Speeches by Creagh.

“I will make a little progress, if I may. The changes will apply directly in Northern Ireland and will phase in over time. They apply in Northern Ireland under the Windsor framework. As an EU regulation, the obligations within it apply directly, without the need for transposition. The draft instrument, in a reserved pol…”

“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Batteries (Placing on the Market) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2026. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I have immediately availed myself of your generous offer to take some clothes off; it is always a good way to start the aftern…”

“Okay, so that is a separate thing. We cannot comment on internal machinery on national security assessments, the methodologies used to formulate them or the different versions.”

“You are right about the Tropical Forest Forever Facility. It is a critical evolution in forest finance. We have supported its development. We have pledged £2.5 million to support the establishment of the fund, and we are committed to it being a success. We have done a lot through FCDO in the REDD+ space, which is tackl…”

“Let me tell the hon. and learned Gentleman a little about what Northern Ireland thinks. I am going to make my point, and then I hope we can get into a much longer debate. Translink in Northern Ireland bans e-batteries, e-bikes and e-scooters from its networks because of the risk of fire. Antrim and Newtownabbey borough…”

“No, I will not give way; I am replying to the debate. They reopened the debates on Brexit, which detained this House from 2016 until I left in 2019 and much beyond. When the former leader of the Conservatives said that we should “Get Brexit done” in 2019, little did he know that Brexit would never be done. This issue i…”

“I don’t know. I cannot comment on what there is between international intelligence and security agencies on these issues. They would not tell me if they did this, and I could not tell you if they had told me.”

“What a peach of a debate! On the one hand, the Conservative party gave us gentle encouragement and asked questions about how the policy has been enforced in the interim. Once again, I was questioned about the previous Government’s inaction and inability to take any steps to bring in this law before they left office. On…”

“First of all, thanks, Chair, for agreeing to the slightly later start time. We have been having a bit of a pre-EAC workout in Committee Room 10 next door, which I can tell you is considerably hotter than this Committee Room. I am grateful to the Committee for the slightly later start. This document is a cross-Governmen…”

“I see it as a cross-Government assessment. It is a cross-Government publication. Obviously, it has some heavy scientific analysis in it, but the power of it is that it does not belong to a single Department.”

“Like I say, I was a bit confused about the futures report.”

“Well, she said what she said. I would say that, given the new realities of the funding, we have been laser-focused on making sure that nature and the oceans are at the front and centre of this and that every pound delivers for not just aid but climate mitigation and adaptation as well, and levers in money from elsewher…”

“Yes.”

“I would say that we are allocating around £6 billion of international climate finance from our aid budget over the next three financial years. That is going to be allocated between mitigation and adaptation, and it is going to also retain a strong focus on nature. Our goal is to deliver an additional £6.7 billion of UK…”

“I was a bit confused about this, so I have gone back to basics on it. I think you asked me this question in DEFRA orals a couple of weeks back and there was this kind of, “Which document is which?” There is a thing called the futures report, and that is a completely separate document. Let’s just go back to what is in t…”

“I genuinely do not know. What I can say in terms of our international partners is that we have strong relationships with embassies and Governments right across the world. We have a global demand for our expertise to help with how they value and account for nature. We have had a particularly successful partnership with …”

“If we look at the actual report, on coral reef collapse it says there is a “realistic possibility” of collapse starting from 2030. We have done a lot of work and overseas programming with our overseas territories on—I can’t remember exactly what it is called, but it is something like spiny coral reef disease. We have b…”

“Public finance cannot do it all. The idea that we can have a pound for the climate, a pound for nature and a pound for desertification is over. We are not the only Government that are ramping up war readiness and national security as a result of the changing geopolitical situation. In reviewing the projects, we are gen…”

“Let me begin by apologising to the hon. and learned Gentleman. I understand that he is a member of Traditional Unionist Voice. I did know that, but I forgot it in the heat. We are in the process of doing exactly what he is exhorting us to do, which is to make sure that we have a complete internal market across the Unit…”

“It is part of routine cross-Government resilience planning, but I think it stands as a groundbreaking piece of work, because what it does for the first time is bring biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation, pollution and national security together into a single cross-Government assessment and looks at that at a global…”