Dr Roz Savage

We are told that access to green and blue space improves mental health and could save the NHS more than £2 billion annually. We are told that urban nature provides around £823 million a year in air pollution removal benefits. We are told that England’s natural capital is valued at around £1.3 trillion, and we are told that ecosystem services deliver more than £37 billion in annual benefits. I want to discard my prepared remarks and speak more idealistically. That same idealism led me to abandon a normal life and row alone across our three oceans to raise awareness of the environmental crisis. It is this mindset of putting a price tag on our natural assets that has led us to the predicament—this heartbreaking situation—that we find ourselves in. To reduce our natural environment to mere pound signs is an insult—a very anthropocentric perspective, where we value nature according to what it delivers to us. I suggest that we have a moral duty to future generations to halt the extinctions. It is not our job to play God—to decide which species are worth saving and which are not based on whether we find them useful, charismatic or cuddly. Every single species plays a crucial role in the web of life that we are far from fully understanding. I thank the Minister in advance for her remarks today—in many ways, I feel that I am preaching to the converted, because I know that she already gets this. I wish that we could get any other Minister or Secretary of State into this Chamber to hear these arguments; we need to put respect for nature at the heart of all decision making across Government if we are truly going to get on track for the future that the next generations deserve.