Climate Change, the Environment and Global Development

Part of Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill (Programme) – in the House of Commons at 3:19 pm on 10 July 2019.

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Photo of Andrew Stephenson Andrew Stephenson Assistant Whip, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) 3:19, 10 July 2019

I disagree with the hon. Lady. We have seen billions of pounds spent on flood defences across the United Kingdom. There are areas where we want to go faster: the Environment Agency has just finished a £1 million project in Earby in my constituency, and I am lobbying for it to do even more in the area. I am aware that many right hon. and hon. Members would like us to go further and faster on flood defences. I will happily raise the issue with my colleagues in DEFRA, but we are investing in ensuring that we are resilient in the future. We can do more, and we need to do more, but we are making some good progress.

Let me turn to the issue of international climate finance. Many of the interventions so far have been about our domestic record, but I want to steer us back to our international obligations and what we are doing to help some of the poorest in the world.

Let me give the House a sense of the ways in which the UK is supporting developing countries with the climate challenge. The UK uses its international climate finance, a growing part of our UK aid budget, to support developing countries to move on from business as usual to: adapt and be more climate resilient; take up transformational low-carbon development; and tackle deforestation and unsustainable land use. The Department for International Development, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and DEFRA work together to deliver that support, which is making a difference in over 100 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America.