Destroying our natural wealth makes us poorer in every sense of the word

There are many MPs and ministers who recognise the need to protect nature and biodiversity. The question hangs over Rachel Reeves (left) as to whether she is onboard. Photograph: Cameron Smith/Getty Images

Boris Johnson was prime minister and Kemi Badenoch was a Treasury minister when they gave their support to a groundbreaking study of the economy and its most consistently tortured victim: nature.

It was February 2021 and the eminent Cambridge professor Sir Partha Dasgupta had just delivered a 360-page report to the Treasury on the economics of biodiversity, which brought rigour to a subject often governed by emotion.