Biodiversity

On that point, has the Minister been able to discuss the environmental causes of poverty with the Secretary of State for International Development? Given that the international development budget is one of the few that will be largely unaffected by the cuts—at least we think that is the case—it seems to me that there is huge potential to transform completely the way in which, historically, that money has been spent. We should start focusing it on tackling real environmental sources of poverty, for example restoring forests to boost the water table and to stop women having to walk five miles to get water, or restoring fisheries to revitalise fishing communities, and so on. If the Secretary of State for International Development was to put much greater emphasis on the environmental causes of poverty, I believe that we might see some real progress in tackling these huge issues.