Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Wednesday 27th October 2021 Ministerial Corrections

Topical Questions

The following is an extract from topical questions on 26 October 2021.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the Secretary of State to her place. Yesterday, it emerged that the Prime Minister’s pleading at the G7 and the United Nations to deliver £100 billion of climate finance has failed. With that, we had another example of the waning global influence of this Government in retreat. I had hoped that the new Foreign and Development Secretary would have put a stop to that, but her first act was to sign off on savage aid cuts to climate programmes and climate-vulnerable countries, disproportionately impacting women and girls, weeks before the most important climate summit of our lifetime. Does the Secretary of State agree that cuts to programmes such as the green economic growth initiative to preserve Papua’s 90% forest cover, and cuts to the aid budget, have actively undermined the UK’s ability to deliver not only at the conference of the parties, but on the world stage, exposing global Britain as little more than a slogan?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I do not agree with the hon. Lady’s analysis at all. We are making very positive progress on COP26; only this morning, we heard Australia’s announcement about its commitment to net zero. I am looking forward to attending COP in Glasgow next week and presenting a very ambitious finance package. Only a few weeks ago, when we were in the United States, we saw it commit to over £11 billion of climate finance. There are trillions available in the private sector that we will be unlocking to deal with the climate crisis.

[Official Report, 26 October 2021, Vol. 702, c. 134.]

Letter of correction from the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss).

An error has been identified in my response to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill).

The correct response should have been:

[Elizabeth Truss]

I do not agree with the hon. Lady’s analysis at all. We are making very positive progress on COP26; only this morning, we heard Australia’s announcement about its commitment to net zero. I am looking forward to attending COP in Glasgow next week and presenting a very ambitious finance package. Only a few weeks ago, when we were in the United States, we saw it commit to over $11 billion of climate finance. There are trillions available in the private sector that we will be unlocking to deal with the climate crisis.