Alex Sobel: The hon. Member is making an excellent speech outlining the scale of the crisis for Armenians who have left Nagorno-Karabakh and are now refugees. Does she agree that £1 million is woefully insufficient to support the Armenian Government in helping those refugees, and that we need to hugely scale up our support?
Alex Sobel: I was pleased to play a small part in passing the Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Act 2023, but the Government continue to delay its implementation, while 550,000 captive wild animals suffer in tourist entertainment around the world. One example is that of elephants in Thailand, many of which suffer complex post-traumatic stress disorder because of the psychological and physical abuse...
Alex Sobel: If he will resume funding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
Alex Sobel: What we are seeing in Gaza is a starvation-level event. The United States has taken the desperate measure of air drops and flotillas, which do not direct aid like land-based aid. The only organisation big enough to fully distribute aid in order to avoid starvation is UNRWA. Canada reviewed the interim report of the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services and has resumed funding. Sweden has...
Alex Sobel: What we saw last week was a Budget with no vision, no plan for getting us to net zero, no plan to drive investment in renewables and low-emission technology, no plan to boost the roll-out of electric vehicles, and no plan for retrofitting homes. The British people deserve better than that. The windfall tax on oil and gas profits that the Government extended by one year until 2029 will raise...
Alex Sobel: What we saw last week was a Budget with no vision, no plan for getting us to net zero, no plan to drive investment in renewables and low-emission technology, no plan to boost the roll-out of electric vehicles, and no plan for retrofitting homes. The British people deserve better than that. The windfall tax on oil and gas profits that the Government extended by one year until 2029 will raise...
Alex Sobel: The Secretary of State talks about a number of productions and studios, all of which are in the south of England. What support will the Government give to ensure that we have post-production and production facilities in the north of England—for instance, by matching Mayor Tracy Brabin’s ambition to have a studio in West Yorkshire?
Alex Sobel: The Secretary of State talks about a number of productions and studios, all of which are in the south of England. What support will the Government give to ensure that we have post-production and production facilities in the north of England—for instance, by matching Mayor Tracy Brabin’s ambition to have a studio in West Yorkshire?
Alex Sobel: The hon. Member is giving a list of things that are absent from the Bill. In my constituency we have autonomous delivery robots, which are currently on pilot; they are not regulated at all in the UK. Is this not another area that the Bill should regulate, in addition to the issues she has raised?
Alex Sobel: My constituency is far more rural than its name suggests, with many farms around the towns of Otley and Yeadon and the villages of Bramhope, Pool and Arthington. I have visited many of those farms and seen a range of practices, as well as many farms in North Yorkshire, over the border, particularly after the pandemic. Properly supporting our nation’s farmers is essential to meeting our...
Alex Sobel: I want to agree to disagree with the right hon. Gentleman. The fact that the baseline is so low makes it an easy target, so that shows a lack of ambition. Let us have a general election and we can test that more accurately going forward. To finish, we need to focus on improving our rewilding, reforesting and biodiversity, and all natural landscapes should be part of that. We need to fully...
Alex Sobel: I thank the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) for securing this debate, for all her work on behalf of Ukraine—we travelled there together last year—and particularly for the hugely important work that she does on recognising the holodomor as a genocide. I also thank the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker), whom I know well from my time on the Environmental Audit...
Alex Sobel: My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, including in highlighting the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust. Mine was one of those families in Poland. There are now very few survivors left, and I think it is important that we recognise the experience of my father’s generation, or the baby-boomer generation—I went with him and my own children to Auschwitz last year—but also the...
Alex Sobel: The hon. Gentleman is giving a great speech, and he mentioned a long list of places with human rights abuses. He mentioned the UN Human Rights Council. I know that he, like me, has a great interest in West Papua. Over half a million people have been killed since the Indonesian occupation of West Papua, and 70,000 are internally displaced. The Indonesians have agreed a UN Commission on Human...
Alex Sobel: I thank the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) for securing this important debate and for her technical recommendations, which should certainly help to improve things for hedgerows. Hedgerows are essential to our agricultural heritage and the protection of our natural environment and landscape, as well as being essential carbon sinks to help us meet our COP and convention on...
Alex Sobel: My hon. Friend is giving a truly excellent speech. She has talked about barriers; does she agree that one of the big barriers is the fact that children with a neurodivergent condition cannot get a diagnosis and, even if they do, they cannot get an education, health and care plan or a SEND plan? That is creating huge barriers for children with neurodiversity and autism to access school in a...
Alex Sobel: The Prime Minister said, “We urge the Houthis, and those who enable them, to stop these illegal and unacceptable attacks.” He then spoke only about Iran in terms of those who enable them. Who else is enabling the Houthis, and what action are the UK and its allies taking to stop them and their supply of weapons and other support to the Houthis?
Alex Sobel: It is not just at COP28, the climate COP, that there is an issue. I was at Montreal at the nature COP, and we were in the vanguard of agreeing that 30% of waters should be protected for nature. These additional drilling rigs cause havoc in our inland waters, but 15 % of new licences were declared in marine protected areas, so we are seeing a nature crisis being caused by this as well as a...
Alex Sobel: Many of the amendments relate to whether or not Rwanda is a safe country. Would we not be in a different place if there were a much broader range of safe and legal routes? We would not see small boats crossing the channel, and there would be no need for us to discuss whether or not Rwanda is safe, which is not helpful to Rwanda or to us.
Alex Sobel: Thank you, Chair. This is an issue that I am personally passionate about—I have spoken on animal welfare issues from both the Back Benches and the Opposition Front Bench many times since coming to this place six years ago. I am very pleased that Labour Front Benchers are supporting the Bill, but recognise the need to strengthen its provisions and for the protection of animal welfare to go...