Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill

Steve Race Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Race (Exeter) (Lab)]

I welcome the Government and the Minister’s leadership on this issue in bringing the Bill to the House to enact the UN high seas treaty. I, too, am a member of the APPG for the ocean.

I know that people in Exeter care very deeply about our natural environment, particularly the seas and oceans, and rightly so. The world’s oceans are vital to the health of our planet and to our people. They produce over half of the world’s oxygen and absorb a quarter of all carbon dioxide emissions, helping to regulate our climate. They support an immense diversity of life, providing food for billions of people and supporting enormous ecosystems, which contain knowledge that we have only just begun to tap.

After decades of industrial damage, this landmark legislation and the treaty will go some way to protecting two thirds of the world’s oceans, and it represents a massive step forward by nations across the world to protect marine life and ecosystems beyond our national borders. By providing the legal framework necessary to implement the BBNJ agreement domestically, the Bill includes provisions for marine protected areas, environmental impact assessments and the sharing of benefits from the collection and use of marine genetic resources, and will help us to meet the target to effectively conserve and manage at least 30% of the ocean by 2030. I also welcome the Bill as a core part of re-establishing the UK’s role in providing global leadership on climate and nature, both at home and around the world.

Just as the UK is a leader in marine and climate science, so is Exeter. I was delighted this week to host in Parliament the Met Office, which is based in Exeter, to showcase the range and depth of its expertise. The Met Office is not just a specialist in our weather. It is also a specialist in space weather, our oceans, and the connection between climate change and forecasting. Its work on ocean biogeochemistry—studying how carbon and other gases are absorbed, transported and exchanged by the oceans, the mechanisms involved and the impact changes have—is pioneering. It researches the risks of rapid loss of sea ice, and is studying the rise of sea levels and the impacts on communities, the environment and the economy.

The Met Office also provides a vital service in generating risk assessments of rapid changes to the meridional overturning circulation, which I am told—I am literature graduate, Madam Deputy Speaker, not a science graduate—plays an important role in regional climates. It is also part of the National Partnership for Ocean Prediction, bringing together world-class expertise and research, as well as developing beneficial marine products and services.

In addition, the University of Exeter has a wide-ranging research community working on projects related to our oceans. These come together under the Exeter Marine research network, and their ocean research runs from pollution and conservation to governance and human health. In June this year, Exeter University’s Professor Callum Roberts was the lead author of a report in Nature supporting the UN high seas treaty. His paper highlighted that the high seas are the Earth’s largest and most secure carbon sink. Protecting them is critical to preserving the biological and nutrient cycles that draw down and keep atmospheric CO2 in check. They welcome the UN high seas treaty, saying it offers a pathway to greater protection, but they are concerned about the length of time for implementation. The report’s authors also argue that a full and permanent ban on extractive use of the oceans is both feasible and necessary, modelled on the successful precedent set for Antarctica in the 1950s. Will the Minister comment on what more can be done, beyond the treaty as we bring it in, to protect our oceans above and beyond this legislation?

Finally, I want to pay tribute to my constituents Mary Attewell, Debbie Thomas, Sue Down and Lizzie Waler of Exeter’s Greenpeace group, who have been doggedly campaigning for the UK’s ratification of the treaty. I thank them for all their work and for keeping this issue at the top of the political agenda. I hope they will be celebrating this evening, if the Bill passes its Second Reading. They have asked to question how the treaty will be enforced. I would welcome comments from the Minister on that, too.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) that we want there to be cross-party and cross-House agreement on this issue. While it is disappointing that the Conservatives are not here, it is also disappointing that Green party MPs, other than one small intervention at the beginning, are not here to participate substantially in the debate.

I commend the Bill. I am extraordinarily thrilled and pleased to support it. I know that the ratification of the agreement as soon as possible supports the UK’s broader climate and nature agenda, and will mean that we can take our seat at the top table at the first COP. That will ensure we remain at the forefront of global efforts to tackle biodiversity loss and climate change through multilateral co-operation. This will strengthen the role of international law—so important in these times—and multilateral institutions as the foundation for ocean governance.