Tributes to Her Late Majesty The Queen

Andrew Stephenson Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

Between July 2018 and April 2019, I had the very great privilege of serving as Vice-Chamberlain of Her Majesty’s Household, a role and a title given to the fourth most senior Government Whip. It is a role about which the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) spoke earlier in her fantastic contribution, and it is a role that most right hon. and hon. Members do not even know exists—except when they see one of the Whips standing at the Bar of the House wearing a tailcoat and carrying what appears to be a snooker cue. It is also a role that people would hear about only when they realised that someone had to be held hostage at the Palace before Her Majesty came to Parliament for the State Opening.

However, the role involves much more than that. Alongside the day-to-day activities in the Whips Office, the Vice-Chamberlain would write a daily note to Her Majesty, keeping her up to date on parliamentary business and giving her all the gossip, and would then go to Parliament to discuss those matters. I am glad to say that, unlike the right hon. Member for Derby South, I can say that neither the Chief Whip nor the Prime Minister ever read my notes.

Given that my period in office coincided with some of the most acrimonious Brexit debates, a confidence vote in our Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), and the 2019 vote of confidence, there are very few issues Her Majesty and I have not discussed. Indeed, my final week in office as Vice-Chamberlain included nude protesters gluing themselves to the glass in the Public Gallery, and the Chamber being suspended after water started pouring through the ceiling into the Press Gallery. Perhaps it was quite symbolic of how broken our Parliament was at that time.

However, although that was an immensely stressful and politically charged period, on every occasion on which I met Her Majesty I found her calm, warm and reassuring. Like all who have spoken today, I was struck by her interest in current events and her lifelong service to our nation. As our longest-reigning monarch and the world’s longest-serving Head of State, she had an incredible insight into current affairs, and was a great symbol of continuity in a rapidly changing world.

I remember vividly a discussion that we had about the online abuse that many Members throughout the House face on social media. Her Majesty recalled a conversation she had had with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, and talked knowledgeably about the subject, although social media was something most people in their nineties would not know or care anything about. We also discussed interviews that she had watched on “BBC News at Ten” the night before, which demonstrated that Her Majesty’s desire to stay on top of current affairs stretched well beyond the papers that she received in her daily red box. All these meetings took place with Her Majesty standing throughout and were often sandwiched between multiple other official engagements that she was undertaking.

I last met Her Majesty the Queen on 19 July at her last ever Privy Council meeting. I was sworn into the Privy Council and presented with a bible, which I carry with me today. I believe that made me the 1,336th person, and final person, to be sworn into Her late Majesty’s Privy Council.

It was an incredible honour, as a Minister for the past five years, to get to meet a remarkable, caring, informed and witty monarch who oversaw huge change during her reign, but never stopped working day in, day out for our country. And it is an incredible honour for me as a Lancastrian MP to see the love felt towards Her Majesty Duke of Lancaster by so many of my constituents in Pendle, with whom I will be joining in remembering and celebrating her life over this period of national mourning. May she rest in peace, and God save the King.

UK Energy Costs

Andrew Stephenson Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I want to make some progress on explaining how we will defray the cost of this intervention, which I think might answer some hon. Members’ questions before they ask them.

We will defray the cost of this intervention by, first, ramping up supply. Following on from the successful vaccine taskforce, we have created a new energy supply taskforce under the leadership of Maddy McTernan. The taskforce is already negotiating new long-term energy contracts with domestic and international gas suppliers to bring down the cost of intervention immediately.

We are also accelerating all sources of domestic energy, including North sea oil and gas production. We will be launching a new licensing round, which we expect to lead to more than 100 new licences being awarded; and we will speed up our deployment of all clean and renewable technologies, including hydrogen, solar, carbon capture and storage, and wind, where we are already a world leader in offshore generation. Renewable and nuclear generators will move on to contracts for difference, to end the situation in which electricity prices are set by the marginal price of gas. This will mean that generators receive a fair price that reflects their cost of production, further bringing down the cost of this intervention.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

I warmly welcome the immediate action announced by the Prime Minister on the cost of energy, which will help families in my Pendle constituency and right across the United Kingdom. Next week is nuclear week in Parliament, so will she join me in supporting the roll-out of small modular reactors championed by Rolls-Royce, which has two sites in my constituency? We need this technology now, so will she go further and faster in driving forward the nuclear programme in this country?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that small modular reactors are a very important part of our energy mix. They are produced here in the United Kingdom. They will help to boost growth as well as boosting our energy security.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Stephenson Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Africa (Andrew Stephenson)]

DFID is at the forefront of global efforts to tackle illegal logging, promote sustainable trade in timber, and eliminate deforestation from supply chains. Those programmes, and other assistance from the UK, are helping to preserve the world’s most valuable habitats and address biodiversity loss.

[Robbie Moore]

It was great to see many families —particularly children—from Addingham, in my constituency, plant more than 600 trees last weekend, thus setting an example to us all. How do the Government plan to inspire the next generation of leaders, such as the children from my constituency, to ensure that we can continue to use our influence on the global platform to help reduce carbon emissions, improve biodiversity, and plant more trees?

[Andrew Stephenson]

I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to his constituents from Addingham, and to him for representing them in the House so well. The Government will ensure that young people have a strong voice at COP26 in November, so that their views on the climate and nature are heard on the global stage. DFID is committed to involving young people in our work, promoting active and engaged citizenship through our policy and programmes.

[James Wild]

The people in North West Norfolk supported our manifesto commitments to tackle climate change and help countries receiving development aid to become more self-sufficient. What steps is my hon. Friend taking to ensure that the aid budget, through CDC, is invested in forestry projects in Africa and elsewhere, both to protect the environment and to help reduce poverty?

[Andrew Stephenson]

I am delighted to tell my hon. Friend that the Secretary of State and I visited CDC on Monday. CDC has a number of investments in sustainable forestry across Africa and is actively exploring opportunities to do more. For example, it is supporting Miro Forestry, a sustainable timber business operating in Sierra Leone and Ghana. CDC’s investment is helping Miro to support the natural environment by replanting severely degraded land, thereby protecting the indigenous forest. To date, the investment has supported the planting of roughly 5.4 million trees.

[Fay Jones]

It is shameful that the Amazon rainforest is being destroyed to provide pasture for cattle grazing. This is devastating for that important global natural resource, and it is also undercutting British beef production. Does the Minister agree that efforts to prevent deforestation are essential for global biodiversity as well as for supporting British beef farmers such as those in my constituency?

[Andrew Stephenson]

The Department for International Development is supporting programmes on reforestation and promoting sustainable beef production. The UK’s Partnerships for Forests programme works in South America to support sustainable businesses that grow crops and rear cattle without causing deforestation. This includes support for a responsible beef partnership, which works to eliminate purchases of beef from producers engaged in illegal deforestation.

[Craig Whittaker]

As a dual national, I accept that Australia is not a developing country, but the ongoing bush fires have seen forestry and bushland destroyed to the tune of almost 25 million acres, an area almost five times the size of Wales. We have also seen the destruction of more than 1 billion animals. What support has been offered to Australia to help to rebuild not only the bushland and forests but the biodiversity that has been destroyed?

[Andrew Stephenson]

Our hearts go out to everyone in Australia who has been affected by these devastating fires. The fires are a tragedy that remind us all of the catastrophe that climate change is inflicting on forests and biodiversity. The UK stands ready to provide our Australian friends with the support they need, including our full range of humanitarian capabilities if required.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Just over a week ago, the Prime Minister made a showpiece promise to end all UK aid spending on coal. That is all well and good, but there has not been any such spending since 2012. This is more evidence that the Government are more interested in talking big on climate change globally than in taking action. It is time for the Government to get serious. Will the Minister commit today to stopping spending taxpayers’ money on gas, oil and fracking, which are helping to destroy our planet and biodiversity, and instead commit to using aid to tackle the vast amounts of poverty and inequality across the globe?

[Andrew Stephenson]

I would encourage the hon. Gentleman to read the announcement in the Prime Minister’s speech more carefully. The announcement includes not only our bilateral aid assistance but investment, export credit and trade promotion support. The Government have shown significant leadership in tackling climate change, not least through our announcement to double our international climate finance commitment to developing countries, and we will host COP26 later this year.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is the Minister aware that an all-party group has invited leaders of the indigenous communities of the Amazon to visit the House of Commons on 5 February? I invite all Members to meet those people and listen to their concerns about the deforestation of the Amazon.

[Andrew Stephenson]

The hon. Gentleman is right to suggest that we need to work with indigenous communities around the world. Many people in the developing world owe their livelihoods and incomes to local forests, and we therefore need to work with the communities in everything we do.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

Developing countries around the world are facing a loss of trees and animals at a catastrophic rate as the climate emergency worsens. When will the Secretary of State follow the bold leadership of the Scottish Government and the recommendations of the International Development Committee and explicitly adopt the concept of climate justice, in order to help climate spending and ensure that the most vulnerable receive the help that they need to protect their biodiversity?

[Andrew Stephenson]

The UK is a global leader. Not only are we the fastest remover of our own carbon emissions in the G7; we are also making ground-breaking commitments such as the Prime Minister’s commitment at the UN General Assembly to double our international climate finance spending. I think that we have a proud record to tell, but we are going to work even harder to ensure that COP26 in Glasgow in November is a huge success.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

International agribusiness in Colombia regularly steals land from campesino and indigenous peoples to cut down trees and plant acre after acre of palm oil crops, which is unsustainable for the future and bad for the environment. What are the Government saying to the Colombian Government to bring the peace process back on track so that indigenous people can have their land back?

[Andrew Stephenson]

DFID supports the Tropical Forest Alliance 2020, a public-private initiative with 90 member organisations that is focused on realising private sector commitments to eliminate deforestation in the supply chains for palm oil, beef, soya and paper. This is one of our many initiatives to address the consequences of palm oil production.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

6. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for International Trade on increasing bilateral trade with developing countries.