Blue Belt Programme: Marine Protected Areas

Debate between Barry Sheerman and James Gray

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Blue Belt programme for marine protection.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. You and I share a birthday, 7 November, although we were not born in the same year. Thank you for undertaking to chair this debate.

I am told that Sir David Attenborough’s one great regret in life is that he has not done enough to protect the world’s environment. Well, he does not need me or anyone else in this House to reassure him that he has probably done more than any other human being to protect the world’s environment, and I cannot think of a better way of marking that contribution than the very welcome decision to name the Natural Environment Research Council’s new polar research ship, to be launched next year, not Boaty McBoatface, as some people had predicted, but the RRS Sir David Attenborough. That is a fitting tribute to a very great man.

The BBC’s “Blue Planet II” and Sir David’s stark warnings about the threats posed to the world’s oceans from over-fishing, plastics and, of course, climate change will stand for a very long time as a beacon of all that is wrong in our oceans, but it is also a clarion call for “action this day”, as Churchill would have put it. It is a call to all of us in this House to do what we can to lead the world in a variety of environmental initiatives, including taking steps to protect the waters around Great Britain, Northern Ireland and our 14 overseas territories.

However, before dealing with that, it is worth noting that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister recently reaffirmed our commitment to tackling climate change and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committed us to taking action on plastics in the oceans. Both those initiatives are very much to be welcomed. The Wildlife Trusts, among others, have called for the Government to develop a national marine strategy to safeguard the cleanliness and biodiversity of our own territorial waters after we leave the EU.

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

I agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman is saying. I congratulate him on securing this debate and remind him that we recently had a long debate on marine conservation. I hope that he will join the all-party group that a number of us are setting up—it is a cross-party group—on marine conservation.

[James Gray]

I will be glad to do so. I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for bringing the group to my notice, although I do have one caveat, which I will come to later.

The important point about Brexit is that it must not mean a lessening of any of the environmental standards in our oceans. Her Majesty’s Government must commit to ensuring that they are all higher than would have been the case had we remained a member of the EU.

A full commitment to marine protected areas and the Government’s Blue Belt programme is of course central to all that. The Conservative party manifesto for this year’s general election committed us to working with the overseas territories to create a network of MPAs covering more than 2 million square miles of the waters for which the UK is ultimately responsible. That is a fantastic opportunity for us to do what is right in our own waters, but also to lead the world by example across the whole spectrum of ocean conservation.

I salute the great many people who have called for the Blue Belt programme and are active in seeking its implementation, especially my right hon. Friend the Minister here today, my hon. Friend the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation—together with his father and brother, if I may say so—and, in particular, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), whom I am very glad to see here today, and my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith). They have worked incredibly hard in advocating the Blue Belt programme. As a result of it, we have already seen the UK designate new MPAs around South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, St Helena and Pitcairn. We are further committed to designating MPAs around Ascension and Tristan da Cunha by 2020.

As chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for the polar regions, I take a particular interest in South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, which sit on the cusp of the Southern ocean and Antarctica. There, the UK has a real responsibility. After all, it was largely our whalers and sealers who wrought so much of the appalling environmental damage there in the 18th and 19th centuries. They left behind something of an environmental catastrophe, particularly on South Georgia. We also have a huge responsibility because South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands is an area of such outstanding scientific importance, both for the study of marine ecosystems and for monitoring the effects of climate change, sitting as it does on the cusp of two great oceans.

I particularly look forward, therefore, to further news on the exciting project to be called, I think, Discovery 100, which would result in a huge investment of private funds in the further preservation of the heritage of South Georgia, as well as its biodiversity following the enormously successful rat eradication programme over the past few years. I hope that Discovery 100 might also make provision for international scientific research facilities on the island. 

The establishment of an MPA around South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands in 2012 and its strengthening in 2013 were important steps towards correcting the damage previously done and preventing anything similar from happening in the future. The Blue Belt programme is now driving forward efforts to establish MPAs around Antarctica, although quite rightly that has to be done through the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. The CCAMLR agreement is incredibly important from a conservation standpoint and is a critical pillar of the Antarctic treaty system, so we must do nothing that risks undermining it. Because the Antarctic treaty suspends all territorial claims to Antarctica, including our own claim to the British Antarctic Territory, it is only through international consensus that MPAs can be established around Antarctica, including the British Antarctic Territory.

In 2009, the UK helped secure the consensus for the first Antarctic MPA, covering an area south of the South Orkney Islands. Last year, CCAMLR agreed an MPA for the Ross Sea region, and I am delighted that, despite a few setbacks this year, the Government remain committed to working towards securing international agreement on designating additional MPAs in East Antarctica, the Weddell sea and the Western Antarctic peninsula.

Foreign Direct Investment 2016-17

Debate between Barry Sheerman and James Gray

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Westminster Hall

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

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Even though we are all a little tired after last night, many of us have turned up here today because this is an important subject.

I urge the hon. Gentleman not to be too optimistic. During my career in Parliament, I have spent a long time as chair of the all-party group on manufacturing and I have tried to encourage investment in this country. At the moment, proposals from Japan, China and America are very tentative. They think that, as we go through the Brexit process, some sensible solutions will be reached regarding our access to the European market, but nothing is definite yet. There are lots of things hanging. I have just come back from New York, and what I find is that nobody in financial services in New York will accept or even apply for a job in London at the moment—

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is a very experienced Member and he knows very well that that intervention was too long. The previous intervention was from a new Member, the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr), and he can be excused both for its being rather lengthy and for reading it, which is not something one would normally expect. I remind Members that interventions should be short, and they should be direct questions, not mini-speeches.