Speeches by Gardiner.

“I was interested in your response to my colleague Sarah Gibson when you said about the flood alleviation scheme and that we are putting more into flood defence. You may know that the Committee has just come back from Holland—”

“I have all the other ones.”

“I understand. It was just clarity I wanted, and I think it is very sensible planning. Will each goal in the new plan have a clear apex target? One of the things that was criticised by Dame Glenys in the—”

“The EIP is going to be refreshed. I am just trying to get the staging now and the timing of things. If you are refreshing the EIP this year, when do you intend to make proposals for the next one? Is that going to be in 2028 or will there be a fresh EIP this year? That would then give you the five-year process to 2030, …”

“Thank you. We have the UN Ocean Conference approaching in June this year. We need 60 countries to ratify, and 18 have ratified so far. We are not one of them, yet we like to think that we are taking leadership on the global oceans. Can you give us a specific date for ratification? I do understand that you are trying to…”

“Dame Glenys has already told this Committee that she does not have the resources that she would like.”

“She is, but she is also very prudent in the way in which she has marshalled her resources, and all credit to her. I was interested in what you said about the rapid review that you conducted, Secretary of State. You said there would not be any point in publishing the rapid review until we had the spring statement. Now, …”

“We have a limited time, so I am not seeking a detailed breakdown of the budget. What I simply want to understand is that you have two options: one is to extend the time period and the other is to lower the target. It is important for this Committee to understand what we are judging you on doing.”

“Is it not more important to have targets that are in accordance with the science, rather than to say, “Well, we have the resources to achieve X, Y or Z”? Isn’t it more important to say, “This is what needs to be done”?”

“Of course, many of your colleagues in the Department were the ones who set the previous targets and advised the Government on so doing. I do not want to push that any further because I want to ask you a few fishy questions. To start off with MPAs—Marine Protected Areas—you said you would publish stage 3 and 4 of the Ma…”

“Not on the most damaging activities.”

“How many MPAs?”

“Out of what, 360 supposed MPAs?”

“Could you write to the Committee when the first court case is taken against a vessel for non-compliance with the landing obligation? That will alert us to the fact that you are on the case. On the implementation of remote electronic monitoring, which would put cameras on board vessels to check bycatch and the landing o…”

“But none of them has. We have the figures for those who have had a slap on the wrist. We know that, but not even one has gone to court. You know that the economic benefit to a fishing vessel for not landing its bycatch, is enormous, right? There should be a concomitant penalty, shouldn’t there?”

“The Prime Minister deserves plaudits for the skilful way in which he handled his visit to Washington last week, as he does for the resolve that he has shown in standing against Russia’s illegal invasion of the sovereign state of Ukraine. Surely, though, this is a moment to accept that the post-war international settlem…”

“These are two ways in which any authority body can wriggle out of things. One is to say, “Well, it was a long time ago,” and that is the point of delaying the response for so long: you just say, “Oh, well, of course what we are talking about was two years ago. It has all changed now.” The other is, instead of dealing w…”

“My fear is that we know that 50% of grade 1 agricultural land is highly susceptible to flooding, so if we do not get the overall land strategy right, it is a very serious threat as we have increasing climate change and increasing precipitation and floods.”

“It is just good to get you to jog us into it. If we have it on the record that you would like us to recommend it, it is helpful.”

“Just to pick up on what you were discussing with the Chair earlier, would it be helpful for us to make a specific recommendation about the timescale of response?”