Climate and Nature Bill

Debate between Mike Martin and Roger Gale

2nd reading
Friday 24th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) on her good fortune in having secured a place in the ballot and been able to introduce a Bill that I believe will be very important. I am proud to be a sponsor of it. It is deeply flawed in places; we all know that. I have been in this place for quite a long time and I know of no private Member’s Bill that was perfect when it started its journey. However, I hope and believe that it will receive a Second Reading. If it comes to a vote, I shall most certainly support it.

Old men can bore for Britain. As the grandfather of the House, I am probably just as capable of that as anybody else in this place.

[Mike Martin]

I would like to put it on the record that the right hon. Gentleman is not boring the House.

[Sir Roger Gale]

Give me time, young man.

At the risk of going down that path, I should like to take a short ramble down memory lane. I was brought up in Poole, in Dorset. My grandparents’ house had a lilac tree in the garden. In flower, it was smothered in red admirals, peacocks, tortoiseshells and all manner of butterflies. At night, the garden was full of moths. These days, we are lucky if we see a cabbage white.

The little house that we lived in was on the edge of Poole Park lake. I played in the park daily; I used to pluck conkers from under the trees during the season for it. I saw stag beetles in abundance. Hedgehogs, which we have heard referred to, roamed free. Out in the hills alongside Cerne Abbas in Dorset, I walked along country paths where my father and I saw foxes, voles, stoats, weasels, rabbits and, up in the sky, birds of prey feeding on them. Where are they now? The World Wildlife Fund says that in the past 50 years—well within my lifetime, but sadly not within the lifetime of most, albeit not all, hon. Members present—our wildlife has been depleted by 73%.