Paul Brannen (S&D). – Mr President, I was pleased that the Prime Minister mentioned climate change in his speech and the importance of the European Union delivering on the Paris climate agreement.

Prime Minister, in your home country, Sweden, you have a very large number of trees, you have big forests – in fact you do trees and forests exceedingly well. Those trees and forests are all soaking up carbon emissions, and increasingly you’re using your wood to make products that go into the construction industry, which also continue to soak up the carbon. One of your biggest markets is the United Kingdom. Your neighbour, Norway, now has the tallest wooden building in the world, at 18 storeys, and the opportunities to build big and tall in wood are there for everyone to see now.

Recently in the United Kingdom we unfortunately had a horrific fire in London, in the Grenfell Tower, where over 70 people lost their lives. One of the consequences of that fire is that the British Government is looking at banning the use of wood in buildings over eight storeys tall. I think that would be an overreaction and a mistake. It would mean you would lose an important market for your cross—laminated timber and other products. I wondered if you’d be open to intervening with the British Government to point out that this is maybe the wrong road to take in response to Grenfell, because the need to tackle climate change means we need to build much more in wood in future?