Biodiversity

I am glad that I have just under two hours to respond to the many and diverse points that have been made this afternoon in what has been a fantastically useful debate. It has unlocked some of the talent that we have in this place, across the House, on these important issues. I will respond in as much detail as I can provide to the points that have been raised and if I cannot respond now, that is either because I cannot speak about financial matters with as much willingness as I would like until after 20 October or because I do not know the answer, in which case I will write to the hon. Member concerned. I want to start by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) for what I thought was a very powerful speech, which established the absolute importance of knowing, first of all, where we are on biodiversity. We cannot measure whether we are continuing to see a decline in biodiversity, holding the line or actually reversing that decline unless we know where we are. There are all sorts of indicators that we use to measure diversity, but they are relatively blunt tools; I am the first to admit that. I think that there are wider measures that we need to apply. The hon. Gentleman talked about the need to value natural capital. When we talk about our natural environment White Paper or our passion for this subject, some people nod and think, ““Oh, good, here's a Minister or here's a Department that values our natural environment in the general sense””, and I say, ““No, we are actually talking about real value, in the economic sense””. Until we do that, we will not get to where we need to be and I am grateful for suggestions about how to embed the valuation of natural capital into Government decision making. That is precisely the type of issue that the Secretary of State will be discussing with other environment Ministers in New York next week, to bring together ideas and initiatives for embedding the valuation of biodiversity and ecosystems across government. It is also a theme that we will take forward in our thinking in the White Paper. The hon. Member for Brent North and others, including the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), made the point that the impoverishment of our natural environment hits those who are least able to deal with it the worst—it hits the poorest. That is why this issue is not something for some leafy backwater of Government; it is absolutely at the heart of every single Department. If our constituents are concerned about the pressures of international migration, they should be interested that we are supporting forests, environments and ecosystems that will sustain agriculture and life, and they should also be interested that the marine environment is sustained in parts of the world where it is currently being degraded at an alarming rate. They should be interested because that environmental degradation puts pressure on societies such as ours, both through migration and the impending catastrophe that is a war brought about by poverty and all the other related pressures. So this issue of biodiversity is absolutely at the heart of everything that we are talking about; issues do not get much more important than biodiversity.