Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:22 pm on 9 November 2022.
Thank you, Jenny, for setting out the contrast between the 'nice to have' habits that we have and the threat to life itself in many places, and talking about the changes we all need to make through our diets.
Heledd's contribution, I think, was really important in contextualising this in the context of global solidarity, talking about the Guarani people and the cultures at risk because of our indifference. What could be lost will not come back, and the world would be so much the poorer for it.
Peter Fox's comments about his legislation were very interesting, very timely, and I'm sure that we'll all really look forward to reading more about that. I agree with your point, Peter, about the labelling. It is a reserved matter to Westminster, and I really do echo what the Minister was saying and what you as well, Peter, were saying: this is something that really needs to be looked at. We need to empower people to make the right decisions.
Diolch, Pred. My apologies for mixing up Peredur with Luke; it's because of the beards. But seriously and sincerely, thank you for setting out what businesses can and must do in the context of all of this.
Diolch, Jane, for your comments about food waste. That is a really horrifying statistic about 30 per cent of food being wasted, particularly considering how much you said is actually still edible.
Thank you, Minister, for your remarks setting out the challenges inherent in doing the right thing. I'm very glad that you're supporting the motion, but, again, I would echo what you were saying about the labelling. This is something where Governments really need to empower people, because there are so many things where everyone wants to do the right thing; it's just making it the easiest way possible for that to happen.
Before we vote on this really important motion, I'd like to just share a few final thoughts with Members. Yesterday, I hosted a youth COP event in the Pierhead. It was organised by Size of Wales, and in the meeting, a room of schoolchildren was addressed by George Sikoyo from the Mount Elgon Tree Growing Enterprise in Mbale, Uganda. George was talking to the children and those of us politicians who were lucky to be in the room about the millions of trees planted in Uganda on behalf of Welsh citizens. He talked about the global problems that we face and how we can help mankind through showing solidarity and friendship. He told those children, 'We are in the same village called Mother Earth.' I hope we can all reflect on George's words. If we can grow trees in other parts of the planet, we shouldn't at the same time be allowing ourselves to contribute directly to trees being cut down and forests being destroyed in another part of that same planet. Our conscience should not allow that dissonance to continue.
There's one final thought I'd like to leave with Members. It centres around the words of John Donne. Perhaps Donne's most famous and most commonly quoted words are his remarks that
'no man is an island, entire of itself', and that because every man is 'part of the main', each man's death diminishes the writer because he is 'involved in mankind'. Dirprwy Lywydd, no man is an island, but neither is our own island, on the fringes of the north Atlantic, cut off from the main, adrift from its own conscience or consequence. Indifference can blight entire nations too. Donne compels us in the same meditation not
'to send to ask for whom the bell tolls'.
When a bell tolls in this sense, it signals someone's death. Donne is saying that any man's death means that the bell is tolling for all of us.
This debate is premised on the notion that the sounding bell signaling alarm and imminent disaster, which we should each be hearing resounding in our heads—that climate clamour—does not only toll for places on our planet that are beyond our reach, cut off from the main. That alarm bell is a call to all of us as well. The toll the catastrophe will take will have consequences for everyone, because we belong to mankind; we are in 'involved in mankind'. It is a bell that tolls for you and for me as well. I ask you, please, to listen to it.