Thank you Mr Chair.

As others have said, the landscape has changed significantly since we met in 2019 and it is clear that COVID-19 presents significant challenges to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. But our message is that we must not be consumed by the challenges alone, we must use this too as an opportunity to rebuild better.

This is the moment to shape a recovery that delivers cleaner, healthier, more inclusive, and more resilient economies and societies, that puts the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the goals of the Paris Agreement back within reach as we collectively rise to the challenge of the Decade of Action.

This means leaving no one behind. This means supporting and providing quality education and health services for people living in poverty, women and girls, people with disabilities and marginalised and crisis affected groups. This means ensuring that they are empowered to play a meaningful leadership role and their voices are heard.

To this end, the UK is delighted to be leading the UN Financing for Development work stream on recovering better for sustainability, alongside our partners, the EU, Fiji and Rwanda.

We will also use our G7 presidency, and work with the Italian G20 presidency, to push for a clean and resilient recovery. This approach will also be at the heart, as you say, of our COP26 presidency.

Mr Chair, COVID-19 is very likely to have knocked the SDGs further off-track globally, as we have heard again today, but the story doesn’t end there. It’s important that we work together to take urgent action.

The SDGs provide a valuable framework to help us build back better in our COVID-19 recovery and by working to achieve the SDGs we will also be better placed to withstand future crises.

COVID-19 has exposed our vulnerabilities, but let it now also galvanise our strengths. We are stronger when we come together.

Thank you.

Madam President,

The United Kingdom commends the work of the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women.

The COVID-19 outbreak is increasing violence against women and girls. However, the pervasive nature of this violence precedes this crisis and, if unchallenged, will persist once passed.

This violence is preventable. The UK is at the forefront of international efforts to eradicate violence against women and girls in all its forms, including: intimate partner violence; female genital mutilation; child, early and forced marriage; and sexual violence, for example through the work led by Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon, as the Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict. The UK has also stepped forward to co-lead the Generation Equality Action Coalition on gender-based violence, to galvanise more concerted, coordinated, scaled-up global action and investment in tackling gender-based violence.

The UK works with global partners to support women’s leadership, prevent violence and ensure access to life-saving services. We stand with the 124 Member States who answered the Secretary General’s call to make prevention and response to gender-based violence a key part of the national response to COVID-19.

Special Rapporteur,

We would appreciate your recommendations for a response and recovery that addresses the longer-term structural causes of violence, and puts women’s and girls’ safety and rights at its heart.

Thank you.

What is it about?

We are carrying out this research project to understand how to reach and communicate effectively with the full range of tied tenants covered by the Pubs Code. This includes ensuring they are fully aware of their Pubs Code rights and how to exercise them.

The PCA is looking to improve tenant communication and Code awareness. The findings from the research will address this by gathering a full range of facts and opinions from throughout the sector, especially from tied tenants of the pub-owning businesses (POBs).

Hive IT will be talking directly to tied tenants, tenant representative groups and relevant trade bodies. The research will inform an evidence-based plan and recommendations report which will be made public at the end of this project, with all information anonymised.

Why are we doing it?

As part of the PCA wider awareness and transparency strategy, this project will be crucial to develop a thorough understanding of the breadth of tenants and the barriers to information sharing that currently exist. It is about understanding the most effective ways to interact with users and where there is potential for improved communication.

Timings

The user research project will restart on the 24 August and run until 02 October.  

Restarting the research at this time has been informed by some initial engagement, conducted by Hive IT, through a screener survey and contact with stakeholder groups.

How to get involved

There is an initial survey, available here, which will run before the research begins to allow anyone who is interested in helping with our research to get involved, give us a bit of information about themselves and when is the best time to contact them. Hive IT will start some of their research with those who respond to the survey but will also separately reach out to other tied tenants to make sure we have a comprehensive understanding of the tied industry’s needs.

Who is Hive IT?

Hive IT is an independent and impartial design and research agency, with extensive experience carrying out discovery projects. At the end of this project they will produce an evidence-based report with recommendations, including detailed information on how to address the needs of all users.

Discovery projects are research projects, designed to understand the problem to be solved, the actions needed to solve it, and the users of any service to address it, what they’re trying to achieve and their needs. They do this by talking to those users, and those who interact with them, using structured interviews, surveys and workshops.

You can find out more about them at www.hiveit.co.uk

Project mission statement

“By completing this research, the PCA will understand what’s important for the full range of tied tenants in their relationships with their pub company. This will provide an evidence-based plan to provide clarity on what the Pubs Code can do for them and give confidence in how the PCA can promote, ensure compliance with and enforce the Code.”

Thank you so much Selwin for that introduction.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As we look forward to COP26 next November, our aim is to increase ambitions towards a climate-resilient, zero-carbon economy.

Now we know that to limit warming to 1.5 degrees, we need to halve global emissions over the next decade.

The current commitments made under the Paris Agreement fall far short of what is required.

And that is why we are asking every country to submit enhanced Nationally Determined Contributions as well as an ambitious Long-Term Strategy, committing to further cuts in carbon emissions by 2030 and to reaching net zero as soon as possible.

The UK will of course come forward with our own more ambitious NDC as soon as possible.

And through programmes such as the NDC Partnership and the UK Green Recovery Challenge Fund, we continue to support other nations as they develop their plans and remain committed to fulfilling the $100 billion climate finance goal.

The UNFCCC Secretariat’s NDC synthesis report will show us how far countries’ collective commitments take us towards the Paris goal, and the work left to do in Glasgow.

In addition to the negotiations, the UK’s COP Presidency will focus efforts on five areas which need particular attention to achieve our goals.

These are clean energy, clean transport, nature-based solutions, adaptation and resilience, and underpinning everything, finance.

In energy, we can make the most of the low costs of renewables to boost growth and create jobs;

By investing in zero-emission transport in a coordinated way, we can accelerate the transition to cleaner air;

By incorporating adaptation and resilience into our recovery plans, we can better prepare for the next crisis while supporting the global economy;

And by protecting and restoring nature, we can improve the resilience, sustainability and also the economics of agriculture;

In all sectors, we must align our public and private finance with the Paris Agreement.

Through these campaigns, we can not only ‘do no harm’, but also rebuild our economies better than ever before.

Last week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveiled an ambitious economic strategy for the UK.

A ‘New Deal’ to help build our economy back to health.

To build back better.

And to build back greener.

Of course, this opportunity applies to every country in the word, not just the United Kingdom.

We must collectively use the time ahead of COP26 to unite behind a fairer, greener and more resilient global economy.

And we must come together to unleash the full potential of the Paris Agreement.

Thank you.

Legislation that will transform British farming is back in the House of Lords for the next stage in its journey to becoming law today (7 July).

Defra Lords Minister Lord Gardiner will be leading several sittings of the whole house as part of the Bill’s Committee stage, expected to take place over the next two weeks.

Last week, the government also announced it will establish a Trade and Agriculture Commission, which will ensure that the UK’s trade policy fully considers our agricultural industry and our commitment to maintain the UK’s high environmental protection, animal welfare and food safety standards.

The Bill was first introduced to the House of Commons on 16 January to deliver on the government’s manifesto commitments to ensure a smooth and gradual transition away from the EU’s flawed Common Agriculture Policy, which simply pays farmers based on the total amount of land farmed, and replace it with a system where farming efficiently and improving the environment go hand in hand.

The Bill sets out our ambitious plans for a new land management system, where farmers are rewarded with public money for public goods, such as improving air and water quality and providing habitats for wildlife. At the same time, it will help to boost productivity and maximise the potential of land for producing high quality food in a more sustainable way.

Defra Minister Lord Gardiner of Kimble said:

The Agriculture Bill is just the beginning of our journey to deliver a once-in-a generation transformation in the way that we farm our land and produce the food that we eat.

We will put our farmers and land managers at the heart of that journey. This Bill will allow us to support them by rewarding protection and enhancement of the environment, while enabling their businesses to prosper by continuing to produce outstanding British food and drink to be enjoyed in the UK and abroad.

I am delighted to move this Bill forward and I look forward to working with parliamentary colleagues to move ever closer to writing it into law.

During the Committee stage of the Bill, peers will have the opportunity scrutinise this landmark piece of legislation line–by–line, as well as consider any amendments tabled by peers following the Second Reading earlier this month.

The government remains confident that the Agriculture Bill will reach Royal Assent in time to begin our transition towards a new, fairer agricultural system in England as planned in 2021.

Further detail on the Bill is available on GOV.UK .