BARRY GARDINER

Trade policy can be a tool for change and progress.

Leaders get things wrong. Of course they do. They have imperfect information. They face competing political pressures. Ultimately they are human.

The most important thing to understand about Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Change agreement is, whilst it undeniably damages the rest of the world, it does most damage to America itself.

We as politicians have to understand that the greatest threats to our security are no longer conventional military ones. You cannot nuke a famine.

In order to properly measure the impacts of climate change on our Financial system they must first be identified and disclosed.

U.K. aid spending in India is that it ensures that we are able to work with our partners to develop their markets, business and enterprise, to boost labour standards and rights and, ultimately, to boost the incomes of the poorest which, in the long term, boosts demand for British goods and services.

Climate change must be approached as an opportunity to transition our economy to a zero carbon future. Business understands this even when governments don't.

In the Labour Party we are absolutely united in our belief that shipping must define its 'fair share' of tackling climate change, and develop an emissions reduction plan for the sector.

The problem with climate change has always been that whilst political timeframes and economic investment timeframes work on a 3-5year cycle, the planet needs a rather longer term view.

The mark of a bad leader is not to make the wrong decision. It is to make no decision at all.

You cannot send battleships in to stop the destruction of a rainforest. But you can spend money on clean technology transfer that enables countries to bring their people out of poverty without polluting their future.

Fracking locks the U.K. into an industry that is based on fossil fuels long after our country needs to have moved to renewables.

Like air pollution, flood risk is a threat that government should be protecting us against.

The Tories must stop focusing on their ideological obsession with a hard Brexit and their internal party divisions and start focusing on what is best for our country and our economy. Their absurd proposal that the U.K. should become the E.U.'s tariff collector is neither practical nor palatable across the Channel.

Trade agreements influence the standards, protections and regulations that shape the kind of society we live in.

Treaties negotiated with foreign powers create binding obligations on future generations that cannot be repealed in the way that domestic law can. As a consequence, the most rigorous process should be in place to scrutinise such treaties before they ever come to be ratified.

Climate change is real and anthropogenic; and the 5th Assessment Report of the IPCC has left the deniers little room for manoeuvre, but they are swiftly morphing into a new breed that accept the climate is changing but like to suggest this may have positive benefits.

The Tories' favoured trade deals post-Brexit are likely to make regional inequality worse, by focusing on the best deal for the City of London at the expense of smaller firms across the country.

Thanks to David Attenborough and 'Blue Planet 2,' we've become aware of the damage to our oceans from plastic pollution. We now know to use textile shopping bags instead of plastic, reuse coffee-cups and refuse polystyrene ones, and avoid plastic straws when ordering a drink at the bar.

As we pump greenhouse gases into our atmosphere, the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide, making the seawater acidic and hostile for shellfish and corals.

It is hard to imagine a world without bees. It would be even harder to live in it.

As the oceans get hotter, corals also become heat-stressed and expel the algae that live on their skeletons, resulting in coral bleaching events that can wipe out entire reefs. This destroys the habitat that supports a quarter of all marine life.

Understanding government can be a complex business. The stated reason for a policy and the real reason for it are rarely the same.

The pluralist society must be pragmatic. It does not say that 'God is dead.' It does not say that 'God is alive.' It says if we are to answer the question of how we can live together then we must remain agnostic on all such matters - at least so far as our civic association is structured.

Leaving the E.U. with no trade deal is the worst possible option. It will condemn British exporters to the full range of tariffs and barriers that apply under WTO rules.