Speeches by Gibson.

“Minister Hardy, would you be able to update the Committee on what measures are being taken to monitor the environmental impacts of the recent collision in the North sea and what action is being taken to prevent damage to the marine and coastal environment? I note that my question, if Baroness Chapman is able to come ba…”

“Thank you very much for returning, Baroness Chapman, because I have one last quick question for you. Would you be able to provide us with an update on the global plastics treaty?”

“You feel that we are taking a lead on this. In what specific ways do you say that we are managing to show leadership in that? What timeline do they have for trying to put this back to an agreement?”

“Thank you very much for returning, Baroness Chapman, because I have one last quick question for you. Would you be able to provide us with an update on the global plastics treaty?”

“Let me begin by thanking the Government for laying this important statutory instrument. The Liberal Democrats welcome this uplift in the minimum wage. We all have constituents who we know are struggling to make ends meet. Nobody should be in a position where they cannot pay their bills despite being in employment. I am…”

“Okay. I will leave it there. Importantly to me, the Climate and Nature Bill’s passage was paused, partly because the Government gave a commitment to providing annual climate and nature statements in Parliament. I know that Ed Miliband has committed to doing this. Is that an opportunity for joint statements? Do you supp…”

“It is, yes. It is removing a piece of infrastructure, an asset, which is terrifyingly dangerous. Even so, the funding is disappearing.”

“Good afternoon. I wanted to ask you a bit more about something very important to this Committee, which is the cross-Government working. Specifically, I want to know more about the extent to which you can make the case in Cabinet and more widely for retaining the measures that protect nature and the environment. Do you …”

“You will see why I am concerned.”

“The nature recovery fund is in the planning Bill, isn’t it?”

“Having worked on the built environment for the last 30 years, I will be commenting on that, but it is not part of this Committee’s questions. I have my doubts as to how well that is going to deliver. In terms of the OEP’s recommendations, it has suggested amendments to the environmental principles policy statement so t…”

“In answer to my question, what about the idea of an annual statement—the commitment to providing an annual statement on climate and nature?”

“I mentioned before that I have certain concerns about the nature restoration fund. Having spent 30 years as an architect and working in the built environment, most of my SME developers that I have spoken to over the last few months about this are very worried. They are quite happy to deliver on-site gain—in fact, it he…”

“That is all very well in an urban context. If you live in a rural community where there are no buses, you cannot get out of your housing estate. If your housing estate is the one where the wonderful new forest is 15 miles away, it might as well be on Mars. Yes, in principle and, yes, it works for urban conurbations, bu…”

“As I said, it is the onsite that is the biggest issue. If you have a large development in your area—around your town—and your town is being doughnutted by development, you would like to see that biodiversity net gain. However much you care about the planet, you might also care about your local area, and you might like …”

“What sort of progress do you think has been established in the publicly accessible register of onsite biodiversity net gains with local authorities? While we are thinking about that part of it, what impact do you think the plans for devolution—changing the scale of some local authorities—will have on local authorities’…”

“That is offsite.”

“There is a feeling in most of our constituencies that there is a lack of transparency about what biodiversity net gains have actually been provided on developments. There is a sort of scepticism—which, unlike the Minister’s, is growing—about whether those biodiversity net gains are actually happening. That is why a pub…”

“That sounds like an idyllic situation. It is not one that is very familiar to me in my constituency of Chippenham, I confess. People facing a planning application as local residents are keen to see onsite biodiversity net gain happen, whereas the offsite biodiversity net gain is much less tangible. They therefore feel …”

“On the question of improvements to the national planning policy framework, do you think there is enough in there to encourage developers to properly engage with this?”