Speeches by Gardiner.

“The right hon. Member is absolutely right to talk about the opening up of the Arctic and the geo-strategic threats that we face there. In that respect, would he support my earlier call that the Government should release the Joint Intelligence Committee’s report on the link between biodiversity, sustainability and natio…”

“It has been almost 19 years since I first met Professor Alex Rogers at a two-day conference at Somerville College, Oxford, convened by the Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment. The subject was international law on the high seas. The young postdoctoral fellow inspired us about the amazing biodivers…”

“Will the right hon. Member give way?”

“The long-awaited report by the Joint Intelligence Committee on the link between biodiversity, sustainability and national security is still not with us. Lord Dannatt and other senior military figures have increasingly expressed concerns about the threat the collapse of global biodiversity poses to our food security and…”

“May I take the Minister back to the wording of the Act? It says that it is an offence to pass information that would be “directly or indirectly useful to an enemy”. It does not say that it is an offence to directly or indirectly pass to an enemy information that would be useful. The difference is that in the first, it …”

“Will the right hon. Member give way?”

“The hon. Lady will recollect that, of that £11.6 billion, £3 billion was ringfenced for conservation. Does she agree that it is important that we do not lose that element of ICF?”

“Systems rely on diversity. Imagine a piano with 88 keys all tuned to middle C: Mozart would not have got very far. Yet what is happening to our global food system is a destruction of the very diversity on which our survival depends. Since 1900, the world’s crops have lost 75% of their genetic diversity. Four companies—…”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“After the vile attack in Manchester, many of us in this House will have spent time with Jewish friends last week celebrating the festival of Sukkot. It was particularly emotional for me to do that with friends and to realise that for the sukkah—that temporary shelter where we eat that meal—you have to have sight of the…”

“Thank you. You know that many of us will be looking and scrutinising it.”

“Can I also apologise that I do have to leave now, but I just wanted to put that in early.”

“Ms Pinchbeck, you started off talking to the Chair about the importance of independent evidence and the first-class analysis that the committee on climate change does. I have always had huge respect for that; it has been absolutely fundamental to the way in which you have maintained a bipartisan approach in Parliament …”

“Should the Government not have waited to announce airport expansion until it had that evidence from its independent adviser?”

“Do you think after the hordes of people who are watching this Select Committee inquiry start banging your door down and demanding—”

“Dr Joel, I was struck by the difference between your response and what Mr Ede said about the importance of consulting, being open and engaging with the public. Is there a reason why your company feels that is not important, or is it just that you have never considered that level of engagement? Or is it that you do not …”

“Just one final question, I think. What you are talking about is identifying and extracting, remediating, and recycling some of it, but as more and more is coming through the production line, you are taking out a percentage of an increasing stock. Therefore, it surely has to be combined with the prevention of it coming …”

“Again, just trying to translate that into recommendations for this Committee’s inquiry report, you would wish us to very strongly make your stable door point before focusing on the importance of scaling up the technologies that can deal with, remediate and recycle?”

“Professor, anything to add?”

“We have 10,000 sites to get rid of.”