Winchester’s MP spoke in support of important amendments, surrounding deforestation, during a House of Commons debate on the Environment Bill.
Intervening on Neil Parish MP, Steve took the opportunity to put his weight behind Amendment 26 and 27 of the Environment Bill explaining that; “Many of our constituents and mine, will invest with and use UK financial institutions and banks and pension funds. They will very little sight of the investments that they make around the world that could assist deforestation of the Amazon, as my honourable friend has referred to.
Isn't that the key point, that we can't just rely on transparency, it is a duty of this House to act and this legislation is a golden opportunity to do that.”
Neil Parish, whose amendments Steve supports, added that “He (Steve Brine) is absolutely right because, especially in pension funds, do you know what those pension funds, which companies they're investing in and what are those companies investing.
Are they investing into large cattle ranches in Brazil, are investing into Malaysia? All of those things, where perhaps deforestation may be taking place, this is what we need to tighten up on and I very much welcome his intervention.”
The debate came as the Environment Bill’s report stage comes to an end this week.