Top 56 Quotes & Sayings by Hilary Benn

I agree on the need for environmental sustainability. It is no good raising gross national income while at the same time destroying natural assets.

Getting money out of Whitehall and down to the town hall is also essential if we are going to address the crisis of confidence - and alienation - in our politics.

We are looking at how you change the relationship between central and local government and how to use public resources to the best effect at the local level.

Trade deal negotiations are highly complicated and take a long time.

With rising pressures on councils, particularly on social care and looked-after children, we have to reshape the way public services work to break down the barriers and get services working together.

The problem is that the global arms trade is entirely free of international regulation. In a world in which the flow of consumer goods is governed by a plethora of international conventions and regulations, deadly weapons have an uncanny knack of slipping through the net.

When it comes to jobs, investment, growth, security and our influence in the world we are clearly stronger in Europe. But we are also making a Labour argument about workers' rights that really matter, to millions of working people and the trade unions that represent them.

When it comes to whether Britain should remain in the European Union, almost all political parties and traditions - Labour, the Greens, Liberal Democrats, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, and half of the Tory Party - agree that we are better off in Europe.

The poorest still deserve help with life's basic necessities regardless of the quality of their government.

I spent 20 years working for the trade union movement before becoming a Labour MP. I'm proud to have done both jobs.

In short, corruption destroys the 'deal' - the bargain - between the citizen and the state; and it harms the poorest most.

The truth is that it was local councils who asked for the power and the freedom to try different ways of encouraging residents to reduce the amount they throw way away, and it was Labour that gave them these powers.

When your father loses his job you're not sure what the future is going to be. I was conscious that people were interested in what was happening to my father.

The thing that worries me more than anything else is losing faith in the capacity of politics to change things. I don't mean scepticism, criticism, querying, but I do mean cynicism.

We came to see the benefits for working people of common employment rights, guaranteed throughout the EU to prevent a race to the bottom. We worked together in practical ways to make cleaner beaches, protect the environment and ensure consumer rights.

Decisions about whether industries or companies should be publicly or privately owned are for the governments of developing countries to make; but where they ask for our assistance we'll give it.

People are yearning for a politics that tells it straight: that being in government is difficult, that there are tough decisions that we have to make sometimes.

Indeed, if all of humankind could cooperate, trade and work together as the nations of the EU have done, then there would be more peace, prosperity and progress on this earth.

Politics is a process, and there has to be a continual conversation between those who govern and those who give their consent to be governed.

Countries with higher incomes on average achieve better human development. I do not believe that growth alone will 'cure' poverty. But I do believe that growth is necessary.

We need to throw away less, recycle a lot more and turn much of the rest into energy.

In the 70s and 80s, Dad was 'the most hated politician in Britain'. When I started at Holland Park school, the papers turned up and there was a photograph of me published - skinny me in white shorts lining up with lots of other kids for PE. And I was 10.

The EU has made it very clear that for frictionless trade and no tariffs on goods there is a mechanism for achieving that, but there are consequences. There are trade-offs that will have to happen.

After all, does it make sense to be chucking things like glass, paper, cardboard, wood, metals, plastics, and food waste into holes in the ground? No, it doesn't; especially when someone will pay you good money to take them off your hands or, in the case of wood and food waste, when you can turn them into renewable energy.

People who feel alienated have little trust in the institutions of our society. This adds to the wider sense of disaffection and makes it more difficult for our politics to work.

I grew up in a household where we talked about the state of the world over breakfast, lunch and dinner.

It makes no sense to spend precious resources on propping up loss-making, state-owned enterprises when they could be used to get more children into school or provide more midwives to reduce the number of mothers dying in childbirth.

We cannot comfort ourselves with the idea that young people will take a greater interest in our politics as they establish themselves in a job, in their communities or in their family life.

A politician can go out and speak for him or herself, but actually for the family it's difficult - although it does bind you.

There is an opportunity - for the first time - for a global deal to control the movement of small arms, such as AK47s and anti-aircraft rocket launchers, as well as heavier weapons like battle tanks.

All countries will feel the increasing effects of dangerous climate change and it is those least able to bear it who are already being hurt first and hardest.

Growth means creating the right conditions for the private sector - farmers and firms - to invest and do business.

I was interested in public service, and looking back at my father, my grandfather and two great-grandfathers, well, yeah, that's what they did, too. And I think public service, like journalism, done right is a really honourable, really important profession.

Nature nurtures our souls and lifts our spirits. But it also sustains us and our economy - and it is for this reason that we take it for granted at our peril.

I'm really keen to see a Labour government because there are many things to be done, not least pursuing a sensible Brexit and not one that damages our economy and jobs.

We face a simple choice. Either we go back to the days when everything was disposable and landfill dumps consumed our countryside at an increasing pace, or we recognise that we have limited resources and need to use them wisely and sustainably.

And being in the EU has given Britain a stronger voice in the world. Britain leads in Europe, from trade to climate change, from good governance to debt relief for the poorest nations, and in turn Europe helps to lead the world.

The 90s was a difficult decade, with recessions in many transition countries and in emerging economies provoked by financial crises; and with continuing stagnation in Africa.

Our history tells us that public institutions evolve through a process of bargaining between the state and groups in society.

Each year, about 45 million people are affected by war. Three hundred thousand people die looking down the barrel of a gun - and 200,000 of these are killed in countries ostensibly at peace.

State-building can not be imposed. Its foundation must be a shared understanding between those who govern, and those who give their consent to be governed - the 'deal' between citizen and state.

The Brexit referendum showed us to be divided, and those of us who campaigned for remain have to accept that we lost. But that does not mean that we have to agree to the deal the prime minister has brought back - a deal that satisfies no one.

Average tariffs between rich countries are only 3 per cent. But developing countries face tariffs of more than 300 per cent in the EU for meat and more than 200 per cent in the US for fruit and nuts. These need to come down dramatically.

Rich country protectionism - barriers, subsidies and support - mean that the world supply of agricultural goods is artificially increased and world prices depressed.

The Tories claim that they have changed. Their stance on foxhunting makes it absolutely clear that they haven't. They know the public doesn't agree with them. They know that this is about animal cruelty, pure and simple.

To rebuild confidence in the power of people working together to create something better, we must give people the power to do precisely that for themselves.

We will need to work hard to break the cynicism, talk straight and rebuild trust in politics.

The union movement has achieved a huge amount in the past century or so. It has secured important rights at work, tackled unfair discrimination and ensured that Britain is one of the safest places in the world in which to go to work.

Do I have political heroes? Probably not wise to.

We must not ignore the younger electorate in a fight for older swing voters who we can be confident will go to the polls.

As each tree falls so does the earth's ability to heal itself and to adapt to the effects of our changing climate

Why do we send valuable items like aluminium and food waste to landfill when we can turn them into new cans and renewable energy? Why use more resources than we need to in manufacturing? We must now work together to build a zero waste nation - where we reduce the resources we use, reuse and recycle all that we can and only landfill things that have absolutely no other use

We live on this very small and fragile planet: a world in which there is poverty and injustice is never going to be a safe and secure world

This is the new politics. Personal responsibility. Not leaving it to others. I am my planet's keeper.

Resource efficiency - it's about only taking what we need

Our changing climate has changed our politics.