Speeches by Miliband.

“This is an important point, and actually it was a less high-profile, but nevertheless important, piece of the discussions at COP30. As you know, countries submit BTRs—biennial transparency reports—as part of the Paris agreement, which seek to set out information on the financial support that is being provided. We are a…”

“I do not really see it that way. I will just give you an example to bring this issue to life. I was proud to go and announce that the Rolls-Royce SMR would be at Wylfa in north Wales, and I was with the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. There are 3,000 construction jobs as a result of that, but there are many thousand…”

“Working across countries is the only answer. We had a couple of meetings of what is called the High Ambition Coalition, which was formed in Paris, bringing together progressive developed countries and developing countries, and that met at COP30. I am not just saying this because I have a civil servant on either side of…”

“Is this about forest risk commodities?”

“I am glad that you are asking this question, because this is really important and we recognise the urgency of taking action on these issues. I think it is right to explain some of the background to the Committee. I was grateful to you for saying that you wanted to raise this issue. There is an interaction here—it conce…”

“Yes, briefly. On your first point, Sammy, with the greatest respect, I think it would be a total dereliction of duty if we walked away from this engagement, because we would be betraying future generations. If we say, “We’ll just let climate change take its course,” that will be an absolute disaster. It is true that th…”

“We need to align our actions so that—”

“That is a really important question, and it is worth explaining the background. I said that the TFFF is a different approach because it is an investment approach where you get a return. We think probably only a modest percentage of any investment would be ODA-eligible. This is not a grant; it is like an investment. We …”

“I cannot resist just briefly addressing your first point, but I will come on to your second point.”

“For 20 years.”

“Sure, and we are looking at the implications of their legislation and any action that we take, but we are really determined to take action on these issues. We recognise their importance; we just need to do so in a way that works.”

“You are going to see reductions in bills for the most energy-intensive businesses. But let me go to your wider question, because it is important. The second point I would make is that the best thing we can do to help businesses with their energy costs is to drive towards clean power, because that is the way in which we…”

“Let me just finish—”

“It means reducing other costs in the system to pay for that, so that businesses get reductions in their bills.”

“I do not see it that way, because of what happened. It is important to understand the context of this, which is that Russia invaded Ukraine. Fossil fuel prices went through the roof, and that is what businesses are paying for. And the last Government left us exposed. We came in 17 months ago and we could have said, “Le…”

“There are two things I would say to you about what we have done. We have extended help with energy bills to 7,000 businesses through the British industrial competitiveness scheme. This is a really important announcement as part of our industrial strategy. I think it was approximately a few hundred under the last Govern…”

“First of all, let me say we are proud of the work that we did on the TFFF with the Brazilian presidency. It is a very innovative idea for funding. It is about an investment approach to how we protect our forests. We did a lot of work in the background over a couple of years with the Brazilian presidency. That is the fi…”

“I am very wary of going toe to toe with you on these quite complicated questions, Chair, given your background. I will try to extract what you are saying as much as possible. Forgive me if this is simplistic, but the way I think about this is that the TFFF is essentially a mechanism whereby concessional finance from th…”

“There is a paradox about these negotiations. Countries fight like anything for their own individual priorities. I was struck when, as always with these things, we were up all night on the Friday night, and the different groupings of countries were gathered together in a room by the presidency. In fact, Kate was showing…”

“There will definitely be a big emphasis on the nature and biodiversity crisis as part of our future ICF.”