservoirs and take other measures that will protect our natural environment and food security?
Finally, if the Government want to meet their targets—we really want them to—are they not being unwise in their rush to deregulate on planning? Should we not be increasing the ability of local communities to resist the destruction of nature and to have greater power to direct developers to protect and enhance nature rather than being at the whim of those whose only motive is profit?
Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
I declare an interest as the chair of the local nature recovery all-party parliamentary group. As Britain endures another summer of extreme heat, droughts and devastating wildfires, this nature and climate statement is crucial, and I only wish that those on the Conservative Benches felt the same about it. I welcome the focus in the 30 by 30 delivery plan on the network of local nature recovery strategies, because they tackle climate change, improve resilience and hit our nature targets, but we need more than a plan, a map and warm words. We need a commitment to make it work in practice, including through weight in planning and public funding to leverage private finance—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. The hon. Lady really does need to get to a question. There is a really important piece of legislation still to come and this statement will finish at 6.40 pm, so many Members are going to be disappointed unless questions are very brief.
Mary Creagh
The depleted numbers on the Conservative Benches are beginning to make me wonder whether they need some funding to avoid extinction—[Laughter.] I’m here all week!
Local nature recovery strategies have been a brilliant vehicle to get these better, bigger, more joined-up landscapes, and I have been in discussion with officials in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about how we can align and spatially target funding towards those areas in particular. I have been talking about exactly that with the West Midlands combined authority.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Mary Creagh and Caroline Nokes(8 years ago)
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Caroline Nokes
Of course, the lessons learned review that is commencing into Windrush will be an important opportunity for us to review all practices across UKVI and ensure that such an appalling scandal cannot happen again. My hon. Friend will have heard comments about reviews of fees, which happen annually, but I point out that we passed primary legislation in 2014 that allows the Home Office to charge fees that not only recover the cost of individual applications but contribute to the whole borders and immigration system, thus helping to secure our borders and ensure that we are safe.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)
The welfare and safeguarding of children is at the heart of the family returns process, and our policy is clear that we do all we can to keep families together. Other than in exceptional circumstances, a child will not be separated from both parents for immigration purposes. Detention is used sparingly, for the purposes of public protection and removal. We encourage those with no right to remain in the UK to leave voluntarily, and all detainees have the right to bail, which is decided by a judge.
Mary Creagh
Despite compelling evidence of the harm caused to children by the indefinite detention of their parents, the Home Office continues to separate them in an arbitrary and cruel manner, but its replies to my questions show that it has no idea how many children are currently separated. The Department paid £50,000 in compensation after a three-year-old girl was unlawfully separated from her father, who was placed in immigration detention. She was reunited with him just days before she was due to be placed for adoption. What is the Minister doing to get a grip on the situation, stop this unlawful practice, tell us how many children are affected and reunite them with their families?
Caroline Nokes
In the case raised by the hon. Lady, the Home Office acknowledged its mistakes and indeed paid compensation. It is worth remembering that more than 1,000 children went into detention in 2009, whereas only 44 did so in the last year for which figures are available. The Home Office has taken significant steps to ensure that children are not detained with their parents, and they can be in an immigration removal centre only when they can be removed within 72 hours.
Local Bus Services
Debate between Mary Creagh and Caroline Nokes(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Mary Creagh
My hon. Friend has made another excellent point. I have experienced that myself. When I caught a tram from the station, a return journey cost £1.50, and I then had to take a bus to the venue, which cost £1.40.
I do not think it is fair that only London provides audio-visual announcements on all buses for the benefit of deaf, blind and partially sighted people. I do not think it is fair that only London provides seamless interchanges with real-time information that makes door-to-door journeys easy. When I was visiting—I think—Milton Keynes, a lady said to me “We call them ghost buses. You stand at the bus stop and you see from the countdown that buses are coming, but when they are due, they just do not turn up. Why are there these ghost buses in the system?” We know that there are problems with technology and other equipment, but why are the problems ironed out in some cities and not in others? Labour will ensure that cities are given the powers they need to take control of their transport system, no longer playing second fiddle to the capital. Bus provision where cities let the routes will unlock efficiencies to cut fares, run more buses and invest in growing the network. Bus provision must become quicker and easier to achieve. We want a bus market that is growing, not dying by a thousand cuts.
Transport plays a vital role in driving economic growth. Devolution is important and control over transport is important, but transport is much more than that. It has profound effects on us as people and on the places where we live. It affects our health, our environment and our quality of life. Buses are the lifelines of our cities, towns and villages. Buses enable people to get to work, bring jobs and growth to our high streets, reduce isolation and ensure mobility for those unable to drive.
Labour is the party of the bus user. In government over 13 years we increased funding for buses from £774 million in 1997 to £2.3 billion in 2010.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
The hon. Lady makes the valid point that buses bring mobility to those who are unable to drive. How then does she feel about Southampton city council removing concessionary passes from disabled people, who have previously enjoyed them?
Mary Creagh
As I have said, Southampton council is doing no more than delivering the very strong cuts to its budgets that the hon. Lady’s Government have imposed on it and that she has voted for as a loyal servant of her party, so I tell the people of Southampton to vote Labour next time.
Horsemeat
Debate between Mary Creagh and Caroline Nokes(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mary Creagh
I do not know how condemned meat is currently dealt with, but I have heard tales of people bleaching meat. Whatever happens to this meat, when it is condemned it needs to be permanently removed from the food chain. Clearly, something much more significant needs to happen to it, but the treatment of condemned meat is something that I am not fully aware of at the moment. I am sure I will learn a lot more about it in the next 24 hours.
As the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) said, there is evidence of an illegal trade in horses from Ireland to the UK and a programme on the subject will be aired tonight. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has also contacted me to say that it has seen horses that have been double microchipped and double passported in order to “clean” the horse. It has also given me examples of horses being microchipped at auction—many horses do not contain a microchip—and given a clean passport. Microchips can be bought for as little as 12p on the internet and it is clearly not an offence to buy one. If a microchip is put into a horse and a passport obtained from one of the 75 societies that can issue horse passports in the UK, the new passport can be linked to the microchip so that the horse looks like it has a clean history.
The increase in the number of horses and the decrease in horse prices mean that putting horses into the food chain is attractive. At the abattoir, Government inspectors check only the microchip with the passport, and if they correspond, the horse is slaughtered and allowed into the food chain. I am glad that, as of yesterday, all horses being slaughtered in UK abattoirs are now being tested for bute, but the Minister should have acted on that two weeks ago, when I first raised the issue in the House. The passport system is clearly not working as it should. The lack of a central database and DEFRA’s decision to stop funding it in 2012 only adds to the lack of visibility of where the horses are and their bute status. Does the Secretary of State regret scrapping the national equine database to save £200,000? [Interruption.] The Minister says no—I think he might regret that. [Interruption.] I look forward to hearing what the Government’s traceability system actually is.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
On working with horse passport agencies and the national equine database, does the hon. Lady agree that NED was actually far more of a competition, progeny and pedigree record, and that it would not have been possible to find out whether a horse on it had bute?