Westminster Hall

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Westminster Hall

Wednesday 30 April 2025

[Martin Vickers in the Chair]

Global Deforestation

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Westminster Hall

11:39

[Barry Gardiner (Brent West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government policies to limit global deforestation.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair for this debate, Mr Vickers. I know how important these matters are to your constituents in Brigg and Immingham, as they are to mine in Brent West.

It may seem strange to start a debate on policies to combat deforestation by speaking about rivers, but I want to pose a challenge to colleagues this morning, to see whether any of them can name the largest river on the planet. I will happily give way to anyone who thinks they can.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)]

Is it the Plate?

[Barry Gardiner]

No, it is not the Plate. It is not the River Nile, and it is not the Amazon, but if anyone thought it was the Amazon, they are getting close. The river I am speaking of is actually, for the most part, invisible and airborne. Every day, 20 billion cubic metres of water—that is 20 billion metric tonnes of water—is pushed up into the atmosphere by the forests of the Amazon basin. That water does not stay in the atmosphere; it is not like evaporation from the oceans. It is generated by a unique combination of the organic forest interacting with the inorganic atmosphere. It is seeded with microscopic spores of pollen and fungi. These make the Amazonian clouds heavy, which means that all that water rains back down across the continent, replenishing the forest and irrigating a land mass that otherwise would probably be a desert. The Amazon river as we know it—all 4,000 miles of it—pours just 17 billion tonnes of water into the Atlantic ocean every day, so the invisible river of transpiration beats it by 3 billion tonnes a day. Imagine the power it takes to push 20 billion tonnes up into the atmosphere.

On Brazil’s border with Paraguay is the Itaipu dam, the second most powerful hydroelectric power station in the world after the Three Gorges dam in China. Itaipu’s capacity is 14 MW. That is about four and a half times the capacity of Hinkley Point C, if Hinkley ever manages to get built. We would need 5,000 Itaipu power stations to push the 20 billion tonnes of water up into the atmosphere that that forest does every single day.

Forests are amazing. The Amazon is not alone, of course. The second lung of our planet is the Congo basin in Africa, and while we are talking about famous dams, it is worth noting that the Aswan dam, some 2,000 miles away, relies for 85% of its power on water that the Congo forest transpiration has deposited into the Ethiopian highlands, coming down through the Nile to Aswan.

Forests are amazing, or, to be a little more scientific about it, forest ecosystems provide critical and diverse services to human society. They are a primary habitat for a wide range of species. They support biodiversity and conservation. Forest growth sequesters and stores carbon from the atmosphere. It contributes to regulation of the global carbon cycle and mitigates climate change. Healthy forests produce soil and conserve it. They stabilise stream flows and water run-off, preventing land degradation and desertification. Forests reduce the risks of natural disasters such as droughts, floods and landslides. They contribute to poverty eradication and to economic development by providing food, fibre, timber and other forest products for subsistence and income generation. They are a key genetic source for the pharmaceutical industry, contributing to global human health, and they even serve as sites of aesthetic, recreational and spiritual values in so many cultures.

Forests may be home to 80% of land species, but they are also vital to the survival of our own. They produce 40% of the oxygen we breathe, support 1.6 billion livelihoods and play a crucial role in holding back a climate disaster on a massive scale.

What about deforestation? That has been happening for a long time. In fact, since the end of the last ice age, the world has lost one third of all its forests—that is about 2 billion hectares, or two United States of Americas. But even though it has been happening for about 11,000 years, the rate of acceleration is rather recent and incredibly alarming. More than half of all the forest lost since the Pleistocene has gone in the last 125 years—1.1 billion hectares gone.

The drivers of deforestation are well known. Agricultural expansion remains the single largest cause, and according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, is responsible for 88% of global deforestation. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that it contributes 11% of global carbon dioxide emissions. Similarly, in its report on deforestation in January last year, the Environmental Audit Committee identified what we might call the seven deadly sins of deforestation—the seven commodities that are driving 90% of global deforestation: beef and leather, soy, timber, palm oil, paper, rubber and cocoa.

However, the EAC was only picking up on the Global Resource Initiative taskforce’s recommendations from 2020. I commend the previous Conservative Government for establishing the GRI taskforce under the chairmanship of Sir Ian Cheshire as part of the 25-year environment plan. Sir Ian realised that if the market was to transition to sustainable commodity supply chains, it would need Government to adopt a strategic, co-ordinated approach to align and accelerate action.

The Government’s response to the taskforce’s 14 recommendations showed real understanding of the issues. They said:

“When nature’s free services fail, the poorest people suffer first and worst. Over a billion people rely directly on forests for their livelihoods—including indigenous peoples who look after around 80% of biodiversity.”

They continued:

“Protecting and restoring mangroves, forests, and peatlands could provide around a third of the most cost-effective climate change solutions we need, while supporting species and helping communities adapt to become more resilient. Shifting towards more sustainable forms of agriculture would not only protect the planet’s lungs, but it could add a further $2.3trn in productive growth to the global economy and create a further 200 million jobs by 2050…We know that there is no pathway to Net Zero emissions—or indeed the Sustainable Development Goals—that does not involve protecting and restoring nature on an unprecedented scale. But despite the huge contribution nature can make, it attracts just 3% of global climate finance.”

I suspect that the excellence of that written response is directly attributable to the noble Lord Goldsmith. But an excellence of understanding requires an excellence of follow-through, and that was less excellent.

It is true that in response to the taskforce’s recommendation to mobilise

“a global call for action to tackle deforestation and build sustainable commodity supply chains in the lead up to COP26”,

the Johnson Government did deliver a call to action—but a call to action and action are two different things. Yes, more than 100 global leaders signed up to the pledge to halt deforestation by 2030, and, yes, 30 financial institutions, managing nearly $9 trillion in assets between them, promised to disclose the

“deforestation risk and mitigation activities in their portfolios”

by 2023, and to eliminate harmful practices from their portfolios by 2025. But ’23 has come and gone. Today it is 2025, and we are still not eating the

“guilt free chocolate…that’s carbon not calorie guilt free”,

that Boris Johnson boasted about. We are nowhere near on track to halting forest loss by 2030.

One of the things that fuels people’s disillusionment with politics is that so much fanfare surrounds policy announcements, but so little of the hard graft of delivery gets done after the announcements have been made. The public understand that our diets and supply chains are deeply entwined with this issue. We may not see the bulldozers or the farmers who are eking out a living with slash and burn, but the products we consume every day, from chocolate bars to cooking oils, link us directly to the deforestation that we say we want to stop. If we told the public that we had just destroyed the entire New Forest, they would be horrified, yet that is the area of forest that our failure to enact the due diligence recommendations has eradicated since 2021. With that knowledge comes the understanding that we are complicit.

But there is only so much that people can do through their individual action and choices. That is why the taskforce’s recommendations about a due diligence obligation were so important. It said that the Government should “urgently” introduce

“a mandatory due diligence obligation for companies that place commodities and derived products that contribute to deforestation on the UK market”,

and that they should take action to ensure that similar principles are applied to the finance industry. That due diligence obligation would require companies to analyse the presence of environmental and human rights risks and impacts within their supply chains, take action to prevent or mitigate them, and publicly report on actions taken and planned. The financial sector would also be covered by a similar mandatory due diligence obligation, requiring it to exercise due diligence to ensure that its lending and investments do not fund deforestation.

The taskforce demanded action, and in the Environment Act 2021 it got a pale version of it. The Act introduced measures to prohibit UK businesses from using commodities grown on illegally deforested or occupied land. At the COP28 summit in Dubai in 2023, the UK delegation announced the list of commodities that could be included in environmental law and explained that businesses with more than £50 million in global annual turnover that use more than 500 metric tonnes of commodities a year would need to source from land they could prove was not illegally deforested.

Although well intentioned, by focusing on legality, the Act failed to hold out an absolute standard of whether the supply chain was in fact involved in deforestation. It ignored the fact that politicians such as Jair Bolsonaro would simply change their domestic legislation to grant legal status to what had previously been illegally deforested land, and so get round the Act’s intention.

The failure to impose adequate due diligence on companies, banks and finance houses and institutions has meant that, since the Glasgow declaration, UK banks have provided more than £1 billion to companies that present a forest risk. Last July, UK investors still held £1.4 billion-worth of assets and shares issued by these companies. The largest 50 of those investors make up 99% of the total UK forest-risk investments, yet 18 of them were actually signatories to the net zero asset managers initiative. Sadly, just eight have made any clear public commitment to eventually removing deforestation from their portfolios. That leaves 42 that should be ashamed of themselves.

Three names stand out, but for all the wrong reasons: HSBC, Barclays and Standard Chartered. Between them, those three banks have provided 97% of the £4.5 billion-worth of credit lines for forest-risk companies since the Paris agreement was signed in 2015. It is not just in government where there is a gap between policy and action. In 2017, HSBC committed

“not to provide services to customers either directly or indirectly involved in deforestation”.

In fact, it has provided credit lines amounting to £1.9 billion to forest-risk companies such as JBS, the world’s largest meat company, which, despite a record of corruption and forest destruction, just last week was approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission to list on the New York stock exchange, giving it access to new sources of finance and capital markets. It is, of course, just a few months since JBS dropped its net zero by 2040 climate pledge, claiming, “Well, it was never a formal commitment.”

The Environment Act was an important marker that the UK takes seriously its role in the global supply chain, and that it wants to lead the way and manage the responsibility that comes with it. But a marker only stands in place of action for so long. Four years later, it has become an ironic sign of failure.

UK financial institutions continue to bankroll deforestation. Trade agreements lack meaningful environmental safeguards, and indigenous land defenders face daily violence and intimidation. Unsustainable logging fuels forest destruction; weak governance and corruption continue; and infrastructure projects and mining operations further encroach on forested lands, fragmenting ecosystems and threatening indigenous territories. Land tenure insecurity, poor enforcement and a lack of economic alternatives all conspire to make deforestation a systemic problem.

There can be no one silver bullet but, my goodness, there must be a desire to start. With COP30 this November being hosted in Brazil, there is a compelling case to move from intention to delivery. First, the Minister knows only too well that we must urgently expand the due diligence regime to cover all forest-risk commodities, whether legal or illegal, under producer country law. We should introduce criminal liability for companies knowingly profiting from deforestation, and require UK banks and investors to disclose their deforestation risk.

There will need to be a phased timeline, but my question is not when it will be done but why it has not been done already. If we understand where the blockage in the machinery is, perhaps we can help apply a bit of pressure to assist the Minister in getting it done. I know she will be keen to do so. Some say the blockage is in the Cabinet Office, some say Northern Ireland and the Windsor framework. I would point out to the Minister and her ministerial colleagues that the strong due diligence measures of the European deforestation legislation are due to come into force in December this year. It would be best if the regulation of the whole of the UK were consonant with that. Will the Minister set out a clear timeline for the full implementation of schedule 17 to the Environment Act?

Secondly, the UK must champion a trade model that values environmental protection and human rights. As the UK is in advanced trade negotiations with the EU and India, and to a lesser extent with the USA, what discussions has the Minister had with her colleagues in the Department for Business and Trade about the need to embed deforestation safeguards and environmental standards in all future trade agreements? I immodestly recommend to her the blueprint set out in the Labour party’s green paper of 2018, entitled, “Just Trading: What would a just trading system look like?”, when I was shadow Trade Secretary.

Thirdly, the tropical forests forever facility—TFFF—championed by Brazil, will inevitably assume centre stage as we progress towards Belém and COP30. By using arbitrage between the cost of long-dated Government bonds and loans and the returns of a more diversified portfolio, the TFFF fund seeks to provide a long-term payment for conservation and restoration of tropical forests. The facility would help to address a significant market failure, placing a value to the ecosystem services that those forests provide, and returning that to the forest communities that curate them.

Will the Minister tell us how the UK will be involved in the TFFF? What conversations has she had with colleagues in international development? How will the fund prioritise and reward the role of indigenous and traditional knowledge partners in forest stewardship? She knows that indigenous peoples need specific legal protections, recognition and direct funding. Forests thrive when indigenous rights are upheld. Our aid and climate finance must prioritise those locally led solutions. That is fundamental, not just for nature and climate mitigation, but for justice, for addressing poverty and for human rights.

The establishment at the convention on biological diversity COP16 meeting in Rome of the Cali fund, which commits 50% of its resources to indigenous communities, was an overdue recognition of their role as custodians of forests and the nature and biodiversity that make them. I ask the Minister to update the House about the steps our Government are taking to help operationalise that fund, and to ensure that its resources reach those local communities quickly and without loss. Can she tell us whether and how indigenous communities are represented on the fund’s board of management, and how the Cali fund will work alongside the TFFF? Is the UK planning to invest in the TFFF, and now with the 40% cut in official development assistance from 0.5% to just 0.3% of GNI, what will happen to the £11.6 billion that was ringfenced for climate in ICF3, and the £3 billion within that that was further ringfenced for nature?

After years of declining indicators, we now have an opportunity to reverse the trend of deforestation. I am proud of the direction that our Labour Government have taken since July, from creating a special envoy for nature to committing to deliver three new national forests. Domestically, the Government are investing up to £400 million in tree planting and peatland restoration over 2024-25 and 2025-26. However, if we are to lead globally we must also act globally, and that includes how we mobilise capital. Public funding is crucial, but on its own it is not enough. We need to unlock private finance to support conservation and sustainable development, especially in regions safeguarding the planet’s remaining great forests, and that means scaling up tools such as green bonds, blended finance and debt-for-nature swaps. The City of London can and should be a hub for that kind of innovation, not only for climate finance, but for nature-positive finance.

We sometimes hear the environment and the economy pitted against each other, as if nature is a subset of the economy. Of course the truth is the other way round, because without nature and the ecosystem services that it provides, there is no economy, and the most vital part of that nature is our amazing forests.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Martin Vickers (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called to speak in the debate. I will not impose a formal time limit at the moment, but I will be calling the Front-Bench speakers at 10.28 am. Jim Shannon will show us how it is done.

09:52

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers—you have set me a challenge, and it is one I will adhere to. I thank the hon. Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) for opening this debate. During my time in this Parliament he has always shown himself to be enthusiastic and energetic on these subjects. He always speaks with a knowledge that I appreciate—I think we all do, to be fair—and today he has exemplified that incredibly well. I thank him for that, and for reminding us all, including me, of the importance of such debates.

Deforestation poses, and indeed has posed, a massive global issue for quite some time. It was sad to listen to the hon. Gentleman’s opening remarks and the issues raised, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister about a way forward, just as we always look to getting things right and doing better. I would also like to give some insight into our local situation. I know this debate is about global deforestation, but perhaps I can give some facts about back home, as that adds to what we are doing here on deforestation.

Approximately 8.6% of Northern Ireland’s land is covered by woodland, which is among the lowest in Europe. Between 2000 and 2023, Northern Ireland lost some 21,700 hectares of natural forest, representing an 11% decrease, so there is more that we can do back home. I declare an interest as a landowner and a farmer. Some 15, or perhaps 20 years ago, we planted 4,500 trees, so that is the small part that I and my family played on this issue. Storms take their toll, but I am glad that out of 4,500 trees we lost only 12, and they have been replaced. That is what we do.

The United Kingdom has approximately 3.25 million hectares of woodland, accounting for about 13% of its total land area. The impacts of deforestation are often underestimated. The Environmental Audit Committee, which has done an incredible job, concluded that forests hold some 80% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity and support the livelihood of 1.6 billion people. That is 25% of the world’s population, so forests are incredibly important for a quarter of the world’s population. They also support the livelihood of 90% of the world’s population who live in extreme poverty, so the impact upon them is greater than ever. Those people depend on forests for some part of their livelihood. Poverty is a massive issue around the globe, and ultimately, once forests and trees are removed, the resources that thousands of people required to survive are destroyed. We have just been reminded about that 500-year-old tree in London that was cut down. When we cut it down, we cannot just grow it the next day. There is a court case ongoing, so I will not be saying too much, but when a tree is cut down, it cannot just be planted the next day and got back to where it was. Those are the things that we must remember—the resources that thousands of people require to survive are destroyed.

The same report stated that we, the United Kingdom, are a significant consumer of commodities linked to deforestation. I gently remind us all that the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds estimated that UK imports of forest-risk commodities, such as soy, beef, leather and coca, account for a land footprint equivalent to 88% of the UK in size every year, which is massively huge. Just think of what that means to all of us in this world today. Our responsibility is not just for ourselves, but for others, and not just our constituents—who our first obligation is to—and our families, but to the world family.

We have made progress through the Conference of the Parties in the past, but it is evident that there is still so much more to be done to have maximum impact. It is important to take our forest-risk commodities into consideration and analyse what impact they are having on other countries across the globe. That is part of our responsibility as a caring nation and a compassionate people. That can be done collectively within our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but also working alongside our NATO partners.

I look forward to hearing from the Minister what our Government can do in this place to ensure progress, not only with the commitment to our global partners—we must continue to work with them, and do so more effectively—but by taking into consideration the benefits of maintaining good forestation in our own country, for the sake of our environment and climate change commitments.

09:30

[Alex Sobel (Leeds Central and Headingley) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) for securing this debate. It is a really important issue, which looms large over us.

I want to talk about one specific project that could be absolutely devastating for the global climate and biodiversity. We always talk about the Amazon, but the world’s third largest rainforest is on the island of Papua, in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. A huge shadow looms over Indonesia’s forests. We have seen recent media coverage in the British, Indonesian and international press about an initiative that has been described as the world’s largest deforestation project. That project, backed directly by the Indonesian Government, is targeting 3 million hectares of moist tropical forest, dry forest, mangrove and wetland for conversion to huge commercial rice and sugar cane plantations in the district of Merauke, West Papua. That is an area one and a half times the size of Wales—or, as there are so many Members, including myself, with strong Yorkshire connections, three Yorkshires. Similar projects in Borneo and Sumatra are threatening orangutans, tigers and other critically endangered species.

Battalions of soldiers from the Indonesian military have been deployed to clear land and quell resistance from local and indigenous communities, many of whom strongly oppose the project but lack the rights and means to protest. West Papua, in particular, is a highly militarised territory, which is effectively under military occupation and rule. Community leaders who object face violence and intimidation in a landscape already marred by a conflict that is now 60 years old. The communities are also not even being recompensed properly for the land. There are reports that some communities are being forced to sell concessions within the state plantation for £5 an acre. The value of the timber alone should make the land worth many hundred times that.

Indonesia has a long history of failed mega-projects. Similar mega-projects failed in the past because draining wetlands makes the soil more acidic and farming more difficult. Once cleared, vast stretches of forest are abandoned and burned, as we have previously seen in the Amazon. Indigenous people rely on natural forests for hunting and gathering, and burn waste wood for cooking, so the practice increases malnutrition and disease, and affects the whole lifestyle of indigenous people.

From an environmental point of view, the project will destroy globally critical habitats, triggering irreversible ecosystem degradation on a vast scale. It is estimated that this one project in Papua will release an estimated 782.5 million tonnes of additional CO2, which is equivalent to a carbon loss valued at £2.1 billion. That means that the Merauke food and energy estate alone could more than double Indonesia’s emissions.

Like the UK, Indonesia is signed up to the Paris agreement and COP, as well as to the CBD protocols. The astonishing impact of the project threatens to completely undo any progress Indonesia has made in reducing deforestation and undermine the UK Government’s efforts to help the country to drive down forest loss and meet its climate targets. Some 10,000 hectares of land have already been destroyed, but that is a minute amount compared with what we could see.

Where does the UK come in? In November 2024, the UK and Indonesian Governments agreed to work together in on new strategic partnership, which they stated is designed to provide

“a framework, grounded in the principles of mutual respect and cooperation, to deliver the full potential of our relationship”.

The partnership will engage

“our respective businesses, academia and research institutions, cultural organisations and wider societies.”

In addition to having closer political, economic and societal ties, Indonesia is an important partner for the UK in advancing our shared global climate commitments, particularly with regard to the protection of forests. Through programmes such as the forestry, land use and governance programme, the UK is working with Indonesia to address deforestation and promote sustainable forest management to combat climate change. The work is critical and has contributed to a significant decrease in deforestation since 2020. I pay tribute to the former Minister Lord Goldsmith, with whom I have discussed this matter many times, including at COPs.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brent West mentioned schedule 17 to the Environment Act 2021. When it is finally implemented, it should ensure that products that contain palm oil or cocoa that have been grown on recently deforested land such as Merauke—palm oil and cocoa could well end up being grown there, because the land is not at all suitable for rice growing—are not sold in the UK. That is the intent behind schedule 17, and its implementation is long overdue.

My hon. Friend also made the point that responsibility for this matter sits across a number of Departments, but as we are in a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs debate, I will address my questions to the DEFRA Minister. Given the new partnership framework with Indonesia, and the UK’s status as a respectful but critical friend of Indonesia, do the Government intend to provide technical analysis, advice and support to help the Indonesian Government to find ways of meeting the country’s food and energy needs that do not require setting off such a climate time bomb as the Merauke project? Given the UK’s global forests agenda, its leadership role in the Glasgow declaration, and existing trade partnerships, does the Minister believe this is an opportunity for the UK Government to take diplomatic action regarding this colossal project, given not just its implications for deforestation but its devastating impact on indigenous communities?

10:04

[Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner)—in this case, he is a friend—on raising a matter of paramount importance that will affect the future of our children and grandchildren. I am fortunate enough to have five of the latter. I decided to participate in this debate having yesterday received a work of fiction, in the form of a briefing note from the Drax organisation. I also had the good fortune yesterday to meet two charming ladies, Dr Krystal Martin and Katherine Egland, both from the United State of Mississippi, where Drax has an operation that is hugely impacting their lives and their communities.

I am a simple man and I find long equations hard to follow, but it strikes me that if someone fells carbon-sequestering trees, using power to do so, and if they turn the wood into pellets, using power, transport those pellets across the United States, by either water or land, and then transport those pellets across the Atlantic in diesel-powered boats, the chances are that they are using quite a lot of carbon. It strikes me that Drax’s claim that its operation is somehow carbon-friendly has to be a myth.

One of my wiser colleagues reminded me that, for Drax, the clock starts ticking when the pellets arrive at the power station gates, and everything that goes before is written off. This is an absolute nonsense. It was subsidised by the British taxpayer to a considerable extent under the previous Government. To give credit where it is due, the current Government have secured a rather better deal than the previous one. Nevertheless, these practices are still being subsidised to a ridiculous extent.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

First, I would like to correct the record, because the right hon. Gentleman is anything but simple. He has always been a leading light in every debate he contributes to. In my constituency we reclaim wood that would have otherwise gone into landfill and turn it into pellets, but unfortunately the Government subsidy for that is about to end, making the situation the right hon. Gentleman describes ever more perverse.

[Sir Roger Gale]

The hon. Lady makes an unassailable point.

This should not be happening. Drax is felling trees in the southern states of the United States—in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana—and throughout Canada on an unimaginable scale. The people at Drax claim that they are using pulp wood from

“thinnings that help to open up the forest canopy and get light onto the forest floor”.

Oh no they are not! They are engaged in scorched-earth forestry. They are felling acres and acres of woodland in the southern United States and Canada, and that is not acceptable. And it is being subsidised by the British Government. Worse still, the health of the local populations in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi is being directly and adversely affected by Drax’s practices.

Drax has lied—there is no other word for it—to secure its contracts and licences. I shall do my damnedest to ensure that the renewal of those licences is contested in every way. I urge the Minister to go back to her Government, particularly the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, to expose the myth that is Drax, and to insist that we must find viable alternatives—not tomorrow, but now.

[Martin Vickers (in the Chair)]

If hon. Members restrict their speeches to four minutes, we will fit everyone in.

10:09

[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) on securing this important debate. When I worked for UK Steel, it was always a pleasure to get in touch with him about carbon sequestration from steel, and it is a pleasure to speak with him now on the subject of deforestation.

Deforestation does not simply cut down trees: it cuts off food chains, collapses ecosystems and drives animals from their homes. It is, as the right hon. Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) said, a global crisis that will have impacts that reverberate down the generations. It is a devastating loss to our planet that up to 15 billion trees are cut down every year right around the world, and it does not only destroy the homes of vital species. I put on the record my thanks to Northumberland College at Kirkley Hall zoo, which kindly hosted me after my election to talk about its great work in preserving biodiversity. Deforestation is contributing hugely to the deeply concerning examples of climate change that we are seeing.

I also put on the record my support for the responsible forestry industry—I have a lot of it in my Hexham constituency, where I see the jobs, employment and certainty it provides to local communities—and recognise the great Northumberland forest plan to plant millions of trees, which has commanded genuine cross-party support in my part of the world. I am conscious that we have local elections on Thursday, but we can get together with the Tory group at Morpeth and recognise that they do have some good ideas occasionally.

We need to recognise that we cannot fight climate change simply by sacrificing biodiversity. In fact, we need to embrace it. We are stripping away the lungs of our planet and the homes of irreplaceable wildlife, sacrificing the Amazon and other great forests at the altar of industrial agriculture, as land is carved out for cattle and soy at the expense of our planet’s future.

I am conscious that the Minister will not be able to speak on issues that affect the Department for Business and Trade, but I urge her, when she has the relevant conversations, not just to look at how we preserve and protect our high food standards. When we look at UK Government procurement, we should look at transport and the other emissions incurred by goods that are brought out of the planet using suboptimal methods, and ensure that, wherever possible, we use the best methods for getting products into the UK and make sure they are produced to a high standard, wherever they come from. That comes up in my inbox an awful lot.

I feel incredibly fortunate to have grown up surrounded by the Northumberland landscape. We must preserve such landscapes not just in Northumberland but around the world. We must protect our climate and confront deforestation head on. I note the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West, and from other hon. Members who have far more experience of this than I do, about the practices of certain large corporations.

To touch briefly on my previous life working in the steel sector, timber and lumber are products that sequester carbon far more effectively. We need to have a truly honest conversation with ourselves about how the 1.5 million new homes target can be achieved using products that are far kinder to the environment, that provide jobs here at home and that provide environmental benefits right across the world.

10:12

[Lillian Jones (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers, and to speak in this debate. I put on the record that I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the wood panel industry.

Our global forests are not just the world’s lungs but help to manage the worst effects of climate change. They lock in carbon, maintain biodiversity and help to manage flooding. The UK’s domestic forestry planting has been in decline since the ’70s, when it peaked at 30,000 hectares per year. Given the length of time required for a tree to grow to maturity, this is an issue that we need to consider now. The UK Government have committed to planting 30,000 hectares per annum by 2030, which is to be welcomed. Although 20,500 hectares of newly created woodland were reported across the UK in 2023-24, we also need to consider the different types of forestry planting and the importance of both productive commercial forestry and broadleaf.

Manufacturing from timber is an important form of carbon sequestration. Whereas recent statistics show a year-on-year increase in forestry planting, the amount of productive forestry has decreased by 4.5%. That limits the ability of the wood panel industry, among others, to meet customer demand. It can currently meet only 65% of customer demand from domestic sources. If the industry had a secure supply, it would be able to satisfy 100% of demand. To reduce our reliance on exports, the UK and devolved Governments must achieve their tree-planting targets and commit to 60% of new planting being made up of productive species such as conifers.

Wood panel products manufactured in the UK recycle waste wood into everyday products in our homes, such as kitchens, cabinets and furniture. The volume of waste wood used for energy sources such as woody biomass has increased substantially over the last decade, and that limits the waste wood available to the wood panel industry and other wood recycling industries.

The wood panel industry is a British manufacturing success story, with British products made from British timber supplying the UK’s biggest brands, such as B&Q, Jewson, Wickes and Howdens. The industry is also one of the UK’s most productive manufacturing sectors, at two and half times more productive than the UK industrial average, and it generates an estimated annual turnover of £1.4 billion. The wood panel industry generates £287 million for the Exchequer annually, through production taxes across the industry and its supply chain, taxes from employee spending, and income tax, as well as national insurance contributions.

More tree planting will help the industry to become self-sufficient, reduce imports and be better for the environment. However, the failure to meet tree-planting targets risks direct job losses in the forestry, nursery and silviculture sectors. Indirectly, it threatens employment in wood processing, environmental services and rural economies. Reduced timber supply and weakened climate commitments may also deter investment, undermining long-term job security and economic sustainability in related industries.

10:15

[Anna Gelderd (South East Cornwall) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on global deforestation, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) for bringing this important topic to Parliament today, and for being a strong voice championing our environment for many years. Protecting and restoring forests around the world is not just about climate and nature, although those are vital. It is also about safeguarding communities and livelihoods, both globally and here in the UK.

It has been nearly four years since the Environment Act passed into law, but we are still waiting for one of its most crucial elements: the implementation of schedule 17 and the due diligence regulations needed to ensure that UK supply chains are no longer linked to illegal deforestation abroad. British consumers want to know that when they spend their hard-earned pounds they are part of the solution, not the problem. People in South East Cornwall want to be part of building a cleaner, brighter future.

Once enacted, the regulations will make it unlawful for large businesses operating in the UK to use products not produced in accordance with local laws in their country of origin. They will require businesses to establish due diligence systems to assess and mitigate risks, and to report with transparency on their findings. Since the Environment Act was passed, UK imports alone have been linked to over 39,000 hectares of deforestation. To put that into context, there are more MPs in this House than there are Sumatran tigers left on earth—that is a crisis.

Forests are the green lungs of our planet, and alongside our oceans they absorb vast amounts of the carbon dioxide emitted across the world every day, every month and every year. They hold 80% of the world’s land-based biodiversity and support the livelihoods of 1.6 billion people globally. I know that this Government are supportive of nature—and of the efforts to protect and restore our natural spaces—and forest dwellers and economic development. But we need greater clarity on when these regulations will be introduced and how they will meet our global commitments to halt and reverse deforestation.

Some British businesses are already trying to do the right thing, but they need clear and consistent rules. The public is with us too. Polling by the World Wide Fund for Nature shows that 70% of British people support Government action to prevent the sale of products linked to those activities.

Moving forward, we have to be fair and inclusive. The UK forest-risk commodities regulation could inadvertently harm smallholder farmers within global supply chains, many of whom are already struggling. We must ensure that the policy empowers rather than excludes, and that it promotes fair compliance costs, living incomes and meaningful engagement with producers, especially those without formal land titles.

Closer to home, we must ensure that the changes do not increase food costs for UK households at a time when many are already struggling. Public food procurement, which accounts for £2.4 billion every year, must support our environmental goals, not undermine them. Public pounds spent should help deliver on climate and nature protection. That is what both the public and the Government want.

Farmers both here and abroad are part of that solution. In South East Cornwall we are proud of those brilliant farmers working every day to feed our communities and steward our land. Agriculture must be part of that sustainable future, and that means supporting practices that restore nature. We know that UK action alone is not enough to protect forests. We must work in lockstep with key partners such as Brazil, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and others to keep forests standing. The bilateral relationships between the UK and our global partners are key.

Brazil is home to a third of the world’s remaining primary tropical forests and will host COP30 in November. Reports of forests being felled to build roads for that climate summit in Belém are alarming, as is the extent to which human activities are impacting on the summit. Unless we can make progress at COP30 on enforcing supply chain rules and holding financial institutions accountable, our window of opportunity to end forest loss is at risk of closing. Will the Minister confirm that the Government, while supporting the Brazilian presidency, will take on that huge task and ensure that they push for the most ambitious outcomes on forest protection?

I also want to see a mention of joint action on global deforestation included in the recent UK-China climate dialogue. I understand that the Government will launch a new UK-China environment dialogue later this year, which is another good opportunity to have that issue mentioned. Will the Minister confirm that she will discuss that point with the Chinese?

Recently, I was proud to meet members of the public from the Congo who are calling on their Government to halt oil and gas expansion. Given the announcement by the DRC’s oil Minister, will the Minister assure Members that work will be done with partners in key global areas to safeguard the Congo basin’s future? Time is not on our side, so when will the Government introduce the long overdue legislation to implement schedule 17 and ensure that the UK is part of the bright future that has been discussed today?

10:20

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your guidance, Mr Vickers, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) for securing this debate. It is very poignant to have it on the day that the Climate Change Committee is saying that we will not reach our climate targets.

I will focus on building on a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd). It is an important issue and one on which the United Kingdom can demonstrate real leadership: tackling illegal deforestation linked to the UK supply chain.

In the Environment Act 2021, Parliament rightly included a requirement for due diligence provisions to prevent larger businesses from using forest-risk commodities that contribute to illegal deforestation. Those regulations are crucial to our meeting our commitments to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030. Yet today, more than 1,100 days have passed since the consultation on implementation closed, and the due diligence regulations remain unpublished and unimplemented. Every hour that passes, an area of rainforest equivalent in size to 300 football pitches is cleared, often to make way for unsustainable agricultural practices. Such destruction not only exacerbates climate change but pushes precious wildlife, such as orangutans, tigers, rhinoceroses, hornbills and elephants, towards extinction. Indeed, as my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall said, there are now more MPs in Westminster than there are Sumatran tigers left alive on Earth, which is a sobering and powerful reminder of what is at stake with this issue.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for zoos and aquariums, I am pleased that Chester zoo, one of the world’s leading conservation organisations, has been at the forefront of efforts to champion sustainable palm oil and combat deforestation. The zoo is leading the way in creating the world’s first sustainable palm oil city in Chester, and it has worked with plantation owners in Malaysian Borneo to restore over 200 hectares of rainforest, reconnecting fragmented landscapes and protecting our critical wildlife corridors.

Chester zoo’s real and practical experience makes it an invaluable voice on this issue, so it is no surprise that DEFRA officials have previously visited the zoo to consult its experts and even filmed content for what was intended to be the public launch of the regulations. That launch was postponed due to the general election, but the fact that it was planned proves that the due diligence regulation is sitting on a desk somewhere, waiting to be published.

The delay in publication and implementation risks sending entirely the wrong message to businesses seeking certainty, to our international partners and to the public, who rightly expect us to lead on this issue. Chester zoo, alongside other organisations, is calling not for endless revisions of proposals but for the Government to introduce their version of the regulations without further delay.

Just last week, the EU proposed adapting its deforestation regulations to streamline their implementation. In my view, that shows that the UK Government should move faster on implementing their regulations to create certainty on this issue. A practical, balanced approach would be for the Government to conduct a formal review 12 months after implementation, which would allow us to address any operational challenges and assess the compatibility of the regulations with the EU’s deforestation regulations.

This is a moment when we can turn our commitments into reality. Introducing the regulations now would honour the spirit of the Environment Act, provide businesses with much needed clarity, and show that the United Kingdom remains determined to protect the world’s precious forests and wildlife. I urge the Minister to act swiftly and to ensure that trusted voices such as Chester zoo and the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums—the membership body for zoos—are included in any future reviews, so that the regulations are grounded in real conservation and operational experience.

10:25

[Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I thank the hon. Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) for securing this debate and for giving us such an educational introduction. It is notable that all Members have spoken not just with passion but with rare unanimity on this topic.

Forests are not merely scenic landscapes; they are the lungs of our planet, absorbing more than 7.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. They house more than 80% of our biodiversity and support the livelihoods of more than 1.6 billion people globally, including many of the world’s poorest communities, yet the World Wide Fund for Nature estimates that we are losing around 15 billion trees every year. That is a direct threat to our climate targets, our food security and our global stability.

World Animal Protection notes that, as president of COP26, the UK introduced the Glasgow leaders’ declaration on forests and land use, but has made little progress in the years since. At COP29, leaders reaffirmed the goal to end deforestation by 2030. We were proud to support that pledge, but words must become action. A number of my constituents, including the children of Old Sodbury primary school, have contacted me to express their concern about deforestation. They highlighted the plight of orangutans and the damage being done by people who are destroying forests in order to grow palm trees for the palm oil used in soap, shampoo, chocolate and many other toiletries and food. I am sure that they will be pleased to have heard a number of hon. Members express concern about orangutans in this debate.

A number of hon. Members, including the hon. Members for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) and South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd), set out clearly the damaging impacts of deforestation, including soil acidification, vast carbon emissions and the damage to people who depend on those forests, including some of the poorest in the world. The new Labour Government have pledged stronger regulations to prevent UK businesses from fuelling illegal deforestation through their supply chains but, as the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) set out, every day of delay allows more trees, and the species that rely on them, to be destroyed. Will the Minister tell us when the Government will put forward the regulations?

The Liberal Democrats would support the introduction of a business, human rights and environment Act to require companies to take adequate measures and conduct due diligence to prevent and manage the impacts of activities on people and the environment, both in the UK and around the world. Will the Minister go further and introduce a general duty of care for the environment and human rights to require companies, financial institutions and public sector agencies to exercise due diligence in avoiding specified products, such as commodities produced with deforestation, in their operations and supply chains, and to report on their actions?

The right hon. Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) raised the issue of Drax. I had a robust conversation with proponents of biomass energy production at one of the many drop-ins in Parliament. That case illustrates why we need to look at whole-life-cycle emissions, not simply consumption emissions, as the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) pointed out. Under the previous Conservative Government, the UK continued to subsidise biomass energy production, particularly at the Drax power station. It burns the equivalent of 27 million trees a year and, although it is classed as renewable under current definitions, that is both inefficient and ecologically damaging. The Lib Dems oppose the continued classification of biomass as renewable energy and would like the Government to change that so that we can focus on genuine renewables such as wind and solar.

We should not forget the problems on our own doorstep, and I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for giving us a Northern Ireland perspective on this. The Woodland Trust has said that, here in England, we have some of the lowest woodland cover in Europe at just 10%, far behind the European average of 38%. In my constituency, where the Liberal Democrats lead on the climate and nature emergency, the council is part of a partnership that has won a bid for the western forest to become a new national forest. It will serve more than 2.5 million people, and the aim is to plant 2,500 hectares of new woodland in the first five years, with an aspiration to plant 20 million trees by 2050. Last year, the Liberal Democrats committed to doubling woodland cover by 2050, and I hope that aspiration will make a contribution to our policy. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Lillian Jones) made the good point that the types of planting are important.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that protecting and restoring forests is essential to limiting warming to 1.5°, and organisations from the World Wildlife Fund to the Tree Council have warned us that delay is no longer an option. Forests do not recognise borders, and neither does climate change. To protect nature, we must act globally, act boldly and act now. According to the UN, we lose approximately 10 million hectares of forest a year—an area roughly the size of Portugal. As a result of the previous Conservative Government’s policies, the World Wildlife Fund and Global Forest Watch rank the UK in the bottom third of G7 nations for its overall progress on halting imported deforestation.

The COP29 declaration reaffirmed the global goal of ending deforestation by 2030. This is not a distant crisis; it is happening now and it threatens us all. I call on the Government to act with urgency and vision, stop subsidising environmental destruction, implement rigorous supply chain standards and work with global partners to safeguard forests around the world. The world cannot afford half-measures. We need real action to stop deforestation now.

10:31

[Dr Neil Hudson (Epping Forest) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I thank everyone for their important contributions, and I am grateful to my good friend, the hon. Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner), for bringing forward this important debate. I have extremely fond memories of our time serving together as members of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in the previous Parliament.

Caring deeply about the world we live in, our precious environment and the people and the creatures that live within it unites us in humanity across this Chamber. Given the hon. Gentleman’s clear and passionate commitment to the natural environment, it is no surprise that he has chosen to bring this topic to Westminster Hall. I thank him again for doing so and congratulate him on his thoughtful and powerful speech.

There have been excellent contributions from Members on both sides of the House, including from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). The hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) talked powerfully about what is going on in Indonesia. My right hon. Friend the Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) made a powerful speech about the implications of Drax. We heard from the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) and for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Lillian Jones). The hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) is a powerful advocate of the work of Chester zoo, which I will talk about later.

As the Member of Parliament for Epping Forest, it is an honour to speak for His Majesty’s most loyal Opposition on protecting our precious forest. My constituents know of Epping Forest’s important role as the heart and lungs for north-east London and our part of Essex.

As Members highlighted, it is vital that we address the drivers and risks of global deforestation. Deforestation is the second leading cause of climate change globally, and is responsible for approximately 10% to 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions—nearly as much as all the world’s vehicles combined. To put it starkly, if deforestation were a country, it would rank third behind only China and the USA for carbon dioxide emissions.

Forests host approximately 80% of the world’s wildlife on land. In the last 60 years, more than half of tropical forests globally have been destroyed, reducing biodiversity and endangering species. Alarmingly, it is estimated that every hour—less than the length of this debate—an area of rainforest equivalent to 300 football pitches is cleared to make way for unsustainable palm oil production. That not only contributes to climate change but leads to a huge decline in precious wildlife such as orangutans, tigers and elephants, jeopardising their very survival as species.

I thank and pay tribute to Chester zoo, which does great work, and indeed all zoos across the world for their work on conservation species. Chester zoo has worked on a responsible sourcing policy for the use of sustainable palm oil produced with the lowest possible environmental impact and without deforestation.

The facts and figures we have heard today are truly shocking and leave us in no doubt about the urgent need to tackle deforestation and the threat it poses to us leaving the world in a cleaner, greener state than we found it. Although there have been positive steps in the right direction in recent years, including a significant reduction in deforestation in some countries, there is still clearly much to do.

For example, a 2024 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation found that while deforestation rates have declined in forest-rich countries such as Brazil and Indonesia—but there are still problems there, we must remember—

“climate change is making forests more vulnerable to abiotic and biotic stressors such as wildfires and pests”.

With demand for wood projected to significantly increase by 2050, it is more important than ever that the Government ensure that the UK continues to play a leading role in protecting the world’s forests.

As the Minister will know, I am proud that the previous Conservative Government had a strong record on tackling deforestation, both at home and abroad, cementing the UK’s position as a global leader. We passed the landmark Environment Act 2021 and supported the recovery of England’s globally rare temperate rainforests, while playing an important role in supporting efforts to reduce global deforestation. In the Amazon, for example, under the previous Government, the UK became one of the largest contributors to Brazil’s Amazon fund and supported measures to address the underlying drivers of deforestation.

That is not to mention the important work that we spearheaded during the UK’s COP26 presidency, including securing a commitment from 141 countries, representing more than 90% of the world’s forests, to work collectively to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030. We have heard that those commitments were made, but we need to hold people to account on that. I was privileged to attend COP26 and see the previous Government in action, working hard on the global stage to tackle deforestation and looking more widely at sustainable ways of using our land, including in agriculture, and making those ways more affordable and achievable across the world. International co-operation is the only way that countries across the world can tackle the threat to our planet and livelihoods that deforestation and climate change more widely pose.

Furthermore, at the COP28 nature day in December 2023, the Conservative Government set out plans to ensure that supermarket essentials are no longer linked to illegal deforestation. I would be grateful if the Minister could provide an update on that important work, and on the Government’s plans to ensure that the UK continues to lead international action to protect the planet’s forests.

Experts recently warned that Governments must take immediate steps if we are to meet the important commitment to restore the world’s forests by 2030, with a key recommendation that countries must strengthen trade agreements and regulations to stop deforestation-linked products from entering global markets. What assessment has the Minister made of such reports? What plans does her Department have to ensure that the UK is promoting deforestation-free trade?

Speaking of upholding our environmental standards worldwide in our agreements and trade, it is important that we likewise uphold other standards in trade agreements, such as animal welfare standards, not least in the current negotiations with the United States. We must hold firm on banning the importation of chlorine-washed poultry, ractopamine-fed pork and hormone-treated beef and dairy. These are red lines, not only for the sake of animal and bird welfare, but for our fantastic UK farmers, who farm to the highest standards of animal welfare, and must not be undercut in an attempt to cut a deal.

This is about not protectionism, but standing up for our values. In that, we, the United Kingdom, can be a beacon to the world by driving up animal health and welfare standards globally. Can the Minister confirm that the current Government will do all they can to uphold environmental and animal welfare standards internationally in their international trade negotiations?

Returning to global deforestation, the previous Government introduced world-leading due diligence provisions to help to address illegal deforestation across UK supply chains through our groundbreaking Environment Act. Ministers in the current Government have said that they will set out an approach to ensure that UK consumption of so-called forest-risk commodities, such as beef, soy and palm oil, is not driving deforestation. They have said that they will do that “in due course”, but they are yet to do so. Can the Minister provide an update on that today? Will she confirm whether the Government plan to introduce the necessary secondary legislation to enact measures in the Environment Act in key areas such as schedule 17?

As the Minister will be aware, campaigners are urging the Government to introduce such secondary legislation before COP30 this November. That is spurred on by recent reports that the UK’s imports of forest-risk commodities are linked to the destruction of forests the size of major cities such as Newcastle, Liverpool or Cardiff over the past year. I acknowledge that the process has not been without its difficulties, but will the Minister set out a timeline for introducing the necessary secondary legislation?

Finally, I would like to mention forest finance. The previous Government doubled the UK’s commitment to international climate finance to £11.6 billion from 2021-22 to 2025-26. ICF has been an important part of the UK’s work to protect the world’s forests, enabling us to work side by side with Brazil to tackle deforestation in all nine Amazon states, and to carefully monitor deforestation across the Amazon region. As we know, the Government recently announced a reduction in funding for overseas development, but they have yet to give details of the projects and initiatives that they will be funding. It is therefore unclear what, if any, projects relating to the rainforests, biodiversity and the protection of sensitive ecosystems the UK Government will support. What engagement has the Minister had with colleagues in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office about such funding, and will she shed light on the Government’s funding priorities with regard to tackling global deforestation?

In conclusion, there is a clear consensus across the House that serious cross-party efforts must be taken to address the threat of global deforestation around the world. While much has been done, much more still needs to be done by the Government and in collaboration with nations around the world to protect our precious environment, the people and the creatures that live within it. I look forward to hearing from the Minister about how the Government intend to pick up the baton from the previous Conservative Government and deliver those global environmental protections for the sake of our planet, and for generations to come.

10:42

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) on securing this debate on such an important issue, and on taking us to the Amazon forest and its atmospheric river. That was a brilliantly poetic way to talk about the aerial rivers that forests produce, and an important way of explaining ecosystem services. We sometimes talk about the forest as if it is an economic asset, which of course it is, but we are not very good at the poetry.

We know that trees bring us peace, shade and joy, as well as all the other stuff. It is important that we talk about the emotional and spiritual connections that trees bring to people and to places, and the threats that they face from deforestation, whether legal or illegal. I very much take my hon. Friend’s point about illegal versus legal deforestation, which is an observation that I also noted about the previous Government’s approach.

This nation is afforesting, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Lillian Jones) stated. We are planting a new national forest, the Western forest, which the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young) mentioned. Indeed, I was delighted to go there and plant a crab apple tree as part of the agroforestry part of that. The forest will deliver flood prevention services and, critically, link up ancient woodland, which has become fragmented in the landscape. It will stretch from the Forest of Dean right down to the Mendip hills—a truly massive undertaking.

We are here to talk about deforestation, which is an issue that touches on many different Departments, including the Departments for Business and Trade, and for Energy Security and Net Zero—I have a DESNZ official with me in the Box, as well as officials from DEFRA. That three Ministers are responsible for international forestry—those from FCDO, DESNZ and myself—shows the complexity around this issue, and explains why I have about 25 different notes in my hand. I do have a prepared speech, which I will try to deliver, but I will also try to answer questions as we go along. If Members feel that we are getting to five to 11 and they have not had satisfaction, I ask them to intervene on me, but I will try to get through my notes.

First, tackling the climate and nature crises is central to the UK’s national interest, for both security and prosperity. Our forests are a strategic asset, and protecting them is fundamental to achieving the Government’s vision for a world free from poverty on a liveable planet. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West said, nature is the monopoly provider of everything that we need to exist. It is not a subsection of the economy; the economy is a subsection of nature.

More than 1 billion people rely on forests for sustenance and their livelihoods. We have heard, in the many passionate and brilliant speeches from colleagues, that forests provide food, energy, water and medicines worldwide and play a vital role in global economic resilience. They host most of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity, including the slightly terrifying giant otters from the Amazon that we can see at Chester zoo. I have never seen anything like them—they are utterly terrifying animals, like something out of “Jurassic Park”, the size of a Great Dane and quite terrifying for those of us who are used to the more manageable British otter.

Forests contain rare and endangered species and, of course, plants that are essential for modern medicines. Almost everything we have, whether aspirin from willow or heart medicines from foxglove digitalis, has come from ancient herbal and medical practices. The biodiversity COP’s Cali fund is an important statement and an important way for the pharmaceutical, cosmetic and beauty companies—who profit from those discoveries and now have access to the data sequenced internationally —to make a contribution to protecting and preserving the future discoveries of medicine and the beauty and cosmetics industry—because their future innovations are literally on fire.

I am pleased that UK officials led the establishment of the Cali fund, as hon. Members know. We will officially launch it at London Climate Action Week in June. I hope we will be able to say more about that in due course. We are also hosting the conference of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services—IPBES, the equivalent of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for nature—in England in February 2026, and we hope to make an official announcement about that. Next year will be a very big year for nature.

We know that forests are major carbon sinks: 662 billion tonnes of carbon, equivalent to 15 years of human-made emissions, are stored in them. They cool our planet, providing up to 1° of cooling at mid latitudes. Hon. Members have made brilliant speeches, so they do not need to hear from me about the problems of deforestation, but time is running out. Deforestation is pushing critical biomes such as the Amazon towards potentially catastrophic tipping points, from which they will not recover. We are seeing annual Canadian wildfires, and even wildfires in our own country, with peat fires. All that is putting a massive strain on forest ecosystems.

I am just as concerned about the collapse of the Russian and Canadian boreal forests, to use another slightly jargonistic word; those northern forests are as important to our ecosystem services and our wildlife as the tropical mega-forests. It is essential that we protect, restore and manage forests in a cost-effective way to tackle climate change while supporting livelihoods. Often, the forest is seen as less economically valuable than other land uses such as cash crops, agriculture, infrastructure and urban development. I remember, on a visit to the eastern Congo in 2008, seeing the Batwa forest people living in a tea plantation. Their forests had been cut down as a cash crop, and they were living among those tea bushes because of the disastrous security situation obtaining in South Kivu at that time.

To halt deforestation, forested communities and countries need money to conserve forests. It must become more positive to conserve them than to clear them. That means three changes: an economic shift that values forests and rewards sustainable practices, governance reforms that support effective forest stewardship and tackle illegal activities, and market transformation here in this country to grow green enterprises, protect nature and enhance local livelihoods—not only livelihoods in forested countries, but changing the way that we as consumers purchase. We have heard about consumer demand leading to 35,000 hectares of forest loss overseas.

We import 45% of our food and 80% of our timber; we are the second largest importer in the world after China. That creates resilience problems for the future. Many sectors are underpinned by forest goods and services. A loss of forest will disrupt UK supply chains and businesses, pushing up prices for consumers and undermining our national resilience.

On the point my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West made about the financial industry, I had a meeting yesterday with Sacha Sadan of the Financial Conduct Authority—not specifically on deforestation, but about the sustainability branding of investment managers. I am pleased to say that the FCA, as the regulator, is taking strong and firm action to clean up greenwashing. If they are called sustainability funds, they have to comply with a series of rules and recommendations. That is why many funds have pivoted to “stewardship”, because they can no longer use “sustainability”. I say that for us all to understand what is happening in the financial context.

We are setting significant steps to protect and expand our domestic forests. Our key achievements include a legally binding target to increase tree cover to 16.5% of England’s land area by 2050, and planting more than 21,000 hectares of woodland across the UK between 2023 and 2024, including 5,530 hectares in England, the highest rate in a generation. When we see this year’s figures, they will be even higher. That is good news on the England tree-planting target. There has been some fallaway in Scotland and a slight change in the mix.

I take on the board the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Lillian Jones) to increase our conifer planting, because that is the productive forest we need. I am going to visit a factory constructing timber housing in Kenilworth and Southam on Friday; I am coming to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) for a three-day visit, because it is so difficult to get to, and to see the brilliant timber production that is going on there, as well as enjoy a midsummer night sky. I have much to do and look forward to.

Internationally, the previous Government persuaded partners to commit to halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation by 2030. We want a just transition for forest-positive economies. That means securing development and the livelihoods of indigenous peoples and local communities, while tackling climate change and protecting nature. Through overseas development assistance, we support stronger forest governments.

I have been asked about ICF. We continue to support Brazil in its development. To begin with the TFFF, we are also supporting Brazil in its development. We cannot commit to an investment while work is still being done to develop the mechanism, but we will, of course, consider it in due course. Forests are a pillar of the UK-Brazil partnership, and we will support Brazilians ambitions for COP30, including through co-chairing the forest and climate leaders’ partnership, which I believe is covered by my colleague, the Minister for climate change.

On UK-China relations, we continue to work with key partners, including Indonesia and China, to support the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change global stocktake objective to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030. On TFFF, we are providing technical assistance. We are involved in all the technical workstreams on environmental criteria, financial mechanisms and governance. From what I have seen, that seems to be similar to the Cali mechanism, which tries to crowd in funding from the private sector as well as public finance, because there is a limit to how much public finance can support this.

[Barry Gardiner]

If the Minister could clarify whether indigenous communities are represented on the board of the Cali fund, that would be really helpful.

[Mary Creagh]

I am afraid I have absolutely no idea; I will have to write to my hon. Friend. That is genuinely not my area.

We welcome the positive conclusions to the COP in Rome. The key outcome is the launch of the Cali fund, which will drive benefit sharing from the use of DSI—digital sequence information—on genetic resources, allowing companies using this information to direct funds towards indigenous people and local communities who safeguard biodiversity. At the biodiversity COP, for the first time we created the process by which IPLCs now have a seat at the table, which is very important.

My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd) mentioned the UK-Indonesia joint energy transition. As I have said, we will continue to work with key partners, including Indonesia and China, on the stocktake that supports the objective of halting and reversing forest loss by 2030. Future ICF is subject to business planning this year and to the spending review from next year. I am meeting the Minister for International Development this afternoon to discuss our approach on that; this is all work that is happening at the moment.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a particularly important region, but it has received less attention and less climate finance than the Amazon and south-east Asia. We are committed to working with others to secure the next phase of support, which will be announced at COP30, for the forests, people and biodiversity of the Congo basin countries. That will sit alongside the pledge for IPLCs’ land tenure. We know that communities are better able to protect ecosystems when their land rights are secure, and that areas managed by IPLCs are better protected than any other areas. The Foreign Secretary has already announced that the UK will lead on this IPLC land tenure pledge.

[Sarah Champion]

Will the Minister be covering the regulations on due diligence and when they will be published?

[Mary Creagh]

I am coming to that. Legislation complements the measures I have described. The UK timber regs aim to eliminate demand for illegally harvested timber, and the EU’s timber regulation continues to apply, unamended, in Northern Ireland. Both regs require operators that place timber on the market to implement due diligence and review their supply chains, and a recent review of the UK timber regulations demonstrated that they have led to a reduction of illegal timber in UK supply chains.

Over the past 12 years, our delivery partner, the Office for Product Safety and Standards—which, again, is part of the Department for Business and Trade, so not my area—has reviewed the due diligence systems of more than 600 businesses and issued 100 warning letters and 100 notices of remedial action. Recent notable enforcement by OPSS includes the prosecution of luxury yacht maker Sunseeker International, which received a fine of £360,000 plus prosecution costs in relation to illegal imports of timber from Myanmar and Africa.

At home, the Government must also abide by the rules we have made. The Government’s timber procurement policy requires all Government procurers and suppliers to prove the legality and sustainability of timber. We will only accept sustainable timber, and we have a wider approach to encouraging legal and sustainable forestry domestically and internationally. We are currently reviewing the timber procurement policy, with the aim of securing better recognition of British certification schemes such as Grown in Britain and FLEGT—forest law enforcement governance and trade—licensed timber.

We are at a critical moment for forests, and the international community must go further and faster to deliver our ambition. We need to tackle nature loss and enhance planetary stewardship. We are working to unlock more finance for nature, promote deforestation-free agriculture and reform global supply chains. Supporting indigenous rights and access to finance are also vital, and require targeted efforts across all tropical forest basins.

COP30 in Brazil, home to the world’s largest rainforest, will be a pivotal moment. We are working closely with Brazil and other partners to ensure that forests and nature take centre stage. We are partnering with Guyana as co-chairs of the forest and climate leaders’ partnership to build a valuable forum for driving wider ambition.

Agricultural expansion, particularly for a few key commodities, is the primary driver of illegal deforestation worldwide. As colleagues have said, the Environment Act made provision for the Government to bring forward legislation to exclude commodities. We recognise the urgency of the task to ensure that UK consumption of those commodities—

[Barry Gardiner]

Before the Minister runs down the clock, I just want to say that it is clear from Members across the House that we will not accept any further delay to the due diligence regulations, and that they must be placed not just—

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

Parthenon Marbles: British Museum Act 1963

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Westminster Hall

11:49

[Martin Vickers (in the Chair)]

I will call Alberto Costa to move the motion, and then I will call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge and the Minister. As is the convention in 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Parthenon marbles and the British Museum Act 1963.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I declare at the outset that I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Greece, and yesterday I attended a lunch with parliamentarians at the Greek embassy—I hasten to add that I paid for my lunch in advance at a cost of £35. I know that the Minister, who is my predecessor as Chair of the Committee on Standards, would welcome and expect nothing less than my making that declaration.

I welcome the Minister to his place, and I hope he is enjoying his role as what he and I once termed the “Minister for fun,” although I do not know how much fun he has been having over the last few months.

I am here today not for Greece but for my South Leicestershire constituents—who, like the constituents of many colleagues, are highly cultured people—and for all British people, who I think could benefit from a deal with Greece on the Parthenon marbles. The discussion about the Parthenon marbles, which reside in the British Museum, is very well known. I want to highlight at the outset that this is not a debate about the background to how the British Museum acquired these marbles, nor is it a debate about apportioning blame or arguing that the British Museum, its trustees or the British people have some form of moral responsibility to return these artefacts.

The sole and exclusive purpose of this debate is to put forward a proposition to benefit my South Leicestershire constituents and the constituents of all MPs across the United Kingdom, on whether a new and positive opportunity has presented itself to the United Kingdom, having left the European Union, to decide how it wishes to forge stronger relationships with each EU member state.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing forward this debate. He is right to say that this is about not just his constituents but constituents across this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I want to read a quote from a report by the eminent historian and senior adviser to Policy Exchange, Sir Noel Malcolm. He found that:

“the claim that Elgin’s removal of the sculptures was illegal is false; the claim that his actions were invalidated by coercive bribery is false; the claim that he acted against the clear wishes of the Greek community is certainly unproven and probably false; the claim that his actions saved the Marbles from an ongoing process of serious damage, dispersal and destruction is certainly true.”

That should be the Government’s clear and unequivocal position.

[Alberto Costa]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his very valued view. I reiterate that this debate has nothing to do with how the marbles came to be acquired by the British Museum. The hon. Gentleman may well be right to quote that individual. My only interest in this debate is to find out whether, in the 21st century, there is a deal to be had that would benefit his constituents. If he bears with me, I will come to the deal in a moment.

The issue at hand is whether a new and positive opportunity has presented itself to the United Kingdom, having left the European Union, to decide how it wishes to forge stronger relationships with EU member states, and in this case with the Hellenic Republic. We all agree that the Parthenon marbles are a symbol of national identity. They are to the Hellenic Republic what the Elizabeth Tower—formerly the Clock Tower, colloquially known as “Big Ben”—is to us in the UK. The marbles were sculpted in the 5th century BC, when Athens was in her prime, and they adorned the Parthenon. They were the backdrop to the golden age of philosophy, democracy and art. These sculptures would have been admired in their original glory by the likes of Plato and Socrates, and they would have served as inspiration to Sophocles, other great playwrights and now legendary thinkers.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My hon. Friend will know Socrates famously said that the only thing worth knowing is that we know very little, but we do know that these marbles are part of western civilisation. They are not exclusively part of Greek civilisation; we all have ownership of them, and the British Museum’s stewardship has been profound and valued. Are we to return every Canaletto to Italy or gain every Hockney back from abroad?

[Alberto Costa]

Most certainly not. I thank my right hon. Friend for his valued contribution. That is precisely the issue that I do not wish to debate. He may well be absolutely correct to say that these sculptures are of such western significance, and that the way in which they were acquired by the British Museum may have been entirely lawful. That is not the purpose of the debate. My right hon. Friend is an excellent individual for wanting to achieve a deal that would benefit his constituents in Lincolnshire.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alberto Costa]

I will make a further point first.

Let me be clear: this is not a debate about returning all the treasures in the British Museum. If it were, we might be here for another century. I put on record that I collect antiquities, so the idea that they should all be returned to their countries of origin is not one that I share.

This is a very specific debate about one isolated group of items that have a strong identity with a friendly allied country. That identity, and that alone, means there is an opportunity for the United Kingdom to materially benefit from some form of deal or agreement that goes beyond simply possessing the marbles in the British Museum. What sort of creative but dignified win-win scenario could be reached between the UK and Greece?

[Andrew George]

I congratulate the hon. Member both on securing this debate and on the manner in which he is approaching it. He is absolutely right that we should not stray into the areas that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) are getting involved in by arguing about the past.

I declare my interest as chair of the British Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures and as someone who has campaigned on this issue. I think it would be better to look forward. The UK’s relationship with the European Union is irrelevant to the strength of the case for having a deal with the Greeks on a return.

Going forward, we need to undertake a gracious act. We have a dishonourable past on this issue, and there is a way to redeem ourselves by doing the honourable thing. We are on the cusp of being able to do that, given the chairmanship of the British Museum and the current political environment—I hope the Minister will confirm that.

[Martin Vickers (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions should be somewhat briefer than that.

[Andrew George]

Sorry, Mr Vickers.

[Alberto Costa]

I welcome the contribution of the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), just as I welcome the contributions of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). It is not so much about making a gracious gesture. My argument is about the possibility of achieving a win-win for our two respective countries that offers the United Kingdom material benefits beyond the mere possession of the marbles in the British Museum.

What if consideration were given to returning the marbles over time, perhaps over a generation—20 or 30 years—as a temporary or permanent loan, or through some other legal device? In return, I would expect the Hellenic Republic to lend some of its most highly prized treasures to be exhibited, on a rolling basis, not just in the British Museum but in principal museums across the whole United Kingdom.

[Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate, to which I am largely sympathetic, even as a member of the British Museum. He speaks of a win-win, for which the Lewis chessmen are a template. One of the most iconic parts of the British Museum’s collection, they were found in Uig in Lewis, in my constituency, in 1831. Six pieces of the set have been returned on a long-term loan to Museum nan Eilean in Stornoway, where they are much admired, 11 are in the National Museum of Scotland, and the remainder are here in London at the British Museum. Perhaps the score is not even, but a deal is there to be done, and the Lewis chessmen provide a template for what the hon. Gentleman wants to achieve.

[Alberto Costa]

I thank the hon. Member for citing the welcome example of those artefacts, which I have enjoyed viewing on a number of occasions.

I want to ensure that every Member of Parliament and, most importantly, our constituents are able to access and see at first hand some of Greece’s most valued treasures. Let me give some examples: the Antikythera mechanism, that ancient Greek clockwork gadget that some have ascribed with a connection to Archimedes—it is basically the world’s first clockwork device, and it could be called a computer; the dazzling treasures of Philip II of Macedon, reputedly the father of Alexander the Great; the bronze statue of Zeus; or indeed the famed golden mask of Agamemnon, which was my introduction to the treasures of Greece when I read the “Collins Children’s Encyclopedia” at the age of six, back in 1977. Greece is replete with superb treasures. Imagine if we had some of those fabulous treasures on rotation in the Leicester Museum to benefit my constituents, or in the National Museum of Scotland or the Ulster Museum.

[Sir John Hayes]

Or in Spalding.

[Alberto Costa]

Or in Spalding, or any other principal museum across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Indeed, the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff would be a prime candidate, as I am sure the Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism, and many of his Rhondda constituents, would agree. The North Lincolnshire Museum, which serves many of your constituents, Mr Vickers, would make a wonderful temporary home for some of Greece’s greatest treasures.

I propose that Greece goes further. The agreement with Greece should permit the same rules for British citizens that apply to Greek citizens when visiting the Acropolis Museum, which is a splendid new museum in the foothills of the Acropolis that could potentially house the marbles. Greece could show its goodwill by allowing British citizens free access to view the marbles in their new purpose-built potential home overlooking the Parthenon.

There is already tremendous friendship and goodwill between our two countries. In 2023, more than 4.5 million British tourists flocked to Greece—the highest number on record. Of course, we in the UK also benefit from thousands of Greeks coming here to study and work. Indeed, some call the UK their home, and they enrich our country.

Let us also not forget our shared history: Britain stood shoulder to shoulder with Greece in world war two. Churchill is often quoted as saying during that war that, “We will not say that Greeks fight like heroes, but that heroes fight like Greeks.” That is a tribute to their courage and loyalty, and to the unshakable bonds between our two nations—not just our history but our shared values and mutual respect.

Greece and Britain are democratic families. Most families have their disputes, but Greece and the UK have none, except this one. We now have an opportunity to heal a decades-long disagreement, and to turn the one and only issue that has ever caused our nations to argue into a triumph of teamwork—a win-win exchange that brings superb Greek treasures to our shores, free museum entrance for British tourists in Athens, and sees the marbles back on home soil, overlooking the Parthenon.

I would be grateful to the Minister if he would, at the very least, commit to writing to me with responses not just to the points that I have raised but, especially, to the following questions. First, have the Government had any communication with Greek authorities since early July 2024 about the status of the marbles? If so, will the Minister write to me outlining the substance of those communications, when they took place and between whom?

Secondly, do the Government consider that under current UK law, the British Museum trustees have the authority to temporarily lend the artefacts to the Acropolis Museum? If so, will the Minister write to me about the terms under which such a temporary loan to the Acropolis Museum could be made?

Thirdly, if it is the Government’s view, on the other hand, that the British Museum trustees do not have the authority, under current UK law, to temporarily lend the artefacts to the Acropolis Museum, what legal changes would be required—and to which Act or Acts—to permit a temporary or permanent loan, with the British Museum trustees retaining legal ownership of the marbles?

Fourthly, under what circumstances would the UK Government be prepared to undertake an assessment of whether there is an opportunity for a mutually beneficial agreement with Greece about the future status of the artefacts? In other words, what conditions would need to be met for the Government to consider it possible that an opportunity presents itself for the UK to enhance its relationship with Greece by viewing the artefacts as an instrument to advance Britain’s material interests?

Throughout my speech, I have sought to avoid apportioning any blame about the historical acquisition of the artefacts. I have also made it clear that the debate wholly and exclusively concerns the use of these specific artefacts to enhance Britain’s relations with Greece through a win-win, mutually beneficial partnership. This debate should in no way give succour to any suggestion that Britain is under a moral duty to repatriate the artefacts, nor does it seek to argue or give strength to any third-party argument that other artefacts possessed by any UK-based museum should also be returned to the country of origin. I do not and never have held that view. As I said at the outset, my sole focus is on how to benefit my South Leicestershire constituents, and MPs’ constituents across the whole of the United Kingdom, by using the artefacts as an instrument to materially benefit their interests.

11:19

[The Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism (Chris Bryant)]

Kalimera, Mr Vickers. It is very good to have this debate and I commend the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) for bringing it to the House. Interestingly, it is the first one on this issue in this Parliament, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak about it.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that UK relations with Greece are extremely warm and tender, and have been for many centuries in many regards. Perhaps Lord Byron is best known in the UK for his poetry, and for being

“mad, bad and dangerous to know”,

but in Greece, he is considered to be quite a hero. That is why I am delighted that we are in the process of having the statue of Lord Byron moved to Hyde Park, where it will have a more prominent display. I know that the Greek Government have been supportive of that. For that matter, I have been to one production of Oedipus in the last few months, and there have been two—albeit rather updated—versions here. I think we all know that Greek culture is a really important part of our foundational understanding of what it is to be a modern democracy. Indeed, the word “democracy” comes from two Greek words, and “telephone”, “oligarchy” and so many other parts of our language are determined by their Greek origins.

The hon. Gentleman was also absolutely right to point to the many millions of British people who go to Greece every year. I think one in four British people goes to Spain every year and one in six British people goes to Greece. That is why it is so important that in the conversations I have had, particularly with my Greek counterparts, both as Tourism Minister and as Culture Minister, we have often focused on those issues more than anything else.

We want to enhance the relationship. This is nothing to do with being a member of the European Union or not being a member of the European Union. I was really delighted only a couple of weeks ago to be invited as a Culture Minister—I think it is the first time this has happened since Brexit—to the informal meeting of Culture Ministers in Warsaw. There are so many areas in which our cultural relationships are intrinsically linked with Greece, not least in our discussions about Ukraine and security in the eastern Balkans. There are so many areas in culture and security where our geopolitical relationship with Greece is absolutely vital. That is nothing to do with whether we are a member of the European Union. That is why we want to press the reset button on our relationship with the EU.

[Andrew George]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I will, but it will limit the amount of time I have to respond to the questions.

[Andrew George]

I welcome the Minister’s opening remarks, particularly about Lord Byron, who, of course, was opposed to Lord Elgin’s actions regarding the removal of the Parthenon sculptures. Clearly, the specific point for today is whether it is possible, under the 1963 Act, for the British Museum to arrange a loan, and whether the Minister and the Government would stand in its way.

[Chris Bryant]

If the hon. Gentleman had let me get on to that subject, we would have got there earlier, but he got to make his point—I think he divided the speech he would otherwise have made into two interventions. That is not something that I ever did when I was—

[Andrew George]

Of course not.

[Chris Bryant]

That is the use of irony, which is also, of course, another fundamentally Greek concept.

I want to say at the outset that the marbles are an extraordinarily significant and important part of Greek and—I would argue—western artistic and architectural understanding. Nobody should ever diminish their importance. Indeed, it is upsetting to think of previous moments when the Acropolis was used as an arsenal, and a big explosion ended up destroying large parts of it. That was many centuries ago. The marbles were built between 447 BC and 438 BC by Phidias, who was one of the greatest of all Greek artists and sculptors. He also designed and built the great statue of Zeus at Olympia, which was one of the seven great wonders of the world, along with the hanging gardens of Babylon and so on.

Many of us who have been to see, both here and in Athens, all the different elements of the marbles know how extraordinary they are, although I worry that we do not quite see them in the brilliance that people would have seen them originally. We know now, from lots of research that has been conducted, that they would have been painted or tinted in some way, and they would really have stuck out. The battle of the Centaurs and the Lapiths, and the frieze with the Panathenaic procession, would have looked very different from how we experience them today.

This is a debate that has gone on for 200 years, although I think the first direct bid from the Greek Government to the UK Government was back in 1983, and it was turned down in 1984. I should make some things very clear. First, the Parthenon marbles—or the Elgin marbles, whatever we want to call them—are not the property of the UK Government. That is sometimes misunderstood, because in different countries, parts of the national patrimony are actually under the direct ownership of the Government. We do not have that structure in the UK. From the outset, the British Museum was set up as an independent body. Its trustees are given fiduciary responsibilities under the British Museum Act 1963 now—it was originally under previous Acts before that—and they have to adhere by them. If they do not, they will find themselves in court. That is one of the aspects of this debate that we have to bear in careful consideration.

One of the questions that has been raised fairly regularly is whether it is legally possible for there to be an indefinite loan. I want to be clear about that issue, because I noted that an article in The Daily Telegraph— I think it followed a conversation that the hon. Member for South Leicestershire had with the paper—talked about an indefinite loan. Let me be absolutely clear that the British Museum Act 1963 states in section 3, on the keeping and inspection of collections:

“Subject to the provisions of this Act, it shall be the duty of the Trustees of the British Museum to keep the objects comprised in the collections of the Museum within the authorised repositories of the Museum, except in so far as they may consider it expedient to remove them temporarily for any purpose connected with the administration of the Museum and the care of its collections.”

It is possible for loans to be enabled through an open individual export licence. They are granted by Government, but can be granted only for up to three years. Obviously, the working assumption of anything that is temporary—a temporary licence— is that it is guaranteed that the items are returning. That puts paid under existing law to any idea of an indefinite or permanent loan.

I have read articles where people in Greece say that they are not interested in a loan anyway, because a loan implies that the marbles still belong to the British Museum rather than to Greece. The important point that I am trying to clarify—because I think there has been some misunderstanding—is that under existing law, it would be impossible for there to be a permanent or indefinite loan. The trustees would be required, in seeking a licence to export, to show that they were absolutely certain that the items were returning. I do not think that would be easy if they had arranged a permanent or indefinite loan—the point being that we would have to change the law. The immediate question that the hon. Member may ask is whether we are intending to change the law. We have no intention to change the law.

I will respond to some of the hon. Member’s other questions in writing. He asked about conversations or communications with the Greek Government on this issue since last July. I have met several Ministers, including Culture Ministers and Tourism Ministers, at various different times. The only occasion on which this issue was mentioned was when the Tourism Minister came to see me on 4 November last year, and she very briefly raised the matter. We mostly talked about tourism, but there was a brief mention of the Parthenon sculptures. I will check if there have been any other communications from the Greek Government since last July, but I am not sure there have been. I may be wrong, so I will write to the hon. Member.

There are provisions in the 1963 Act for temporary loans, and my understanding is that the chairman of the British Museum has been in some discussions. We have not been party to those discussions, but he has briefly outlined some of the issues that have arisen, both to me and to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. I am not aware of any further developments in that area in recent months. If a suggestion of a temporary loan were to come from the British Museum, there is a process for considering that under existing law, but that would—

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

11:29

Sitting suspended.

Safety of Humanitarian Workers: Conflict Zones

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Emma Lewell in the Chair]

16:02

[Mr Tom Morrison (Cheadle) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the safety of humanitarian workers in conflict zones.

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank those who have attended the debate and the Minister for his presence, which is greatly appreciated. Today, we face more conflicts across the world than at any point since world war two. Some 343 million people face hunger and starvation, while one in six children—473 million—live in conflict zones or are displaced, which is the most in recorded history. Despite the dangers, there are an estimated half a million workers in these areas attempting to support those who desperately need it. Rather than running away from the danger, they are running towards it, in an attempt to provide aid, shelter and support to people in need. We should be celebrating them, but instead, we are letting them down.

Last year, 2024, was the deadliest year on record for humanitarian workers, with at least 325 aid workers killed. The majority of those were killed in Gaza. However, the crisis spans across multiple conflict zones, with recorded attacks on aid workers in areas such as Ukraine, Sudan, Yemen, Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia.

Despite being protected under international humanitarian law, these workers are under daily threat from conflict violence such as shelling and shootings. They often face violent intimidation, and there have been several incidents of kidnapping and the use of sexual violence against them. While this happens, the agencies and organisations impacted cannot speak, whether that is due to fear of reprisals or worry that their funding will be cut and access blocked. Many of the people I spoke to while preparing for this debate did so under the condition of anonymity. They need a voice, and today I hope the House can provide one.

Members will be aware of the awful killing of 15 paramedics and rescue workers on 23 March in Rafah. The bodies of the workers were found buried in shallow graves a week later next to their vehicles, which had been crushed. While the Israeli military were quick to claim that they had fired on “suspicious vehicles” driving in the dark without emergency lights or headlights on, video footage released of the attack showed that those claims were false, and that not only were the emergency lights on and flashing, but the drivers left the vehicles as the gunfire started. The Israeli military have since investigated the incident and conceded that there was an “operational misunderstanding” and

“a breach of orders during a combat setting”,

which led to the killings. However, there has still been no independent investigation into the incident.

People will not have missed the significance of the fact that the attack on Red Crescent workers came almost a year to the day after the World Central Kitchen aid convoy attack in April 2024, which took the lives of seven aid workers, three of them British citizens. In that tragic incident, the convoy’s route had been co-ordinated in advance, but the co-ordinates were misidentified.

The humanitarian notification system is used to alert parties in conflict zones to the location of aid and humanitarian workers and their facilities, in order to protect workers in conflict zones. One agency told me how the system used in Gaza is completely inadequate and often ignored. They said:

“At this point we are using the HNS as an accountability measure, not a protective one”.

Another worker who supported a charity working in the refugee camps around the occupied territories of Palestine described to me how the camps he worked in were managed, with no armed support or protection. There had been times when he and the team he was with were completely outnumbered by people clambering for help and support—they were desperate, so naturally things became fevered and chaotic. He said:

“The safest I felt was when I was in the hotel two hours away, surrounded by metal detectors and armed guards. But during the day I was in the camps, with no support or guards in sight—we were completely alone and forgotten”.

A further aid worker told me:

“When you congregate groups of people your chance of being targeted increases massively. We do our best to limit numbers but every single one of our beneficiaries and us…are placed inadvertently at risk whenever we work.”

The picture these workers paint tells a similar story time and again: that humanitarian workers are often alone and unsupported, with no way to defend themselves.

Now known as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, Sudan’s war has seen over 12 million people displaced and over 30 million people needing humanitarian aid. However, more than 387 aid workers have been killed in Sudan over the past five years, with a large proportion of them being national workers. In the last year, 18 workers have been kidnapped. There is mounting evidence that those attacks were deliberately targeted, including aerial bombardments, attacks on refugee camps and violent incidents against local responders.

Islamic Relief, which has offices in the area, has had to relocate several times. One person told me that

“each move was a desperate escape from advancing militias, looters and gunmen. Roads were lined with armed checkpoints, towns were besieged, our office in Sennar even became a target.”

Because of that, many aid agencies are now pausing or suspending their operations in Sudan, leading to a worsening of the humanitarian crisis. I could go on with examples, each worse and more harrowing than the last.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is making a significant speech on something that should concern us all. Does he agree that wherever these abuses are found, whether in Gaza, Sudan or any other theatre, they do not happen by accident? They happen because forces such as the Israeli Defence Forces, for example, are effectively given licence to do this by their Government. That is why, on a Government-to-Government basis, there is something that this country can actively do to make it clear to the Governments responsible for this treatment that it is not acceptable, and that we will take action to highlight their abuse and remove support from them.

[Mr Morrison]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I will speak later about an element of political will that we can partake in to make sure that we crack down on these abuses.

When this debate was secured, I was inundated with responses from organisations and workers who wanted to share their stories and have their voices heard. Although those stories are deeply personal, they all contain the same theme. People all felt that they had been forgotten.

As I said at the beginning, these workers are running into danger to save lives. They are often local responders, people who live in the communities impacted, and are often volunteers. It is incumbent on this House and the Government to do all we can to ensure that those volunteers are safe, protected and supported. Most of the organisations and workers who contacted me mentioned political will. It is clear that the Government need to do more to provide clear, consistent leadership on the world stage. Without that, they risk undermining the UK’s commitment to international law.

[Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that bomb disposal experts, such as the British national recently injured in Gaza, play a vital humanitarian role in conflict zones, and that attacks on humanitarian facilities are a grave breach of international law, which must be addressed urgently through prosecutions?

[Mr Morrison]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. All breaches of international humanitarian law need to be properly investigated and those responsible prosecuted.

In April 2025, the UN’s Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs emphasised that there is no shortage of robust legal frameworks to ensure that humanitarian workers are protected, but

“what is lacking is the political will to comply.”

Many of us have sat in the Chamber and heard the Government roll out the same line time and again when asked to apply pressure on state and non-state actors to comply with international law. The UK Government should not underestimate their power to influence global change; now is the time to step up and be a leader.

I therefore urge the Government to push for greater accountability when violations occur and prosecute those who attack aid workers as breaches of international law. I urge them to work with the UN to ensure that better and more responsive humanitarian notification systems are in place so that they work as protective measures, not just accountability measures. We should train partners to improve security procedures and responsibilities under international humanitarian law, and provide mental health support for workers who have served in conflict zones. I also urge the Government to introduce a presumption of denial for arms exports to Governments listed as human rights concerns in the human rights report from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Finally, the Government must reverse their decision to cut international aid. The world faces the biggest humanitarian crisis since 1945. Not only is cutting the aid budget counterproductive, but it damages our country’s standing in the world. It is clear from the stories many of us have heard that charities and NGOs that are managing vital work in some of the most dangerous situations need more resources to protect their staff and volunteers. The Government must reconsider that dreadful decision.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to open this debate, Ms Lewell. I wanted to use my platform to give a voice to people and organisations that, for many reasons, cannot speak for themselves. We have experienced the most dangerous year ever for humanitarian workers and there is no sign that the situation will improve. It is therefore vital that the Government act now.

14:40

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. You have been a good friend of mine for many years; it is nice to see you in your place and doing well.

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) on leading this debate. I know that others who participate will support what he has said, and they may also give some examples of areas on which we need to focus. There is no doubt that humanitarian workers face unprecedented dangers merely by doing their jobs. We are all greatly in awe of anyone who does those jobs, because of the courage, bravery, dedication and commitment that they show, so I say a big thank you to them. Humanitarian workers doing aid jobs should always be protected. Unfortunately, we have seen too many examples across the world where they have not been offered protection by those who are in a position to do so. So I recognise what the hon. Gentleman said and the importance of giving them the safety and support that they need.

Aid workers are pivotal in providing aid and medical assistance, and they operate in high-tension environments to protect those who are suffering as a result of war. Aid workers really are the people who rush in at the last minute to give innocent people protection and safety, and the hon. Member was right to underline that. It is imperative that we do all we can to support aid workers in doing their jobs, so it is important that those of us who can be in the Chamber are here to discuss giving aid workers the support that they need across the world.

Stats are always important, because they give us an idea of what is happening across the world. The UN data is clear. It says that 2023 and 2024 were among the deadliest years for aid workers. In 2024 alone, some 280 humanitarian workers were killed. Increasingly, aid workers are being specifically targeted. It is not a case of them being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Aid workers are in these places doing their jobs at the right time, but they find themselves being targeted by those who, in many cases, should be there to protect them, and who sometimes just want to destroy the work that they are doing, because they know the impact that it has.

Better protection mechanisms are imperative to preserve the safety of aid workers and to ensure that they are able to do their jobs to the best of their ability. Today in this House, I commend aid workers for what they do and I wish only that others could recognise it in the same way. Not only do aid workers risk their lives every day, but they are a point of contact for those in desperate need. We must recognise the good work they do and protect them, and make sure that that happens.

I will give some recent examples. As the hon. Member for Cheadle referred to, we have seen in Sudan that aid has been obstructed by the Sudanese armed forces. Sudan is one of those countries where the depravity, violence, cruelty and evil of man against man, woman and children are incredibly hard to understand.

The United Nations has reported that 22 aid workers have been killed in Sudan since the conflict there began in April 2023, not to mention the depravity that the killers have shown to female aid workers, who have reported sexual exploitation. I am of a generation who always looked out for ladies. We would open the door for ladies, and let them through before moving through ourselves. We would always carry their bags home. People may say that those are silly things, wee small things, but that was the respect we had for women and ladies when I was growing up. Today, that respect is no longer in the places where it should be. Evil seems to have its way, and I find it incredibly difficult to read some of the stories in the press.

Furthermore, the safety of humanitarian workers in Afghanistan has been extremely compromised since the Taliban took power in 2021. The United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs has identified Afghanistan as one of the most hazardous environments for aid workers globally. Between 2022 and 2024, at least 38 aid workers were killed, predominantly those who carried out polio vaccinations and other medical workers. Some of those involved in education have also been targeted and killed. The restriction on female participation has increased dramatically: women must adhere to a strict dress code and have “male guardianship”. Those are just a couple of examples of the prevalent situation. As an international counterparty, we must do more to protect those who are doing their best to help other people.

The hon. Member for Cheadle was right to mention the aid budget. It is disappointing that the Government have decided to reduce the aid budget; the impact of that will be great. In my constituency, many church groups, through NGOs and the work of their missionary societies, help those who need vaccinations or other treatments, whether for polio or AIDS. The aid budget has done all that good work, but now, unfortunately, there is a question mark over the extent to which it can continue at the same level. I agree with the hon. Gentleman and put on the record my support for what he has said.

The Minister will say that money is tight—he is right, in a way—and I understand that, but something could be done. I suggest that one thing that might fill some of the gap—not all of it, financially, but some of it—is working with church groups across the United Kingdom. They are already out there in Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria, for example, and it is possible to work alongside them. If the Minister has any thoughts and ideas on that, I would appreciate hearing them. A partnership could be arrived at so that such groups could do some of the work that cannot be done with the reduced budget that the Minister now has.

To conclude, we must work alongside our counterparts in the UN to ensure that humanitarian workers are protected. In 2024, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, alongside other countries, formed the ministerial group for the protection of humanitarian personnel. What can be done? The group recommended two practical but important things. It pushed for enhanced digital tracking and safety systems, and for improved local partnerships. Humanitarian workers are always in dangerous situations, given the nature of their work so those partnerships with those on the ground are important. When things go wrong, lessons need to be learned.

I very much look to the Minister for his commitment and response. I know he will never be found wanting in answering my questions and I thank him for that. We must support this initiative and ensure the safety of those who work so hard. Again, well done to the hon. Member for Cheadle. I also look forward to the contributions of the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), and the Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding), on how we can do this better together.

14:49

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I add my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) for securing this important debate.

As a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I have been fortunate in meeting those on the frontline of humanitarian responses, often in some of the most difficult and dangerous circumstances. They are individuals who willingly step into uncertainty. Many do so for less financial reward than they could find elsewhere; they are driven not by salary, but rather by the conviction that service to others is worth so much more. Their work is not getting easier. From Gaza to Sudan, from the DRC to Ukraine, humanitarian workers are confronting a growing number of complex emergencies, where conflict, displacement, disease, food insecurity and climate disruption are regular occurrences.

In 2024, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project estimated that one in eight people worldwide were exposed to armed conflict. Every day, thousands continue their work, delivering aid, supporting fragile health systems and helping communities rebuild. International humanitarian law exists to protect these workers, but in recent years that protection has been eroded. Eight convoys have been attacked, humanitarian staff detained and entire operations halted due to insecurity. The apparent lack of consequences for these incidents sends a dangerous message not only to those in the field, but to the international system as a whole.

The UK should be at the forefront of challenging that trend. We must continue to be a voice to uphold the Geneva convention, strengthen accountability mechanisms and press for practical tools, such as early warning systems in negotiated humanitarian corridors, that allow aid to reach those who need it most. The protection of aid workers should never be up for negotiation and must not depend on whether or not a crisis is in the headlines.

Sadly, the very resources needed to carry out this life-saving work are under threat. The reduction in the UK’s official development assistance from 0.5% to 0.3% of GNI by 2027 will lead to the closure of health programmes, education services and nutrition schemes in some of the world’s most fragile states. At the same time, cuts to United States Agency for International Development in the United States are significantly adding to the pressure that both aid organisations and workers are feeling.

What we are seeing, in real terms, is food rotting at the border crossings, vaccines that cannot be delivered, and aid workers unable to access food, fuel, shelter and basic supplies. The result is not only increased suffering on the ground, but a shrinking of the humanitarian space at precisely the moment when we need it to expand. That retreat is not just a budgetary issue; it is a strategic and moral one. When the UK steps back, others fill the void—often with radically different intentions. We risk weakening the international order that we helped to build; in doing so, we abandon those who continue to act in our name, under our flag and in line with the values we claim to defend.

The Government must also ensure that British citizens serving in humanitarian roles overseas are supported, recognised and valued. One of my constituents, who deployed as an aid worker to Ukraine, shared with me his experience of working under the threat of missile attacks without heating, running water or electricity. He was not seeking praise. He was asking whether this House values public service.

The introduction of the humanitarian medal was an important step, but the decision to exclude from eligibility those who deployed to Ukraine prior to July 2023 is deeply disappointing. For those who answered the call during the largest humanitarian crisis in Europe, the absence of formal recognition feels not only unfair but inconsistent with the spirit of the medal itself. The previous Government explicitly removed the five-year rule, and allowed eligibility only for events from 19 July 2023 onwards. Minister, how many of the British humanitarians who have deployed across the globe will be ineligible for the medal due to the 2023 cut-off point? I would like the Minister to use this opportunity to pledge to remove that cut-off, so that all those who answered the humanitarian call can be recognised.

[Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)]

Would my hon. Friend be so kind as to pass on my gratitude to his constituent, and echo my gratitude for anyone from our country who puts themselves in harm’s way—not for financial recognition, but for humanity, which transcends politics altogether?

[Edward Morello]

I thank my hon. and gallant Friend for his intervention. From someone who has in fact put himself in harm’s way, that is a wonderful sentiment.

There is also the broader issue of how we treat those who work on the frontline of global emergencies, often representing this country’s values abroad. That includes how we fund and support the organisations they work through. We should remember that humanitarian work is not only about crisis response, but prevention, resilience and stability. When that work is undermined, it is not just the world’s most vulnerable who pay the price; it is all of us, because the effects of conflict, poverty and displacement do not stop at borders. They shape our security, trade and the kind of world we leave behind. I hope that this debate will serve as a moment to reflect not only on what humanitarian workers do, but on what we owe them, in policy, in practice and in principle.

14:55

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell, and I extend my gratitude to the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) for securing this extremely important debate. Like others who have spoken, I cannot think of a more noble profession than that of humanitarian aid workers. These are the people who go into areas that everyone else is trying to flee; their work is driven by compassion, courage and commitment to the most desperate and vulnerable. That work is simply indispensable. It is all the more shocking that conflict zones have become deadlier for those trying to help. Aid workers have been kidnapped, injured and killed while performing their duties. Hospitals, paramedics and aid convoys, clearly marked and protected under international law, have been deliberately targeted or caught in the crossfire.

In some places, providing aid has become as dangerous as fighting in the war itself. The statistics speak for themselves. In Gaza, at least 418 aid workers have been killed since October 2023, almost all Palestinian, but including at least eight internationals. At least 1,400 health workers have been killed, although there may be some overlap with the previous number, but that includes health workers and aid workers such as those in the Palestine Red Crescent Society. At least 42 aid workers have been killed so far in 2025.

In Lebanon, Israel has killed over 200 aid workers. Last week I attended a viewing of a documentary called “Under Fire: Israel’s War on Medics”, in which we learned the tactic chillingly called the “double tap”. The double tap is where an invading force will attack a building or location, and wait until the aid workers, paramedics and first responders arrive. After they have arrived, it will then attack the same place again. That has resulted in the death and maiming of many, many aid workers.

[Cameron Thomas]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, which rang an alarm bell in my mind. What he is describing are the same tactics being used by the state of Israel, or at least its Government, as were exhibited by the IRA back in the 1980s: a bomb would be set off and once help had arrived, a secondary device would be set off at the point of evacuation. Does he recognise that as terrorism, as I do?

[Iqbal Mohamed]

That is the classic definition of terrorism, in my view. Some of the killings, such as the murder by Israel earlier this year of 14 emergency workers and a UN worker on 23 March, are reported, but many are not. In Gaza, the lives of those aid workers are casually and brutally taken by the Israeli regime, destroying the entire infrastructure of civilised life in Gaza, and especially the healthcare system. They are targeting and have deliberately targeted the healthcare system as a tactic in war, and to achieve their aims of ethnic cleansing. Their policy is to make life simply unliveable for the Palestinians.

I am not the only one who is struck by the contrast in how the Government respond to humanitarian outrages in Ukraine, with their calls for more sanctions and measures on Russia, and their apparent fatalism when such attacks take place in Gaza. Apparently, for this Government, some lives are more equal than others. That is not the case under international humanitarian law: a Palestinian life is equal to an Israeli life, which is equal to a Ukrainian life and every other life on this planet.

International law considers that all parties to a conflict are obligated to protect aid workers and ensure safe access to civilians in need. We must call for and provide greater accountability for those who target aid workers. We must support stronger security measures and better co-ordination in dangerous areas. Most of all, we must never normalise these attacks.

To that end, I support the calls from the humanitarian charity Islamic Relief for the Government to urge all parties to a conflict to comply with international law, including obligations that relate to the passage of humanitarian supplies, equipment and personnel, and respecting and protecting aid workers; to lead efforts and strengthen commitments to protect aid workers, finalise the political declaration on the protection of humanitarian workers initiated by the Australia-led ministerial group, and commit to concrete actions that go beyond rhetoric, including reporting mechanisms and the monitoring of compliance; and to increase the funding for international and local humanitarian organisations that operate in conflict zones, to ensure they have the resources and protection needed to deliver aid safely.

I was absolutely flabbergasted when the Government decided to slash the aid budget to redirect funds towards the purchase of more bombs, bullets, tanks and drones. Will the Minister share the assessment of the impact of that decision on the safety and security of aid workers? Will it result in a risk of more conflict and wars than there would be if we actually supported the people in need?

15:02

[Susan Murray (Mid Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) for securing this debate.

Across conflict lines from Gaza to South Sudan, the Congo, Syria and Ukraine, people wearing nothing more than a hi-vis vest risk, and too often lose, their lives to keep hope alive. The United Nations warns that 2024 is the deadliest year on record for humanitarian workers, with 325 having died that year, as we have heard. Of course, many of them died in Gaza, including seven people working for the food aid charity World Central Kitchen, who were killed in an Israeli strike. Those who died were Australian, Polish, British and Palestinian, along with a dual US-Canadian citizen. The thought that British-made arms could have been used in such strikes is completely unacceptable. The Liberal Democrats call on the Government to immediately suspend the supply of British arms exports to Israel.

Today, children are dying of starvation in Gaza as Israel prevents food aid from reaching them, while hospitals are destroyed and medical treatment vanishes under the Israeli bombardment. Those who provide lifesaving aid are dying alongside. The protection of committed humanitarian workers is not an abstract principle: it is vital under international humanitarian law and deserves to be properly funded. Safety training, armoured transport, secure radios and trauma counselling all cost money. Yet while danger rises, funding falls.

My constituents in Mid Dunbartonshire care, and are asking me to raise this issue with the Government so that the value and sacrifice of aid workers and medical staff are recognised. The UK aid budget dropped from nearly £15.5 billion in 2023 to £14 billion in 2024—down to 0.5% of national income—and Ministers are now floating a further cut to 0.3%. Every fraction shaved off forces agencies to cancel evacuations, postpone security upgrades and send workers out with less protection. Less money on the ledger means more names on the memorial.

We cannot credibly insist that combatants respect humanitarian space while dismantling the lifeline that keeps that space viable. I therefore encourage the Government to reassess their approach to aid funding and view it as a tool not just to help those in need but to prevent future conflict and protect aid workers. Alongside that, we need vigorous diplomacy to prosecute those who target aid workers. If we truly want a safer world, we must safeguard the people who deliver the world’s help. Cutting aid does the opposite, and the price is paid in human lives.

15:06

[Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) for securing this very important debate.

Our world is becoming more dangerous. Today, more than 120 conflict zones scar dozens of nations. The UN estimates that almost 90% of the resulting casualties are civilians, and the International Rescue Committee calculates that more than 300 million people are in need of humanitarian aid right now. That need is disproportionately concentrated in just a handful of countries. It is in those places, which are some of the world’s most dangerous—Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine, Myanmar and others—that humanitarian aid workers are most needed and most under threat.

The most dangerous year on record for aid workers was 2024, in which at least 325 lost their lives, the overwhelming majority of whom were national, rather than international, staff. We face a difficult confluence of proliferating conflict, even as we reduce funding for development, stability building and humanitarian response. Conflict is changing: fewer wars are being fought between states, and more are fought within states by various armed groups, particularly in urban areas. Efforts towards conflict prevention and peacebuilding are not working, and global tensions are rising. The UK holds an important position in upholding and calling out abuses of international humanitarian law, and in its responsibility to fund development and aid in conflict zones.

I regret that the Labour Government have made the deepest cuts to international aid this century—a shameful retreat from previous Labour Government’s legacy. It is shameful that the UK is not opposing but following the global trend of abandoning international solidarity, certainly when it comes to funding overseas development. I urge the Government to row back on their cuts to aid and stand steadfast as a global development leader.

Although development work needs money, it also requires the heavy lifting of diplomacy, not least to ensure adherence to international law, since aid workers today are facing increasing harm. Aid workers make personal sacrifices and place themselves in harm’s way to deliver lifesaving assistance. It is deeply worrying, therefore, to see a growing disregard for humanitarian workers—indeed, for humanitarian law—in conflicts around the world.

Last month, I took part in the International Development Committee’s trip to Geneva, where we met UN agencies and the International Committee of the Red Cross. The IDC is investigating the protection of aid workers, and I look forward to the Minister receiving and reading our report. I was reassured by the ICRC that international humanitarian law is robust, strong and protective, and that there is no need for a renegotiation of the Geneva conventions, but I was concerned to hear that its implementation is becoming more and more problematic. The problem is not with the law but with non-compliance and attempts to undermine it. There must be more, and stronger, measures of accountability.

The Aid Worker Security Database counted 247 major attacks against aid workers in 2022, 281 in 2023, and 402 in 2024. Insecurity Insight has calculated that instances of drone-delivered explosives directed by named state forces towards aid or health programmes rose by a factor of 25 between 2022 and 2024. In written evidence to the International Development Committee, the organisation also testified that the expansion of violence in major conflict zones has coincided with rising attacks on humanitarian operations, particularly health facilities, camps for refugees and internally displaced people, and aid offices.

There have been far too many horrifying examples. Last year in Sudan, the ICRC lost two drivers to gunmen, and the World Food Programme lost three aid workers following aerial bombardment. Gaza has been by far the deadliest single location for aid workers, with over 212 losing their lives in the strip last year. The whole House was horrified at the end of March by Israel’s killing of 15 aid workers, as mentioned by many Members.

The UK must lead on efforts to stop all attacks on aid workers. The recent cancellation of the conference of the high contracting parties to the fourth Geneva convention due to “profound differences” only underscores the growing challenges for those committed to upholding international law. The Government have repeatedly said they are using their Security Council seat and bilateral relations to encourage aid access and aid-worker protection; will the Minister share what specific bilateral meetings the Government have had with state and non-state actors regarding the protection of aid workers in Gaza, Sudan, South Sudan, Ukraine and Myanmar? What specific steps are they taking to build international support in multilateral forums for protecting aid workers and strengthening the legal frameworks that bind the actions of combatants?

Accountability is critical, both for justice and for deterrence. The UK provides funding for the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court through ODA. Will the Minister confirm whether, once most of the cuts occur in 2026-27, the UK will maintain contributions to international courts, including non-assessed discretionary spending?

The UK needs to ask itself an important question: what does standing up for international humanitarian law look like? We must be prepared to roll up our sleeves and tell our friends and allies to adhere to international humanitarian law or face consequential action. Will the Minister outline what the UK is doing to ensure that there is accountability for all those who attack aid workers?

Most aid worker casualties are nationals, not international, but last year three Britons were killed when Israel struck World Central Kitchen workers in Gaza. This appalling incident highlighted the ongoing need both for accountability and for the protection of the brave people who do humanitarian work overseas, including our own nationals. What steps is the Minister taking to safeguard British aid workers in conflict zones, and those who are completing British projects? I welcome the Government joining partners and allies in September to form a ministerial group focused on enhancing the protection of humanitarian personnel and reversing the growing trend of attacks on them, and urge the Government to push forward with that engagement.

Even as aid workers are kidnapped, wounded and killed, aid itself is too often treated as just another instrument of war. We can see this in specific conflicts. Israel’s total blockade of all aid into Gaza, which has now been in place for more than 50 days, is deepening the already terrible suffering of Gazans. Yesterday, the ICJ opened hearings on precisely this point, and in the Chamber I asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr Falconer) to confirm that the Government will recognise the Court’s judgment, when it comes, on Israel’s responsibility under international law to facilitate aid to the people of Gaza. I did not receive a reply then, so will this Minister please reply today?

Another conflict characterised by the denial of aid access is the ongoing war in Sudan. This catastrophe—the world’s largest—has left 25 million people in need of food aid. Throughout, all sides have blocked humanitarian assistance to civilians.

Changes to warfare are having a profound impact on aid-worker safety. The more permissive environment regarding international humanitarian law threatens medical personnel and infrastructure, which are being targeted. Technological changes to warfare—particularly the use of drones and the rising prevalence of aerial bombardment—are increasing the peril faced by aid workers. Around 60% of aid-worker deaths in Gaza last year were attributable to aerial bombardment. How are the Government’s efforts to safeguard aid workers and uphold international humanitarian law taking account of these specific dangers? How is the UK ensuring that accountability frameworks cover the use of drones and related tactics, such as double-tap strikes?

There is a false belief that democracies will automatically act ethically in war, but the current permissive nature in respect of adherence to IHL has shown that this is not the case. As defence investment increases, there is a need to train armed forces. The UK leads in that regard, so how can it share best practice to ensure that IHL is upheld in conflict zones?

The UK has a leading role to play in diplomatic efforts to ensure the protection of aid workers through upholding international humanitarian law, and I urge the Government to do so with the vigour we would expect from a leadership so experienced in that. But that must be in concert with playing a leadership role in international development, including the funding of deconfliction and the stabilisation of nations. The cuts to UK aid will only exacerbate conflict. I urge the Government to reconsider the cuts, return to spending 0.7% of GNI on ODA, and continue a proud UK legacy. Now, in this deadliest year, it is not the time to row back.

15:16

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. Let me start by congratulating the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) on securing this debate. It is fair to say that hon. Members who have contributed today have demonstrated their knowledge and the conversations they have had with the sector. I think we all agree that those who work in the humanitarian aid sector, especially in conflict zones, do an incredibly important job under very challenging circumstances.

From multilateral to localised grassroots organisations, there are so many in the sector to acknowledge, but in the interests of time I will be brief. First, I should like to thank the International Committee of the Red Cross, the ICRC, which the shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), and I have met recently. Its expertise and neutrality enables it to reach some of the most difficult areas, and it works in more than 90 countries. I also thank Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office staff, who I know work on the UK’s humanitarian programmes; they are highly dedicated individuals, who often work around the clock. We are grateful for their efforts.

Mine Awareness Day was 4 April, and I pay tribute to the HALO Trust and Mines Advisory Group. Those are examples of Great British organisations that work globally to lead efforts in de-mining and restoring land in post-conflict communities. There are some remarkable achievements, but as HALO and MAG demonstrate, there is so much more to do if we are to reach a mine-free world.

Provisional ODA spend figures for 2024 show that £1.4 billion of bilateral ODA was spent on humanitarian assistance—an increase of 60% from 2023. That really underlines the impact of global crises and conflicts. In the 2023 international development White Paper, we outlined tackling conflict and state fragility as a priority. Part of our vision for 2030 was greater emphasis on improving foresight and conflict prevention.

It is also worth remembering that the UK is uniquely placed to be a leader in this area, with our groundbreaking data science, AI, machine learning, and open-source intelligence capabilities. That new technology can be used to expedite forecasting of conflict and mass atrocity risks, buying time for a response from a few months to a few years in advance. There are some specific questions I would like to ask the Minister today. Could he update us on what his Department is doing to continue that work, and what discussions has he had with the UK science, technology, and research sectors to leverage expertise into conflict prevention abroad?

As well as the clear humanitarian need of civilians in conflict zones, colleagues are right to raise concerns about the safety of humanitarian workers delivering aid. I would like to press the Minister on a few of those conflict zones.

First, I will turn to Ukraine. In January 2025, the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated that there are 12.7 million Ukrainians in need, of which 6 million will be targeted by aid agencies in 2025. Can the Minister reassure us on what steps he is taking to support the safety of aid workers operating near the frontlines? Disinformation, including Russian disinformation, is another challenge that can compromise the safety of aid workers. What assessment has the Minister made of the impact of disinformation on the ability of humanitarian agencies to function in Ukraine? What steps is he taking to counter it?

In Sudan, millions of innocent people have been affected by the appalling conflict and the humanitarian need is dire. It was regrettable that the Foreign Secretary’s conference in London failed to settle on a final communiqué among the parties present to agree a long-term political solution. Clearly, a transition to a truly inclusive civilian-led Government is crucial and we should not lose sight of that. On the ground, we know that aid access and delivery is an enduring challenge. What assessment has the Minister made of incidences of aid blocking in Sudan? What steps are being taken to protect humanitarian workers trying to deliver that aid?

In the middle east, we are in a very difficult moment with a breakdown of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza. We need this Government to ensure that the UK is a proactive participant in efforts to find a way through. On aid access, can the Minister update us on the practical efforts he is making to unblock the current situation, including updating us on recent engagement with the Government of Israel on this? What is his assessment of the amount of UK-funded aid that is getting through?

[Iqbal Mohamed]

In the earlier part of the current conflict, where aid was blocked, there were air drops from different nations in the UN. I am not aware of the participation of the UK Government. Does the right hon. Lady agree that there is an immediate need for every single channel through which aid can get into Gaza to be put in place and used?

[Wendy Morton]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I will leave the specific point of air drops to the Minister, and perhaps he will pick up on that. Wherever the conflict is, it is incumbent on all players to do the utmost to make sure that aid gets through where it is needed. That is why those of us on the Opposition Benches often do, and will continue to, press the Government when it comes to that important issue of access, as I have done this afternoon.

I would also be grateful for an update on the Minister’s discussions following the deaths of the 15 aid workers in Gaza in March, and on the need for effective deconfliction in this conflict. Can he also tell us how his Department is working with the ICRC and other agencies to help ensure they can operate safely and to minimise the risks?

Finally, in Myanmar, despite a ceasefire agreed by the warring parties following the devastating earthquake, fighting has reportedly continued. We understand that it is a very hostile environment for traditional aid agencies operating in Myanmar, so the FCDO has opted for a grassroots approach to aid delivery. What recent assessment has the Minister made of the effectiveness of that approach in getting aid to where it is needed, and importantly, protecting aid workers? Has the earthquake affected the balance between working with localised grassroots organisations and more traditional humanitarian agencies? If we are working with more multilateral agencies, what steps is he taking to ensure they can operate safely?

There are too many good humanitarian organisations, and sadly too many conflicts, to name and discuss them in the short time we have today, but I want to be clear that that in no way diminishes their importance, or the impact on civilians and humanitarian workers grappling with their consequences. As I bring my remarks to a close, I want to again put on record our thanks to all those who put themselves at risk to deliver life-saving support to people in desperate situations. We are living in a more dangerous world and there are more competing demands for humanitarian assistance. It is essential that these brave individuals can work safely and without fear, so they can focus on supporting the most vulnerable.

15:24

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)]

It is a genuine pleasure to sit under your chairpersonship today, Ms Lewell, and I thank the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) for securing this debate and highlighting the grave threats facing aid and humanitarian workers around the world. I say that with genuine sincerity, having spent many years working for humanitarian non-governmental organisations and the former Department for International Development, and as a former member of the International Development Committee, along with a number of hon. Members in this room. I have witnessed the courageous work of humanitarian workers, as well as that of staff from the FCDO—formerly the FCO—and DFID, in extremely challenging situations around the world. They have always operated in dangerous environments, but the threats they face today, as has been highlighted so powerfully, are escalating to intolerable levels, with many paying the ultimate price. Their protection is essential for agencies to operate, for our obligations under international law, and for our shared humanity. I welcome the International Development Committee’s ongoing inquiry on this topic. Its focus on the safety and protection of those courageous individuals is timely and vital. We will engage with the Committee fully on that and consider its findings.

As I said, these issues are deeply personal to me. Along with the late and missed colleague of ours, Jo Cox, I have worked with many people, and I still have friends who are working in some of these environments and agencies, including in some of the circumstances that have been described. This is deeply personal for me. As colleagues will understand I obviously will not go into the details, but having worked with Oxfam, World Vision and many other organisations, I have seen this for myself.

It is absolutely right that Members highlighted that last year was the deadliest year for humanitarian personnel, with the situation in Gaza providing the most dangerous context. More than 400 air workers have been killed there since October 2023, including three British citizens serving with World Central Kitchen. In March, attacks on a UN facility and a Palestinian Red Crescent Society convoy showed that Israel must do much more to prevent further tragedies, and I will come on to some of the specific comments on that in due course. Reports from Sudan highlight the tragic deaths of aid workers in the Zamzam camp. As has been highlighted, those losses are part of a global trend driven by the scale, complexity and urbanisation of armed conflicts, but behind every incident is a family shattered, a team destabilised, and often a community and extremely vulnerable individuals left without assistance.

Fatalities are, of course, only part of the tragic picture. Aid workers face rising levels of injury, abduction and detention, with an immense psychological toll. They sometimes question whether their humanitarian logos and emblems help to distinguish them from parties to conflict, or increase their risks. Those workers must have basic assurances of protection, and they must not be targeted. The UK is committed to promoting compliance with international law, including international humanitarian law, and supporting mechanisms that protect those working in the world’s most dangerous environments.

The hon. Member for Cheadle gave a powerful testimony as context for the debate and the wider risks, and he highlighted many of the contexts. I assure him that those workers are absolutely not forgotten. Importantly, he highlighted the volunteers, often locals, who are involved in these contexts, and raised a number of important questions. He specifically asked about mental health, and I assure him that the FCDO has funded additional mental health support for partners where there is an identified gap in available service provision.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), as always, spoke powerfully and passionately, and I commend, as he did, the work of church groups in his constituency, and indeed all faith groups. We know that many faith groups in our constituencies, including my constituency of Cardiff South and Penarth, have partnerships with NGOs, and faith groups and others are crucial in responding in these circumstances. They are often the first responders and the first on the ground. The hon. Gentleman specifically asked me about Afghanistan. He will know that humanitarian operations in Afghanistan face serious access challenges, particularly for women, due to the Taliban ban on female aid workers. Despite those challenges, we have supported partners to negotiate local and case-by-case exemptions to continue the work and respond to the needs of women and girls.

The hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) spoke about the convictions and values that drive humanitarian aid workers. I have seen that myself repeatedly, and we hugely value their personal duty and service. He asked some specific questions about the humanitarian medal. That has been awarded to those who responded to the Moroccan earthquake, the Libyan floods and the Gaza crisis, and we are still working through the consideration of other humanitarian emergencies. I appreciate his raising the point about eligibility. I will endeavour to come back to him on that, and I or one of my ministerial colleagues will write back to him in due course.

The hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) raised the important issue of kidnappings and other incidents. The issue is not just those who die in attacks but those who are kidnapped and detained, and the psychological, and often physical, toll that that takes on them. He rightly highlighted a number of contexts, from Gaza to Lebanon. I do not accept his comparison with Ukraine, not least because I was in Ukraine a few weeks ago, under bombardment, and saw what was happening to civilians there. The actions of my ministerial colleagues in relation to Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and many other crises are substantial and sincere.

I certainly will not apologise for the difficult decisions we have had to take about ODA to keep the people of this country safe from the many threats that we face, and I will come on to that point in due course. The hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley asked me specifically about Lebanon, and we use our diplomatic levers to press all parties to honour and respect the humanitarian notification system, which is a deconfliction mechanism to ensure that the location of humanitarian facilities and movements is entitled to protection under international humanitarian law. We are working to make sure that humanitarians are protected in that conflict and many others.

There were many other important contributions, including that made by the hon. Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray). I will highlight a few points in response to some of those comments. It is important to note that we have seen not only state-on-state violence and other conflicts but non-state armed groups growing in number. That has increased the risk and complexity of many humanitarian environments, including across the Sahel. In 2023, according to the Aid Worker Security Database, non-state groups remained the most frequent perpetrators of incidents globally, but the proportion of incidents involving state actors increased. There are a whole series of factors at play here. We watch all of them closely and try to respond in the best way that we can.

On Gaza specifically, the Foreign Secretary spoke to the UN emergency relief co-ordinator, Tom Fletcher, on 14 March. The Minister for the middle east, my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr Falconer), spoke with him on 17 March. The Foreign Secretary spoke directly to Israeli Foreign Minister Sa’ar on 15 April and directly raised concerns about the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the urgent need to restore the flow of aid. We are obviously appalled by recent attacks on aid workers, including that on the UNOPS guesthouse on 19 March, and the killing of rescue workers and paramedics, including at least eight Palestine Red Crescent medics, on 23 March. Our thoughts are very much with the victims and their families.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Stephen Doughty]

I am going to try to respond to all the comments; I will then, perhaps, take some interventions.

We expect those responsible for the killing to be held to account, and we expect that to be done transparently. The Foreign Secretary has pressed Foreign Minister Sa’ar to conclude the Military Advocate General’s consideration of the World Central Kitchen incident, including determining whether criminal proceedings should be initiated. Indeed, the Foreign Secretary and my hon. Friend the Minister for the middle east have met the families of those killed in the attacks and assured them that the Government will continue to support their calls for justice. On 28 March, the UK and France called an urgent UN Security Council meeting to discuss the risks facing humanitarian aid workers in Gaza. That work is substantial and it is going on at many levels. We have also called for the Palestine Red Crescent Society incident to be investigated fully at the Security Council on 5 April. On 21 March, an E3 Foreign Ministers’ statement made clear that the UN and its premises should be protected, and should never be a target.

Hon. Members asked about arms exports. We have been clear; Members will have heard the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for the middle east speak about this on many occasions. We suspended certain licences to export to Israel for use in military operations in Gaza following a review that concluded that there is a clear risk that items might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza. On the wider situation, over the past few days the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for the middle east met Prime Minister Mustafa and discussed the humanitarian situation in the west bank and in Gaza. We announced a £101 million package of support for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and that will be dedicated to humanitarian relief, support for Palestinian economic development and strengthening Palestinian authority, governance and reform.

I was asked, on many occasions, about the support that we give specifically for the protection of aid workers. That includes support to the Aid Worker Security Database, core funding to UNOCHA and the International NGO Safety Organisation, and funding at the country level in many contexts. For example, in Ukraine we support the Humanitarian Action through Volunteers, Enablers and Networks consortium to provide a duty of care package. We also provide funding to the ICRC and UN-managed country-based pooled funds, and we are keeping all our ODA priorities under review. I can assure hon. Members that humanitarian response remains absolutely crucial to what we are doing, particularly in the contexts that have been mentioned most today: Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan. There are many other contexts but those three in particular have been highlighted by the Prime Minister.

The shadow Minister asked about disinformation. We are absolutely aware of that challenge. We worked at the UN on resolution 2730, which condemns disinformation targeting aid workers, and we are working on a number of programmes in that regard. She asked about the aid workers in Ukraine and I have mentioned the HAVEN programme. We are also providing personal protective equipment, individual first aid kits and so on through that scheme. That is crucial.

We constantly take work through the UN. We called for a series of measures in the circumstances that I identified and we also co-chaired a UN event demanding the release of aid workers detained by the Houthis in Yemen. We support a new political declaration by Australia to strengthen global commitments to protect aid workers, which will complement UN Security Council resolution 2730. We respond to direct incidents at the highest levels—I have identified some of those in relation to Sudan—and, of course, we condemned the reported attacks on aid workers and pressed for investigations. We recently hosted the London Sudan conference alongside the African Union, the EU, Germany and France to galvanise co-ordinated action. We must use our momentum to keep applying pressure to all the parties there to comply with their obligations.

We are also working very closely with organisations working to support female aid workers who face particular issues with restrictions, threats and sexual violence. The UK invests in safeguarding and directly supports women’s rights organisations to help mitigate those risks. My ministerial colleagues and I try to take account of all of the specific and granular risks that workers face, but it is about more than just those specific circumstances. It is about a wider commitment by the United Kingdom to the protection of aid workers and to humanitarian principles. I can assure Members that we will continue to uphold those principles and stand up for them in the work that we do.

I thank hon. Members for their contributions today, which have been passionate and sincere. I have heard what has been said and I will certainly communicate that to ministerial colleagues. I once again thank the hon. Member for Cheadle for sponsoring the debate in the first place.

15:36

[Mr Morrison]

I thank Members for their contributions today and, in particular, I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for raising the point about women and educators being targeted in Sudan and Afghanistan. It was a really important point, as was the point about the community groups in our communities that work hard for humanitarian workers abroad.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) that we need more protections for workers abroad because those protections are being eroded, and it seems that the world’s Governments are turning a blind eye.

I agree with the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) that we need concrete actions and, perhaps, red lines that the Government could put forward.

Finally, I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) and for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding). I completely agree that the foreign aid cuts have been a shameful retreat from Labour’s legacy on foreign aid.

The shadow Minister was absolutely right to highlight how misinformation causes even more danger for our aid workers.

Finally, I thank the Minister not just for his remarks today, but for his service as a humanitarian worker. It is really appreciated and I have much respect for him. I refer to my earlier comments: I think the Government need to step up. I truly believe that the Government have more influence and power than they perhaps give themselves credit for. From hearing the speeches made today and elsewhere in this House, I think more and more Members agree. I urge the Government to do more, to consider the suggestions highlighted today, and perhaps to bring out those red lines for what we are going to do when international humanitarian law is broken. It vital that we act now; we have no time to wait. We must act now.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the safety of humanitarian workers in conflict zones.

15:38

Sitting suspended.

Windsor Framework: Parcel Delivery

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Westminster Hall

16:00

[Emma Lewell (in the Chair)]

I will call the Member in charge of the debate to move the motion and then I will call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may only make a speech with prior permission from the Member in charge and the Minister. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the impact of the Windsor Framework on parcel deliveries across the Irish Sea.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. Tomorrow, 1 May, the noose of the Irish sea border will tighten even further in respect of business in Northern Ireland. We already have the red lane Irish sea border, subject to the full complement of EU requirements, through which all raw materials for our businesses have to pass. We also have what was called the green lane, which has been renamed but otherwise little about it has changed, for the passage of other goods; we have a business-to-consumer border for parcels; and now—in some ways the most threatening because of the scale of the businesses that will be affected—we have the business-to-business parcel border. Of course, that is a border partitioning the supposed United Kingdom and its supposed internal market.

The essence of an internal market is that goods move unfettered and unchecked between and within all parts of it. We now have something else, courtesy of the absurd protocol—or, as we now call it, the Windsor framework. In view of the fact that that decreed that we in Northern Ireland are subject to the EU’s customs code, which in turn decrees that Great Britain is a third or foreign country, we now have the absurdity of various dimensions of border for the passage of goods from GB to Northern Ireland.

For 200 years, the Northern Ireland economy has been intensely integrated with the GB economy, particularly in manufacturing. It was always the northern part of Ireland that had the big manufacturing sectors. Therefore, the integration, in particular with regard to the supply of raw materials, has been pivotal and GB has been the primary source of all that.

Now, parcels will be subject to rigorous EU requirements, including the requirement for a commodity code—

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Jim Allister]

In a moment. Information must be provided about the country of origin each item, the value of each item and the total value of all the items in the parcel, and any goods that are at risk of passing into the EU’s single market across the border. One of the weaknesses of the protocol is the presumption that everything is at risk of passing, and therefore any raw material—if it is going into manufacturing, who knows where it will end up?—has to go through all that rigour.

That is a preposterous imposition, not just in bureaucracy, but in cost and making Northern Ireland non-competitive. It means that a business manufacturing something in Northern Ireland that it wants to sell back on the GB market or wherever is subject to restraints, which will increase costs, making it less and less competitive. That is one of the greatest iniquities of the sea border and of the business-to-business parcels border.

We have had the protocol in place for four years. Is there any evidence that business parcels are imposing any harm on the EU single market? Have the Government, the EU or anyone else carried out an audit of the alleged harm that business parcels passing from GB to Northern Ireland could do? For four years, they have been flowing unfettered because of the grace periods, so where is the harm caused to the single market that must now be protected from?

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

One of the points that the Secretary of State will probably make in response is that firms can apply to be part of the UK internal market scheme and therefore escape some of this by showing that goods are not at risk. As the hon. and learned Member has pointed out, there is no evidence that goods are at risk, but His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs says that it could take months for firms to have their applications to the internal market scheme processed, and even when they are processed, the amount of work that must go in to show that the goods did not go into the Irish Republic adds considerable cost and is a considerable barrier to doing trade.

[Jim Allister]

Of course, the natural, inevitable consequence of that is that GB suppliers will simply say, “It’s not worth the candle. We’re not going to make the effort. Why should we put ourselves through all these hoops in order to supply to Northern Ireland? It’s not a huge market in the first place. We’ll simply stop supplying.” That has already happened. I constantly receive complaints from consumers, but increasingly I am getting them from businesses that say, “We know that our suppliers will simply stop supplying.” That is going to be another hammer blow to our economy.

[Jim Shannon]

I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for bringing forward the debate. He is right to underline the issues and the concerns of both his constituents and mine. The internal market movement information obligation, which begins tomorrow, means that importers must be members of the internal market scheme as authorised parties, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) referred to. My constituents tell me that they are most concerned and confused, and that they do not quite understand the system. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that it is totally unrealistic for the Government to expect small businesses and individuals—my constituents in Strangford—to understand the obligations and abide by them due to ridiculous EU interference? The Government have an easier way of sorting this out: they must take steps to legally remove the obligation from their citizens in Northern Ireland. Do that and the problems are solved.

[Jim Allister]

Indeed. This is a real issue. In my constituency of North Antrim, I have many satellite small engineering firms. Many of them are subcontractors to Wrightbus, for example. They get their raw materials from GB. To get a simple parcel of bolts, nuts, washers or whatever, because they are manufacturers, they will now have to go through the processes of the red lane business-to-business border. That is in circumstances in which there is no evidence—if there were, we would have heard of it—that the EU’s vast single market is being the least bit impacted by business-to-business parcels. The people who will now be affected are those businesses —the people who employ my constituents.

The other consequence of the machinations of this border is that when GB suppliers stop supplying, firms will have to get their raw materials from somewhere, and some of them will have to come from the Republic of Ireland. Of course, that is the overall, underlying intent of the Windsor framework: to reorientate the economy of Northern Ireland away from its GB roots and connections, and to force an increase in all-Ireland trade. Here we are, arriving at a situation where we have a perfectly unfettered, all-Ireland single market, but in the nation of which we are a part, the United Kingdom, our single market is fettered and partitioned. That was the intent of the protocol. The protocol was always about making Northern Ireland the price of Brexit, and so it is turning out to be.

[Sammy Wilson]

The hon. and learned Gentleman has outlined very clearly the bureaucratic issues involved that disturb trade, as well as the long-term political implications, but does he also accept that there are economic implications for firms? First, they are forced to purchase goods from elsewhere, if they were not doing so in the first place—probably because they were too expensive, so now they have more expensive ones. Secondly, many of them have to pay taxes on goods that they bring into Northern Ireland and then reclaim them, and HMRC is taking not weeks, but months to pay those taxes back—if they can be reclaimed—causing cash-flow problems.

[Jim Allister]

The right hon. Member makes a key point. When people bring business-to-business parcels into Northern Ireland from their own country, from GB, and those parcels are decreed—as the presumption is—to be at risk of going into the European single market in their ultimate manifestation, when manufactured, they have to not only complete the full EU-dictated data regime of declarations, but pay duty. People have to pay duty to bring goods from their own country to another part of their own country. That is how extensive and wrong placing Northern Ireland in the EU single market and customs code has proven to be: when goods are moved now, they are subject to taxation tariffs, because they are moving from a so-called foreign single market into what is decreed to be the entry point of the EU’s single market.

I have a question for the Secretary of State: where and when will those duties be collected? As the right hon. Member pointed out, we already know that when duties are collected in the red lane, for example, they may be recoverable, if someone can show—the onus is on them—that the goods did not go into the EU single market, but the duty is paid on the presumption that they will, and the process to reclaim it is taking months upon months.

My other question for the Secretary of State is: will parcels be held until the duties are paid? Will we really get into the ludicrous situation where someone buying a parcel of bolts to bring to Ballymena or Ballymoney will have to pay duty on those bolts because he is bringing them from a foreign market, even though that is the GB market? Where and when will he have to pay that duty? We all know that he will wait months upon months to get that duty back, if he can demonstrate—it is very difficult in a manufacturing situation—that the end product never went near the EU.

The absurdity is obvious, but the political connotations are overwhelming, because they send a clear constitutional message to the people of Northern Ireland: “You are not really any longer a part of the United Kingdom—your trade laws, your customs laws and the laws that govern how you make your goods are now all made by a foreign Parliament, not by this Parliament.” Here am I, a Member standing in the United Kingdom Parliament talking about something governed by rules set by a foreign jurisdiction. They are rules of that foreign jurisdiction and it is their foreign border.

That sends a clear constitutional message, which was of course the intent of the protocol: to create, through economics, a stepping stone for Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom. We now have a Government who, through their junior Minister, tell us that a couple of dodgy opinion polls might be enough to trigger the exit sign for Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom.

Those are some of the issues that rightly concern us. They particularly concern businesses, which have been very patient with the Government. They have been looking for guidance for months and have not got adequate guidance, and now they are facing a dire situation, whereby even to keep their businesses going with the basic raw materials that have flowed for decades to them from the source, they will be put through not just the difficulty but the humiliation of not being a proper part of this United Kingdom.

The Secretary of State can tell us all he likes about how we have access to dual markets. No, we do not. We have unfettered access to the EU single market, but our access to and from GB is very much fettered by these rules. That is the fundamental objection for a part of the nation whose economy is so intertwined with that of Great Britain.

16:16

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Hilary Benn)]

It is a great pleasure to respond to this debate and to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I begin by offering my thanks—

Sitting suspended for Divisions in the House.

16:44

On resuming—

[Hilary Benn]

Let me start again. It is a pleasure to respond to this debate. I offer my thanks to the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) for having secured it, giving us another opportunity to debate the Windsor framework.

As Members will be aware, the new arrangements for freight and parcels come into effect tomorrow, 1 May. They are an important step forward in the implementation of the Windsor framework, and an important part of the commitments that were made in the “Safeguarding the Union” Command Paper. They follow a lot of preparatory work across Government and industry to ensure that the necessary processes and systems are in place.

The Government recognise, and I recognise, that the new arrangements represent a change for some businesses when sending and receiving goods, but I must be frank: the system in place since the UK formally left the EU was never viable in the long term. My point goes right back to the reason why we have a Windsor framework, which the hon. and learned Gentleman and I have debated many times: when we left the European Union, there was an issue that needed to be addressed. The United Kingdom had one set of rules, and the European Union had another. In every other part of the world, trade between those two entities would be governed by a border, and stuff would be checked to ensure that what was coming in complied with the rules of one jurisdiction or the other.

The unique difference in respect of Northern Ireland is that there is no practical border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Therefore, the question that the previous Government had to address when negotiating the Windsor framework was: as a good neighbour, how do we ensure that goods that move into the Republic—and therefore into the European Union—comply with the rules of that jurisdiction, in exactly the same way that the United Kingdom ensures that goods that come into our jurisdiction comply with our rules? That is the first point.

The Windsor framework is a huge improvement on the Northern Ireland protocol, which, as I have said many times, was never going to work.

[Jim Allister]

The answer for the Secretary of State, and indeed the last Government, shamefully, was to sacrifice the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom and to allow part of the United Kingdom to be governed by laws that we do not make and cannot change. Is it not a principle of international law—to which the EU is supposed to adhere as well—that in agreements and treaties we should respect, not challenge, the territorial integrity of those with which we reach the agreement? That is the source of the problem. We sacrificed the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom in respect of Northern Ireland in order to placate the EU, who had their objectives in that regard.

[Hilary Benn]

I simply do not accept that characterisation of what we are debating and what I am seeking to describe.

To return to the point that I was in the process of putting to Members, a very practical question had to be addressed. Some may argue, “Well, that’s not our problem. Leave the EU to work out what they’re going to do.” However, that would not be the response of a good neighbour. We would not do it ourselves, and therefore we should not do that to the EU. The Windsor framework recognises the nature of the practical problem and finds a mechanism for dealing with it.

The same is true in respect of parcels, because the United Kingdom would not allow parcels from any other part of the world to come in without knowing what was in them. We would not permit that, would we? Certainly not. That is not the arrangement that we operate. In the same way, because once the goods arrive in Northern Ireland, potentially they could move into the European Union, the EU wants to be satisfied in the same way in seeking these new arrangements. That is the fundamental point of principle.

What we have is much better than what would have applied had there been an attempt to implement the original Northern Ireland protocol. That is why, when I was in opposition, and before I became the shadow Secretary of State, I welcomed the negotiations of the Windsor framework. I congratulated the then Prime Minister, because it represented a really important way forward.

My second point is that by agreeing to the new parcels arrangement, we have unlocked agreement on new customs arrangements that will simplify processes for businesses moving goods via freight. Unnecessary customs paperwork will be removed, and goods will be able to move using a simplified set of what is described as internal market movement information. For example, from tomorrow, the arrangement will reduce the standard range of data fields that need to be completed from a possible 75 to 21 for standard goods. That is, on anyone’s measure, a simplification.

[Sammy Wilson]

The Secretary of State is making light of the burden that the arrangement places on small businesses. One small local businessman who does business in only one town—where most of his customers come from—told me that to bring goods in from GB, which used to flow freely, he now has 27 pages of paperwork. Since he sells a mixture of all kinds of goods, we can guess how many goods that is spread over. He says, “I could spend all my time filling paper in and have no time to sell goods.” Let us not play down the bureaucratic burden that this presents. For many, it makes business almost impossible.

[Hilary Benn]

I am not seeking to play down anything. If the right hon. Gentleman would be kind enough to write to me with further details of the business that he described, I will look into it and come back to him.

I was about to say that this change will be further supported by the introduction of the trader goods profile, which holds data based on past movements. That goes directly to the point that the right hon. Gentleman just raised about obligations that the arrangement puts on businesses because, in many cases, that dataset can, in the jargon, auto-populate forms for freight movement. In other words, it can fill in forms automatically so that businesses only have to add ordinary commercial information, such as the volume, weight and invoice value. Over 10,000 UK businesses are now registered for the UK internal market scheme, which allows businesses to take advantage of the new arrangements. The existing “not at risk” arrangements will continue to allow tariff-free movement of eligible goods from GB to NI.

The hon. and learned Member for North Antrim referred to the flow of goods. I would simply say that the data shows that the value of goods moving from GB to Northern Ireland has gone up, not down. Qualifying Northern Ireland goods continue to have full, unfettered access to Great Britain when they are sent in parcels or freight, meaning that those parcels can be moved as normal with no new requirements.

For parcels sent to consumers—the hon. and learned Gentleman did not touch on that, but I wish to refer to it—no customs declarations, safety or security declarations or customs duties are required for movements from Great Britain to consumers in Northern Ireland under the new arrangement. The practical effect is that there should be no noticeable change for people sending parcels to friends and family in Northern Ireland, and minimal noticeable change for most consumers sending and receiving parcels that move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. Where parcels are moved between businesses, they can access the same arrangements as freight movements.

[Jim Allister]

The Secretary of State ignores the impact on consumers of the general product safety regulation, which requires the business in GB that is sending to Northern Ireland to have an agent in Northern Ireland and to be in a trusted trader scheme—all the things that are totally alien to supposedly being in the same single market.

[Hilary Benn]

I am not ignoring the general product safety regulation. This is a debate about parcels. I am well aware of the issues that arise because of its implementation. There is no bar on traders and businesses sending products to Northern Ireland, or indeed to the European Union. The European Union has put in place that requirement to apply to goods that come into its jurisdiction, for the same reason that I gave at the start of my response to this debate: there has to be a mechanism for ensuring that goods that come in comply with the rules of the EU single market. Many businesses have found a way of having an authorised economic operator. I understand the burden that that puts on particularly small operators, but it is another aspect of the need to ensure that we are good neighbours.

I was about to say that the specific arrangements for moving parcels that contain sanitary and phytosanitary goods have not changed. Businesses can make use of the Windsor framework schemes for moving agrifood goods, and the Northern Ireland retail movement scheme and the Northern Ireland plant health label scheme allow GB businesses to send SPS parcels to businesses in Northern Ireland for sale to consumers. That represents a considerable improvement. Guidance and support are available to help businesses understand the schemes. I recognise that the transition to the new arrangements from tomorrow will be challenging for some businesses, but in time they will get used to them. We are in touch with industry to understand where businesses need extra support and assistance. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has been alerting businesses—

16:50

Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.

Gender Incongruence: Puberty Suppressing Hormones

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Westminster Hall

17:05

[Rebecca Paul (Reigate) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the potential impact of puberty suppressing hormones on children and young people with gender incongruence.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I am pleased to have the opportunity to shine a light on this important topic, one that impacts the health and wellbeing of some of the most vulnerable children in our country. This debate must be led by science, data and evidence, not by ideology, bias or belief. I will do my best to do that today.

The number of children and young people presenting to the UK NHS with gender distress has increased year on year since 2009, with an exponential rise in 2014. What is behind the increase among Generation Z is unclear and the reasons are likely to be multifaceted. It is speculated that the factors may include 24/7 internet access, increased acceptance of trans identities, or even peer, social and cultural influences.

Over the last 20 years we have seen groups such as Stonewall and Mermaids call for better access to treatment and increased rights for trans people. Large corporates have gone big on diversity and inclusion to boost their brands, impactful TV dramas centring trans stories, such as “Butterfly”, have been widely viewed, and the public sector, from the NHS to the police, has been flying the progress flag at every opportunity. So it can be no surprise that gender identity is at the front of young people’s minds in a way that it simply was not when I was growing up.

In 2009, only 51 patients were referred to GIDS—the NHS gender identity development service for children—of whom two thirds were male. In 2016, there were 1,766 referrals and two thirds of them were female. That is quite the change. There has been an overall surge in the number of children suffering gender distress, but the increase is especially notable among girls; we also see over-representation of neurodiversity, mental health issues and trauma in this group. To put it another way, these children are much more likely to have been in care, to suffer with anxiety and depression, to be autistic and to have been abused. It is a group of incredibly vulnerable children.

GIDS was established in 1989. Its main approach to treatment at that time was therapeutic—referred to as watchful waiting. Early studies from the 1980s showed that in around 85% of cases, the gender incongruence or distress ceased in the child after going through puberty. Later studies reached a similar conclusion, with between 67% and 90% desisting after puberty. Only a small cohort of children continued to experience gender dysphoria or incongruence after puberty, and it was that small group who would likely adopt a permanent trans identity in adulthood.

Everything changed with the emergence of the Dutch protocol, which involved the use of puberty blockers from early puberty. Puberty blockers are gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues, which supress oestrogen production in girls and testosterone in boys. They are licensed for use in children with precocious puberty—when puberty starts much too early and it is beneficial to suppress it until a more normal developmental time and age—but in the case of gender dysphoria they are used to delay or even indefinitely stop natural pubertal development and maturation, and it is important to note that puberty blockers are not licensed for that purpose.

The original rationale for using puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria was to press pause on puberty and give children time to think, but for some the aim was also to increase the chances of a child passing as a member of the opposite sex in adulthood. GIDS started trialling puberty blockers in the UK after 2011. The preliminary results in 2015-16 did not demonstrate psychological benefits, with some of the females suffering a worsening of symptoms, including higher incidence of wanting to hurt or kill themselves. The results of the study, which were not formally published until 2020, demonstrated no statistically significant improvement in gender dysphoria or mental health outcomes.

It is also important to remember the early studies that told us that in the majority of cases, going through puberty could relieve gender distress. It follows, therefore, that stopping or delaying puberty using medication could derail that natural desistence, essentially locking in or prolonging the gender distress, rather than allowing it to naturally resolve.

One would think that, in the absence of any evidence of benefit from puberty blockers, the NHS would have stepped back from using them after the trial. Furthermore, the high numbers of autistic, traumatised, mentally unwell and same-sex attracted youth in the group of children referred should have rung alarm bells loudly, but no; instead, puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones were routinely made available to an even broader group of children, including those with neurodiversity and complex mental health presentations.

An independent systematic review of published studies on puberty blockers, of which there were 50, was undertaken by the University of York as part of the Cass review. It was found that puberty blockers do indeed suppress puberty effectively. It was also found that, given that most children progress on to cross-sex hormones after starting puberty blockers, the main objective of pausing development is not achieved. No reduction in gender dysphoria or improvement in body satisfaction was demonstrated, and there was limited evidence of positive mental health outcomes.

Worryingly, bone density in those taking puberty blockers was compromised, and height gain may lag behind normal. In the case of biological males, it can make vaginoplasty more difficult in future, due to insufficient penile growth, forcing the use of gut tissue instead. The Cass review reports:

“There seems to be a very narrow indication for the use of puberty blockers in birth-registered males…in order to stop irreversible pubertal changes. Other indications remain unproven at this time.”

I take that to mean that those drugs have been given to young girls, not because they benefit them specifically, but because they might benefit a very small group of males. Professor David Bell, a retired consultant psychiatrist at the Tavistock, and Dr Sinead Helyar, a clinical trial nurse, also warned of the potential harms in a recent article.

“Current known and potential harms of puberty blockers are multi-fold and include a reduced bone density and early-onset osteoporosis, brain swelling and concerns around impairment of future sexual functioning and ability to form emotional relationships. A recent review of the impact of suppressing puberty on neurological function highlighted that adolescence is a critical window of neurodevelopment and puberty plays a critical role in this process. The author concluded that suppression of puberty impacts brain structure and the development of social and cognitive functions, in which the effects are complex and often sex specific.”

The over-representation of same-sex attracted girls and boys in the group of children being treated with puberty blockers is particularly worrying. In a study in the Netherlands of 70 patients given puberty blockers between 2000 and 2008, 89% were same-sex attracted, and most of the rest were bisexual. The same pattern was seen in most of the other trials, with the majority of the children growing up to be same-sex attracted adults. A paper from GIDS in 2016 reported 89% of the biological girls being either same-sex attracted or bisexual.

Why would same-sex attraction be over-represented in that way? Could gender distress be symptomatic in some cases of struggling with sexuality? Is sufficient emphasis put on reassuring those young adolescents about their sexuality, to establish if the gender distress is linked or separate; or is our society’s hyperfocus on gender identity and gender conformity putting them on an unnecessary medical pathway to change their body? Keira Bell, who has now detransitioned, says,

“I became attracted to girls. I had never had a positive association with the term ‘lesbian’ or the idea that two girls could be in a relationship. This made me wonder if there was something inherently wrong with me. Around this time, out of the blue, my mother asked if I wanted to be a boy, something that had not even crossed my mind.”

The Cass review received several reports from parents of biological females that their child had been through a period of trans identification before recognising that they were, in fact, a lesbian. That begs the question: why are so many young lesbians being medically transitioned?

Before I move on to my questions to the Minister, it is important to note that almost all the children and young people who take puberty blockers go on to take cross-sex hormones. I raise that because it links the two treatments. The impact of puberty blockers cannot be looked at in isolation, because cross-sex hormones may lead to further surgeries, lifelong medication, and loss of fertility and sexual function. These are catastrophic impacts. How can a prepubescent child really understand what never experiencing an orgasm means and the impact that could have on their future relationships, or indeed what losing the opportunity to have children could mean?

It is very apparent that the lack of solid long-term data on outcomes for patients who are treated with puberty blockers is problematic. No doctor should prescribe something in the absence of strong evidence of its effectiveness and a clear understanding of the side effects. In May 2024, the previous Government temporarily banned the use of puberty blockers for the treatment of gender incongruence and gender dysphoria in under-18s, following the Cass review’s findings of insufficient evidence to show they were safe and effective, and this ban was made permanent by the current Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in December 2024. In the light of everything that I have set out today, I fully support that decision: it is sensible, has full regard to the data, and puts the safety and wellbeing of children first.

It is also important to note campaigners’ claim that suicides among young patients with gender dysphoria increased due to puberty blocking drugs previously being restricted, following the High Court decision in the Bell v. Tavistock case, has been disproved by Professor Louis Appleby’s investigation and report, published on 19 July 2024, in which he confirmed that the data did not support such assertions. He concludes that:

“The way that this issue has been discussed on social media has been insensitive, distressing and dangerous, and goes against guidance on safe reporting of suicide. One risk is that young people and their families will be terrified by predictions of suicide as inevitable without puberty blockers.”

At the same time that the Secretary of State announced the permanent ban on puberty blockers, he announced that a clinical trial would be set up in 2025 to examine the use of puberty blockers, in order to establish a clear evidence base for the use of this medicine in gender incongruence. The £10.7 million trial, called Pathways, will be carried out by a team at King’s College and is due to run until 2031. Over two years, it will track:

“the physical, social and emotional wellbeing”

of young people who want to delay puberty, and whose parents and the gender service agree with this treatment option.

I will be grateful to the Minister for an update on the trial and how she intends to ensure that children are not physically or psychologically harmed. A trial of this nature of a drug that is unlicensed for gender incongruence raises many ethical concerns. In the words of Professor David Bell and Dr Sinead Helyar:

“The first duty of any clinician inside or outside of a clinical trial is to ‘do no harm.’”

Can there ever be a situation where it is ethical to run such a trial when the harms could be significant? It is important to remember that the children who would participate in this trial are physically healthy children who stand to have worse health by the end of it. This trial is in no way similar to a clinical trial for a cancer drug, where the patient is seriously unwell at the beginning of the trial.

Secondly, approximately 9,000 children and young people were treated by GIDS over the years, which provides a plentiful supply of data about the long-term outcomes for those who took puberty blockers and those who did not. Would the Minister please clarify matters and explain why a new trial is needed, given this abundance of data? Will she please provide an update on the exercise that is currently under way to obtain more data?

Thirdly, the current trial only proposes to look at outcomes over a two-year period. To put that into context, a child who starts puberty blockers at the age of 13 will only have their outcomes followed and assessed until the age of 15. That is not long enough to understand medium and long-term outcomes. A positive result for a 15-year-old might look very different for a 25-year-old, when physical health, sexual function and fertility are likely to be more important and relevant to them than when they were 15. Does the Minister agree that two years is not a sufficient timeframe to properly evaluate the impact of puberty blockers on physical and mental health? If this trial goes ahead, will she commit to funding and ensuring that there is long-term follow-up of these children into adulthood?

Fourthly, how many children will the trial be limited to, and what criteria will be used to determine which children are eligible and which are not? Is it possible that all eligible children will be included and prescribed puberty blockers as part of the trial? How many children in total does the Minister expect to take part in the trial over its duration? How will the trial establish an appropriate control group? Fifthly, given that gender nonconformity sometimes correlates with same-sex attraction in adulthood, how will the trial safeguard those children who may simply be uncomfortable with their sexuality rather than experiencing true gender distress?

Sixthly, given the high rates of progression to cross-sex hormones following puberty blockers, will only children who agree not to progress to cross-sex hormones be accepted on to the trial, so that the impact of the puberty blockers on outcomes can be seen in isolation? If the answer is no, given the corresponding likelihood of impaired sexual function and loss of fertility, which are monumental ramifications, how will the children taking part in the trial be able to give consent?

Finally, will the Minister please provide details of other trials that have been approved for paediatric medical interventions with equivalent or similar diagnostic uncertainty, to reassure the public that moving forward with a trial in this situation has precedent? I look forward to hearing the Minister’s answers and thank everyone for attending this debate.

[Emma Lewell (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that this debate will run until five past 6. I will be calling the Front Benchers at 5.45 pm, so I ask Members to keep their contributions to five minutes.

17:20

[Tim Roca (Macclesfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I wanted to speak today because, as has already been said, this is a really important debate—one that must be had in a respectful and open manner. I am particularly grateful to the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) for opening the debate in precisely that way.

There needs to be a space to debate these topics openly and to engage with each other constructively because ultimately this issue is about the safety and wellbeing of young people. These are some of the most vulnerable, and often frightened, people in our schools and medical settings. They deserve a debate based on fact, open to new ideas and evidence, and respectful of their choices and identities.

The Cass review—an important review—did not find that puberty blockers cause harm in young people. Dr Cass made it clear that puberty blockers could, in the right circumstances, be effective and valuable in helping young people. That is absolutely why we need a rigorous, safe and scientific trial to determine, once and for all, the efficacy of puberty blockers in treating gender dysphoria.

I am grateful that the review also made clear that gender dysphoria is a diagnosable, recognisable and treatable condition. It is not about boys and girls being confused, nor is it caused by the media or by playing with the “wrong” toys; it is something that has been studied, proven and diagnosed. Ultimately, we are also talking about the trans community, which I think we all agree deserves dignity and respect.

I have to say that I am not a scientist, doctor or expert, and I expect that many other hon. Members are not either. It is therefore incumbent on us all to listen to experts of all kinds who have welcomed the call for a substantial clinical trial into puberty blockers. That would not be the first trial, as many in the UK and internationally have found favourable evidence. However, I will never not be in favour of more evidence and in particular of a rigorous UK trial.

An outcome of the review was that a trial into the use of puberty blockers for those with gender dysphoria was welcomed, as I say, and that that trial

“should be part of a programme of research which also evaluates outcomes of psychosocial interventions and masculinising/feminising hormones.”

I am proud that the Government support a holistic approach to the treatment of gender dysphoria, with proper psychological and physical support as well as treatment. I urge all hon. Members to listen to that call for more evidence. The Cass review made that point strongly and expressed regret that a controlled study was not delivered in 2011, specifying:

“There are many reports that puberty blockers are beneficial in reducing mental distress and improving the wellbeing of children and young people with gender dysphoria”.

It went on to say:

“Importantly some children within this group who remain gender incongruent into puberty may benefit from puberty blockers and will be able to enter the specialist component of the service and access the puberty blocker trial in a timely way”.

The review did not rule puberty blockers out of hand completely, but wanted to ensure that there was a decent evidence base, because ultimately we are talking about young people. As we debate this issue, we should agree that more facts and evidence help, whereas conjecture, opinion and speculation only muddy the waters. I am very keen to see the framework for the trial as soon as possible—I think the hon. Member for Reigate makes some good points—so that we see the results as quickly as possible in a safe way. If they demonstrate that puberty blockers are beneficial for young people with gender incongruence, I hope all those who claim to want to protect and support young people accept that fact.

17:24

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve again under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I think this is the third time this afternoon, and it is always a pleasure. I commend the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) for raising this imperative issue, which we talked about yesterday, and for setting the scene so well, with detail and knowledge. She and I are on the same page on this one—I share her concerns, as others will.

Medical professionals have raised with me their concern about the lack of knowledge and the impact on the most vulnerable people; they recognise and welcome the recent developments in Great Britain that have led to a significant policy shift, effectively banning access to puberty blockers for the purpose of transitioning young children. That decision has been driven by comprehensive reviews, scientific fact, and emerging evidence that questions the long-term safety and efficacy of such drastic treatment for minors. It is the right thing to do. The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) spoke about having time to look at these things and to understand and explore them in the necessary detail, and that we are right to do that. That is the way I feel as well.

No long-term studies have been carried out on the long-term administration of puberty blockers to children, because puberty blockers have historically been used only for specific reasons regarding rare conditions in the short term—never for what is primarily a lifetime choice. Given those concerns, and indeed the potential implications for the health and wellbeing of children, I wrote to the Health Minister in Northern Ireland to understand what steps were being taken by the Department of Health, and the Executive, to prevent Northern Ireland from being used by gender ideologists as a back door to those drugs, and to bring Northern Ireland into line with the rest of the United Kingdom.

I looked back at the statement that the Minister, Mike Nesbitt, made on 11 December 2024. He said:

“Following recommendations from the Commission on Human Medicines (CHM), it is now intended that we”—

that is the Northern Ireland Assembly and Department for Health—

“will replace the UK’s existing temporary restrictions with an indefinite ban, subject to review in 2027.”

The Northern Ireland Assembly has made its choice. I represent Northern Ireland in Westminster, and I want to represent the viewpoints of my constituency—by the way, Mike Nesbitt represents the same constituency as me: he is the Member of the Legislative Assembly for Strangford, and I am its Member of Parliament.

The welfare of children is of the utmost importance, particularly those in the age category approaching puberty, so those age 12 and under. It is crucial that Northern Ireland maintains high standards of medical practice that prioritise safety and wellbeing. Aligning our policies with evidence-based practices will help to ensure that we provide the best possible care for our young children, and protect them from decisions being made “for them and about them” by adults, when they are at such a vulnerable time and age in their lives. It is important that those in the Northern Ireland Assembly back home follow the same logic as there has been here. I know that the Minister has a particular interest in Northern Ireland and she travels there regularly. She will be aware of all these things, so I just want to put that on the record.

In conclusion, concerns have been expressed to me by medical professionals who want to solidify our position and ensure that no backward steps are taken. I look to the Minister for that confirmation. Our children—I say this with great respect—are not test dummies, and no risk should be taken with their health and future. We must have this locked down in legislation.

Westminster did the right thing. The Northern Ireland Assembly has followed that solution, and the arrow is pointing in that direction—we are doing the same. We must have all the information in front of us. We must be able to make these decisions and most of all we need to protect our children. I am a grandfather of six young children, so the issue is really important to me. I have a role to play on behalf of my grandchildren, and as an MP I have a role to play for my constituents, who feel the same way as I do.

17:28

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) for securing this debate. Everyone, regardless of their particularities, deserves dignity, but that open-mindedness has in recent years been supplanted by an ideology-driven series of harrowing episodes involving, in this case, both medical policy and clinical practice. That led me, in 2019, to raise the issue of the Tavistock clinic when a number of the professionals there drew attention to the fact that they were

“often under pressure to refer young people for life-altering treatment even though they did not believe that it was in the individual’s best…interests…experimental treatment is being done on children who have experienced mental health difficulties, abuse and family trauma.”—[Official Report, 11 April 2019; Vol. 658, c. 479.]

Those kinds of concerns led to the review by Hilary Cass, and Cass was clear, when she published her report, that there was a lack of evidence on the long-term effects of using puberty blockers to treat gender incongruence to know whether they were safe or beneficial. Later, I had an exchange with the current Health Secretary—the previous Government having taken action latterly—in which he assured me that he would be implementing the Cass report in full. It is right that he should, because of the tragic history of the prescription of drugs that even those involved in that process regarded with such concern that they gave up their professional lives.

We have altered young people; we have warped them, and that is a result of a policy that was adopted without proper consideration and of clinical practice that did not have its basis in scientific fact. Given that the Health Secretary has seen most of that and acted upon it, it is important to consider what happens next. We know that the Tavistock clinic has been closed and we now know that there is a new series of measures to deal with these matters. There will be six new regional gender identity clinics for children and young people by 2026.

However, alongside the decision to ban the prescription of puberty blockers for under-18s, the National Institute for Health and Care Research is sponsoring a clinical trial, and I have a number of questions for this Minister about that trial. The trial will be run by a team at King’s College London, led by Professor Emily Simonoff. According to The Times, the study will involve monitoring

“the well-being of children who attend a network of new NHS gender clinics for children, including those not on”

puberty blockers, and

“whether puberty blockers affect young people’s thinking and brain development, using various activities and brain scans.”

All that is disturbing, it seems to me, and that view has been argued by David Bell, who has suggested that other kinds of research could be adopted, other measures put in place. He refers to long-term follow-up studies of those who have undergone such treatment, qualitative research into the experiences of the growing numbers of detransitioners, and further animal studies to understand the biological impact of these drugs on adolescent brain development.

That view has been reinforced by the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender, which is calling for the Government and NHS to pursue alternative research options to the proposed clinical trial, including evaluating the effects of puberty blockers on children treated by the Tavistock clinic.

It seems to me that, after our having made the mistake that led to Tavistock and then having commissioned the Cass review, which led to its closure, the risk is that we now make another mistake, not out of ill will but out of a concern expressed by some of the people I have mentioned going unheeded. I hope the Minister will heed those concerns. They are not only mine, as I have made clear.

There was an ideological aspect to this situation that we must not understate. There was a belief, on some people’s part, that rather than accepting that young people as they grew might be homosexual, their sex should be altered. That is a chilling perspective, but it did hold sway in a number of cases, with medical intervention to support it. I hope this Government do not perpetuate that distorted view of humankind, and I am immensely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate for giving us the chance to explore just that.

17:34

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. For too long, children and young people who are struggling with their gender identity have been badly let down by low standards of care, exceptionally long waiting lists and an unacceptably toxic public debate. That is why Liberal Democrats have been arguing for much better specialist healthcare services for children and young people who find themselves in this distressing situation. The old system, a single clinic, with a shockingly long waiting list and rated “inadequate” by the Care Quality Commission, was clearly failing vulnerable young people at the most difficult time in their lives. Before GIDS closed, more than 5,000 young people were stuck on the list and left waiting for an average of almost three years for a first appointment. For vulnerable teenagers and pre-teens, going through what are often incredibly difficult experiences, those three years must have felt like an eternity.

Liberal Democrats have consistently campaigned for action to tackle appallingly long wait times across the NHS, whether for cancer treatment or mental health, and it is right that we do so for gender identity services as well. It is clear that change is needed. That is why we have long been pressing the Government to establish new specialist services and recruit and train more specialist clinicians, so that children and young people can access the appropriate, high-quality healthcare that they need. The move to create multiple new regional centres is, therefore, a very welcome one, but only two are open now—in London and the North West—leaving those who have already been stuck on waiting lists for years to wait even longer. There is no sign yet of when the other centres will open. Would the Minister be able to give us an indication of when they might?

Unless the Government show far more urgency in getting these centres up and running properly, more and more children will be denied the care they need as they languish on those long waiting lists. While it is right that treatment is largely based on talking therapies for both the child and their parents to give all gender-questioning young people the time and space to make clear and informed decisions about their future, that has got to mean that people starting their talking therapy when they need it, not after years of delay.

Following the Cass review, the Secretary of State announced that the NHS would be conducting clinical trials on the impact of puberty blockers. That is due to begin very soon. I would appreciate clarification from the Minister about the current status of the trials and the terms of reference under which they will be conducted. The announcement of the trial came alongside an indefinite ban on the prescription of puberty blockers as a treatment for young people with gender incongruence or dysphoria, unless they are part of that trial. Numerous organisations, including the Council of Europe, have raised concerns about the potential ethical implications of only offering a treatment to a small group of patients taking part in a clinical trial. I believe that the Secretary of State confirmed at the Dispatch Box that the trial would be uncapped when he gave a statement on puberty blockers to the House in December 2024. Would the Minister confirm whether that is the case?

The ban has caused fear and anxiety for some young trans people and their families, who have been so badly let down for so many years. I have met with families in my own constituency who have highlighted the severe mental health impacts that uncertainty over treatment can have. It is crucial that any clinical decisions are made by expert clinicians based on the best possible evidence, not politicians with a point to make.

[Tracy Gilbert (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab)]

Are the Liberal Democrats supportive of the views in the Cass review? I do not think that that has been stated on the public record as yet.

[Helen Morgan]

I have met with Dr Cass. We have considered the Cass review, and we are in support of the clinical trial that she has recommended. That is why I am asking the Minister to clarify some of the points that have been made as that trial progresses.

When that decision was made to indefinitely ban puberty blockers, it obviously caused some concern and uncertainty for the families that are affected. Would the Minister commit to publishing the supporting evidence, including the results of the consultation, to give those families confidence in the decision to ban their prescription?

With any medical treatment, especially for children and young people, it is most important that the clinical professionals follow the evidence on safety and effectiveness. I welcome the Government’s support for the research to improve evidence on the safety and efficacy of potential treatments; that research must take into account the direct personal experiences of those who have used those services in the past. More broadly, Liberal Democrats believe that all trans and non-binary people should have access to the high-quality healthcare that they deserve, and that Government should prioritise tackling unacceptable waiting times by expanding the provision of appropriate and timely specialist healthcare through NHS child and adult services for trans and non-binary people, ensuring that trans people have access to high-quality healthcare on the same basis as we would expect for all patients, with medical decisions made by patients and doctors together, informed by the best possible evidence, and supporting research using international best practice to improve evidence on the safety and efficacy of potential treatments.

For puberty blockers specifically, it is for expert clinicians to build the evidence base and determine whether they are safe and effective. I do not think any politician, such as me, who does not have that clinical experience or evidence to hand should be making pronouncements on whether or not they are. We need the NHS to act on building up that evidence base, and for the Government to provide certainty that they will follow the evidence and expert advice when that is available.

Children and young people with gender incongruence are uniquely vulnerable, potentially facing an identity crisis, difficult relationships at home and social isolation at a very young age. It is extremely important that they are treated respectfully, safely, quickly and in the way that is best for their long-term health and personal development. It is unlikely that the same treatment will be appropriate for every individual in that situation, but when it comes to any individual medical interventions, Liberal Democrats believe it is right that those decisions are made by clinicians and patients together, informed by the best possible evidence, as is the case in all areas of healthcare.

17:41

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I start by making a declaration of interest as an NHS consultant paediatrician and a member of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. My work in the NHS at times involves looking after children who may have gender dysphoria, although it is not specifically for that purpose. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) on securing this important debate, and on her excellent speech.

Hippocrates’ dictum, “first do no harm”—although it does not actually appear in the Hippocratic oath—captures a core medical ethic, and is an important guiding principle in policymaking. When it comes to children and young people expressing gender dysphoria, we must take a compassionate but firmly evidence-based approach. The causes of gender incongruence are not fully understood, but they are likely to be multifactorial and influenced by both biological and social factors. It is of huge concern that diagnoses of gender dysphoria have risen over fiftyfold, and that vulnerable and same-sex attracted children are over-represented.

There are legitimate licensed uses for puberty blockers, such as in cases of children who enter puberty very young, and in the treatment of certain malignancies. However, using puberty blockers for young people with gender dysphoria represents a significantly different context, both medically and ethically. With most children with gender dysphoria, symptoms resolve without treatment, with many finding that the natural process of puberty leads to a resolution to their distress.

The Gender Identity Development Service began trialling puberty blockers for adolescents with gender dysphoria back in 2011. Preliminary findings in 2015-16 showed no psychological benefit from the treatment and, alarmingly, a deterioration of wellbeing in some children, particularly some girls. The Cass review, published last year, showed that there is insufficient evidence on the long-term effects of using puberty blockers to treat gender incongruence. I ask the Minister: why does the planned trial not look at long-term outcomes?

The Cass review made the risks of these drugs explicit. Puberty blockers can seriously compromise bone density and can lead to adverse long-term neurodevelopmental effects. As for the purported benefits, the review added that,

“no changes in gender dysphoria or body satisfaction were demonstrated.”

The often repeated justification that blockers are for “time to think” was not supported by the evidence, with concern that they may instead alter the developmental trajectory of psychosexual and gender identity.

In May 2024, the last Government passed emergency legislation to temporarily ban puberty blockers for new treatments of gender dysphoria. The current Government have renewed that order twice, continuing restrictions until the end of this year. However, that does not affect cross-sex hormones. Does the Minister plan to commission research on the outcome of masculinising and feminising hormones on young people? Do the Government plan to extend the ban to cross-sex hormones in the fullness of time?

We heard in February that the NHS has announced plans to start offering puberty blockers as part of a clinical trial. There are questions about this trial. Given that most children’s symptoms will resolve anyway, and that the Cass review clearly states there is no method of proving in advance which children will have improved symptomatology and which will not, the trial will be essentially treating a whole cohort of healthy children with drugs to see the effect on the around 15% whose symptoms may not resolve in adulthood. Former Tavistock clinicians, including David Bell, have said that they would not refer patients to the clinical trial.

The Government are taking direct control of NHS England, so it is now the Secretary of State’s responsibility to ensure that any such trial is properly conducted. The gold standard for a medical trial is the double-blind randomised controlled trial. Will the Minister confirm that if the trial goes ahead there will be a control sample? The trial still requires ethical approval from the Health Research Authority. Will the Minister provide an update on when that decision is expected, clarify how the Government are ensuring the impartiality and safety of the decision-makers, and clarify whether provisions are in place to pause or suspend the trial if safety concerns arise?

[Sir John Hayes]

Might my hon. Friend add to her list of questions and ask about the experience of other countries that have looked at these matters? For those countries that have used alternatives to having children in trials, how effective have such alternatives been?

[Dr Johnson]

My right hon. Friend raises important questions that I hope the Minister will answer. It is important to look at the data that we already have. That was the next part of my speech—my right hon. Friend is, as usual, reading my mind.

Given that these drugs have been used on hundreds of patients at GIDS alone, why not look at that data, rather than conduct new experiments on further children? Despite the last Government legislating to ensure that data could be made available for research, several NHS trusts refused to participate fully in the Cass review. What are the Government doing to retrieve that data and to ensure that NHS trusts, which are now more directly controlled by the Government, comply with data-sharing requirements in the future? If the trial does go ahead, how will the Secretary of State ensure the genuine impartiality of those conducting the trial so that we can rely on the results?

In conclusion, this debate is about the wellbeing of young people. Gender-questioning children are not solely defined by their gender incongruence and gender-related distress; they are whole individuals. They deserve holistic care and the same rigorous evidence-based care as any other young patient.

17:46

[The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) on securing this debate, on the constructive tone in which she has engaged with me and my Department, and on the way that she opened the debate.

The Government’s approach is governed by three principles. First, the health and wellbeing of children and young people is our primary concern—a point made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). Secondly, evidence-led, effective, ethical and safe healthcare must be provided to all who need it, when they need it—a point well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca). Thirdly, this Government believe in the dignity and equality of every single one of His Majesty’s citizens.

Since the election, we have been calmly and cautiously guided by the evidence. We take children’s healthcare extremely seriously. That is why we remain committed to implementing the Cass review, and ensuring that children and young people who are looking for support in relation to their gender receive the highest quality of care, as one would expect of any other child health service in the NHS.

[Tracy Gilbert]

Dr Cass was clear in her review that the model of care for people with gender incongruence, and particularly for children and young people, needs to be changed to take into account their holistic care needs. Will the Minister update us on her Department’s progress in implementing those findings?

[Karin Smyth]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention; I hope to get on to that subject in my speech. It is important that people are aware of that progress.

I know that many people are concerned about the ethics of this research, as the hon. Member for Reigate and the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) both noted. I assure hon. Members that the UK has, as we know, extremely rigorous and robust ethical approval pathways, and that no clinical trial can proceed without the necessary independent scientific approvals.

We already regularly use those processes to consider clinical trials in children so that we can evaluate new treatments for a whole range of conditions, including cancer, depression, respiratory infections, or any illness. Many aspects of the methodology of this trial are still being looked at, such as how long it will follow children, how many children will be on the trial and how the demographics of the trial will be constructed. That is all still to be confirmed and approved; many hon. Members asked about those points today. All participants in the trial will also be part of the ongoing observational study.

Following the decision by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care about puberty blockers, which was based on the evidence, we needed to make sure that we got on with helping scientists, researchers and clinicians to do their jobs. Some people have called for the Government to stop those experts from pursuing this line of inquiry, and we have heard such calls again in this debate. They have argued that the decision to halt the sale and supply of puberty blockers should be the end of the matter, and that young people should not have access to this medication, come what may. That would be to ignore the distress and real experiences of young people, and the Government have no doubt that it would drive people towards possible illegal and underground routes, shutting off young people’s access to conversations with professionals and the opportunity to pause and consider other options.

Instead, as Dr Cass suggests, we can set out a proper path to treatment that involves young people, their parents, clinicians and mental health professionals. Knowing that they are on a path will reassure young people that they are being taken seriously. The cautious process that they will have to work through before joining a trial means that young people will have access to support and counselling, which may result in them deciding against joining the trial and pursuing a medical route. That is an approach entirely missing over recent years.

We all agree that treatment should be offered based on the best available evidence, and clinical trials in the UK are considered to be the gold standard for evaluating healthcare interventions. The Cass review found:

“The evidence base underpinning medical and non-medical interventions in this clinical area must be improved.”

That is why we have commissioned the PATHWAYS programme of research, one aspect of which includes the world’s first clinical trial designed to help us to better understand the relative benefits and potential wider effects of the use of puberty blockers in affected children.

We must look at the most appropriate medical and non-medical approaches to support physical, emotional and psychosocial health. That is why the trial forms just one component of a wider study and a growing portfolio of research, jointly hosted by NHS England. That includes looking at the experiences of the 9,000 adults who, as children, were cared for under a previous model of NHS care, which I know the hon. Member for Reigate has described as a “medical scandal”. Dr Cass was clear in her review that both a clinical trial on puberty blockers and a data linkage study, which many hon. Members have raised today, are important to improving the evidence base on gender incongruence in children and young people.

Regardless of individuals’ views on the practices of the Tavistock, I hope we can all agree that learning from the experiences of those thousands of people who have accessed puberty blockers is important; it will provide different and separately valuable information from the clinical trial. That data alone, however, will not provide the answer as to whether we should—or should not—consider routinely prescribing these drugs in the future, or continue the ban indefinitely.

The adult gender services have now committed to sharing their data, a point also raised by hon. Members. I acknowledge that we need to move quickly, and I expect to be making progress on this soon. We will consider all data that is relevant to puberty blockers, including from the adult gender clinics.

As with all clinical research, the team leading the trial must ensure that approval is obtained from the regulatory authorities, including one of the Health Research Authority’s independent ethics committees and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. Those are all standard steps where the research receives full scrutiny. Once approvals are granted, the study protocol will be finalised and published, and only then can the trial commence. I am not able to comment on the finer details of that today, but we will issue further updates when they are available, and I commit to keeping Members updated.

I assure hon. Members that entry into the trial will be guided by strict eligibility criteria. It will involve only young people under the care of the NHS children’s gender services who have received a full assessment, where other appropriate forms of support have been offered and where their clinician supports a referral to the trial. Under the law, if a child is under 16, a parent will have to consent to their participation, and the child also needs to agree.

I am repeating myself slightly, but that level of caution was entirely missing over recent years. This is a more considered and evidence-based approach. In the past, puberty blockers were presented as the magic pill that young people needed to access; this trial will give children and young people the support they need to make these major decisions.

As we have heard today, we are currently in a situation where some people think it is unethical not to provide these treatments, and some think it is unethical to provide them. The reality is that we do not have definitive evidence. When that happens, we routinely ask for the study to be checked by an independent ethics committee. We spell out the uncertainty to young people and their parents, so that they can balance any such risk against their desire to join the trial before deciding whether they wish to participate.

[Sir John Hayes]

Will the Minister give way?

[Karin Smyth]

I am sorry, but I am tight on time.

Uncertainty is common to many new treatments, but through that process, we ensure that those treatments are no longer used in the absence of such evidence. During the trial, an independent committee checks whether new results have emerged from other countries around the world—a question that was raised several times—and, if those results provide evidence that the benefits or risks are clear, such that we could issue clinical guidelines based on them, the trial would be stopped.

We need better-quality evidence to support the NHS in providing reliable and transparent information and advice to children and young people, and their parents and carers, in making important treatment decisions. That is exactly what NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Research programme will provide.

I was asked to provide an update on implementing the Cass review, which, beyond that research, we are absolutely committed to doing. From what we heard this afternoon, I am not entirely sure what the Liberal Democrat position is, but we are very clear that we will continue to work on that in lockstep with NHS England. We have opened the three services, and a fourth is planned in the east of England from this spring.

Those services operate under a fundamentally different clinical model, where children and young people get the tailored and holistic care they need from a multidisciplinary team of experts in paediatrics, neurodiversity and mental health. At first, those services saw patients transferred from the now-closed gender identity development service at the Tavistock, but I am pleased that all the services now take patients from the national waiting list. NHS England aims for there to be a service in every region of England by 2026. That will help to reduce the waiting list and bring the services closer to the homes of the children and the young people who need them.

17:55

[Rebecca Paul]

I will speak only briefly. I want to say a massive thank you to everyone who has spoken. To echo the words of the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca), I appreciate the respectful and constructive tone. There have been some different ideas—not everyone is entirely on the same page—but we have all approached the debate in a way that is evidence-based and about sharing facts. It is very clear that everyone in this Chamber wants the best for our children. We absolutely share that objective.

I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for his thoughtful contribution. We always tend to be on the same page about such issues. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and I are also very much aligned in our thinking on this point. This is a really important debate. Very vulnerable children are affected by the issue, so it is important that we get it right.

I thank the spokespeople, the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), for their contributions. I also thank the Minister, who has taken a huge number of questions from me. She and her Department were very constructive in advance of the debate.

This debate is not political; it is about doing the right thing for our children. I am absolutely here to work with the Government and to support what they are doing to get us to that right position. If I can do anything to help, they should not hesitate to let me know. I thank the Minister for going through the questions, and I look forward to hearing the detail. I appreciate that some of the detail is not available yet, but will be forthcoming.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the potential impact of puberty suppressing hormones on children and young people with gender incongruence.

17:58

Sitting adjourned.