Clive Lewis MP: Climate-Related Speeches In Parliament

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Clive Lewis's Speeches In Parliament Related to Climate

We've found 39 Parliamentary debates in which Clive Lewis has spoken about climate-related matters.

Here are the relevant sections of their speeches.

• 3 Sep 2024: Healthcare Provision: East of England

  09:30

  One consequence of the situation in Norfolk is that there are regularly hundreds of hospital patients who are medically fit to leave but unable to be discharged. It is clear that our healthcare system is struggling to respond to today’s crisis, but it is also unprepared for the challenges of the future. East Anglia is the UK region most at risk from early climate impacts, and there is clear evidence of the link between climate breakdown and ill health. For example, from 2022 to 2023 the number of flood reports in Norfolk doubled, and stretches of Norwich are predicted to flood year after year. Victims of flooding in the UK are nine times more likely to experience long-term mental health issues, and flooding is linked to a greater instance of respiratory diseases because of dampness.

  [Source]

• 30 Jul 2024: Oral Answers to Questions

  I thank the Foreign Secretary and his team for the £500,000 committed to the Caribbean after the devastation on Grenada and Carriacou as a result of Hurricane Beryl, but can I press him and the team on the fact that the Caribbean is at the sharp end of the climate crisis? Will he tell the House what plans he has to advocate at COP29 for a replacement of the $100 billion climate finance deal?

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• 23 Jul 2024: Immigration and Home Affairs

  18:29

  I am hoping, for colleagues’ sake, that I have to make this contribution to the King’s Speech debate only once; believe me, doing things twice is not what it is cracked up to be. Either way, it makes a wonderful change to be on the Government Benches to speak in a King’s Speech debate in which for once stability eclipses chaos, renewal surpasses decay and hope trumps despair. Let me tell my new colleagues that it is not usually like this, at least it has not been for the past nine or 10 years, maybe longer. Too often, we have been here making speeches that mourn the erosion of our democracy and our rights at work and that can only bemoan the continual and unceasing scapegoating of our communities, the destruction of our rivers, the undermining of our judicial system, the betrayal of international human rights and the deepening of a climate crisis. But not today, because this King’s Speech is a veritable cornucopia of progressive policies pregnant with the potential to unpick decades of drift and deterioration. I would not try to say that after a couple of pints.

  I want to conclude with this observation. The true risk to this country is not the rivers of blood, as some would have us believe, but rather rivers of excrement and rivers running dry. In only a few decades’ time, my constituency might not have drinking water, because of a combination of the climate crisis and corporate corruption in the form of price gouging and criminal levels of under-investment. Immigration and asylum did not lead us here any more than membership of the EU did. Failing institutions, the erosion of democracy and economic failure brought us here. It is that our Government must fix, so let us get to it.

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• 19 Mar 2024: Oral Answers to Questions

  According to the LSE’s Grantham Research Institute, the Government’s current programme for investment to mitigate the worst effects of climate change will still see climate change damage to the UK increase from 1.1% of GDP to 3.3% by 2050 and 7.4% by the end of the century. To put it into context, that is the United Kingdom’s entire social care budget of around £25 billion. The Climate Change Committee has said that the current approach to adaptation

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• 13 Mar 2024: National Insurance Contributions (Reduction in Rates) (No.2) Bill

  15:13

  Of course, in keeping with the creed of those on the Government Benches, the better off people are, the more this tax cut will pay out to them. For those on £20,000 a year or so, the cut is worth about £150 a year; for those on £50,000 and above, it is worth almost £750. But whether it is a tax cut of £150 or £750, this Bill does nothing to rebuild our shattered public services, nothing to bring down NHS waiting times, nothing to adapt this country to the approaching climate crisis, and nothing to fix our broken adult social care system. As the Resolution Foundation noted, public sector investment spending—a key driver of growth—is set to fall by 31% as a share of GDP between 2024 and 2029. That is a real-terms cut equivalent to £17 billion.

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• 19 Sep 2023: Area-based Home Retrofit Schemes

  Second time lucky. The Minister may be surprised— [Laughter]— to hear the following words leave my lips, and I know I am: I agree with the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), in her claim that low and middle-income households cannot afford to pay for the transition to net zero. Where we differ is that I do not believe that we should let the planet burn, as she does. Instead, the wealthy must pay for the green transition. Will the Minister commit to income and wealth redistribution and finally give households and local authorities the ability to transition successfully?

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• 8 Mar 2023: Financial Security and Reducing Inequality in the Caribbean: Government Role

  09:30

  I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. He is making an impassioned speech. Does he agree that the case for former colonial powers paying reparations to the descendants of enslaved people is particularly strong, given that the UK Government were making payments to compensate the descendants of enslavers—families and organisations—as recently as 2015? Reparations are the right and fair thing to do not only because of the legacy of slavery and because the wealth that countries such as ours extracted underdeveloped those societies, but because of our role in the climate crisis, which threatens the very future of the Caribbean.

  It is potential that CARICOM—the Caribbean Community—and its 10-point plan for reparatory justice also recognises. Its reparations commission is working with initiatives such as Repair, set up by the entrepreneur Denis O’Brien. Their joint mission is for an EU and UK 25-year, multibillion-pound programme of reparation and repair and investment in the Caribbean, involving education, physical infrastructure, and science and technology, replicating the EU’s structural investment funding, which transformed the poorest countries and regions of the EU, including Ireland and Poland. The same can be done for the Caribbean. It can be given the tools to prosper, to make the jump to clean energy technologies, and to adapt to the climate crisis, by which it will be disproportionately affected. There have been centuries of carbon-intensive manufacturing, which the bodies of its people financed, but it receives no share of the bounty. The irony of the climate crisis is never lost on me—or on millions of other people around the planet.

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• 23 May 2022: Public Order Bill

  19:28

  I would like to comment on some of the engagement tonight from Government Members, because it is quite instructive. It is like a one-sided equation. They want to make this issue about the disruption to individuals and the cost to business, and although that is one side of the equation, there is another side to it: the disruption that the climate crisis is bringing to people around the world already and to this country. One thing that the House may or may not know is that, between 2010 and 2019, it is estimated that 5 million people have already died from the effects of the climate crisis. I understand that Government Members want to talk about an individual in an ambulance, an individual who has been disrupted, but we should think about the global disruption and what is happening around the world. Some 800,000 of those people were in Europe. This is not just happening elsewhere—it is happening here and now.

  I am not in denial about the importance of dealing with the climate emergency, but does the hon. Gentleman accept that those who are leading these so-called protests should be leading by example? Saying that they do not care about insulating homes, or insulating their own home, does not send a very good message from the top when they are trying to convince the nation to follow their lead.

  That individual has made their comments, but I guess the question we have to ask is who are the criminals. Are the criminals those individuals who are trying to come together collectively to stand up against a Government who are failing them on the climate crisis, or against billion-pound corporations with pockets deep enough to buy influence in Parliament and across politics? Are the criminals those individuals who are trying to use the only apparatus that they have to stand up and speak up for what they feel impassioned about? I would argue that the real criminals are those who are wilfully pushing to extract more oil from our oilfields and who are pushing us off an existential cliff edge. I think that this country and the British people increasingly understand that those are the people who need to be held to account.

  Now freedom is being mentioned again, and this time it is freedom from protest. That means freedom against the public’s right and ability to hold big business and the Government to account for the climate destruction that they are undertaking. Opposition Members know which side Conservative Members are on. Increasingly, so do the British public. You may wrap this up in the ability of law and order to hold back the unwashed masses, but actually they are the people who are fighting for all our freedoms, for our future and for a world without a climate crisis fuelled by your friends in the big corporations and the oil sector. That is the reality.

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• 18 May 2022: Achieving Economic Growth

  16:07

  Growth is an illusion that is partly responsible for driving three of the key challenges we now face: rising inequality, the erosion of democracy and the climate crisis. We have had GDP growth, albeit sluggish, over the past 12 years. Hence, by our main metric of choice, our collective wellbeing should have increased, even if only incrementally. That is the logic of the message we tell our constituents, “You’ve never had it so good because the economy is growing.”

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• 15 Mar 2022: Ukraine

  16:06

  In terms of increasing expenditure on defence, we must first ensure that what we already spend is spent properly and efficiently. I do not think we can say that about the Ministry of Defence’s procurement, which is known across Government to be ineffective and inefficient—I need only mention the Ajax armoured vehicle to make the point that billions have been misallocated and spent inefficiently and ineffectively. Before we start talking about spending more, let us not forget that we are one of the biggest spenders on armaments in the world, dwarfing Russia—we spend more than Russia every year—and that global spend on armaments is approaching $2.5 trillion, which is 20 times larger than what we have pledged to spend on the climate crisis, the biggest existential threat facing humanity. I understand that all eyes are on Ukraine and Putin now, but we must understand that poverty, inequality and the climate crisis are the biggest drivers of global insecurity, and, while spending money on weapons and warfare is right and appropriate, we must put that into the context of appropriate spending on other areas.

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• 21 Feb 2022: Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]

  19:15

  I rise to speak in support of new clauses 14, 15 and 11, which at their core support a just transition for North sea oil and gas workers by removing the barriers they face in transitioning into renewable energy, and ensuring that they can access the support and training needed. I may press new clause 14 to a vote if necessary.

  Research published in 2020 by Friends of the Earth Scotland, Platform and Greenpeace shone a light on the experiences of offshore oil and gas workers—I will come to some of their comments in a minute—and revealed a high level of concern about employment, job security and working conditions. However, it also showed a significant appetite to be a part of the transition to a zero-carbon economy, with over 80% of those surveyed saying they would consider moving to a job outside the oil and gas industry and over half choosing to transition into renewables and offshore wind if they had the opportunity to retrain and were supported in doing so. New clauses 14 and 15 would help to realise that ambition, while ensuring that in achieving our climate goals we do not leave communities behind and repeat the mistakes of the past.

  by moving to annual contracts for difference auctions, yet to genuinely realise this ambition, offshore workers must be supported to transition into renewables, not face multiple barriers to do that. This is a skilled workforce whose knowledge and experience are absolutely essential if we are to achieve the UK’s climate goals in a timely manner.

  What would these amendments do? New clause 14 would require the Secretary of State to produce and implement a strategy to achieve the cross-sector recognition of core skills and training in the offshore energy sector, and to ensure that training standards bodies adopt a transferable skills and competency-based approach to training. Crucially, this strategy would apply to all workers whether they are directly employed or contract workers, and they would have to be consulted in its development. This amendment would enable oil and gas workers to access jobs in renewable energy. It would also mean that, while there are not sufficient jobs in renewable energy as capacity continues to be built up, workers are able to take contracts in both sectors and then move between them. It would prevent a skills drains as people leave the energy sector altogether due to difficulties with finding work, and the cost and time involved in maintaining training certificates.

  New clause 15, which is complementary, would establish a retraining guarantee for oil and gas workers seeking to leave the sector, thereby supporting them in transitioning to green energy jobs. It would also ensure that they are able to access advice on suitable jobs based on their existing skillsets, as well as the funding and training needed to transition. Again, all oil and gas workers are eligible for the retraining guarantee, as well as those who have recently left the sector. This amendment would provide clear pathways for oil and gas workers into clean energy, meaning they are not left behind in transitioning to a zero-carbon economy. It would also be infinitely more affordable if accompanied by new clause 14, meaning that workers are not required to duplicate training courses. Amendment 11 would ensure that the new clauses are applicable to Scotland, which is of course essential to facilitate a just transition for workers in the North sea.

  I hope that the Government look closely at these amendments and recognise that there is much more they need to do to genuinely support oil and gas workers and to make a just transition in this sector a reality.

  I am grateful to my hon. Friend for adding his name to this amendment, as a lead sponsor, and I think he has made a very important point. Coming off the back of COP26 and all the warm words we heard then, does he agree with me that for the Government, over the course of the next six months, simply to publish an energy sector skills strategy—we are not expecting them to go any further than that at this stage, but simply to show that they have a plan—is the very least that people listening to those warm words from the Prime Minister at COP26 would expect?

  I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I agree entirely. We can already see, before the ink is dry on the COP26 agreement, that the Government are back-tracking. We only have to look at history. Many Conservative Members will look at what happened in the 1980s with the demise of the mining industry and say, “Well, we were the first to ensure that we decarbonised our economy”, when actually this was a tragedy. If we look at what happened with deindustrialisation and what happened in the mining industry, we see that actually the whole reason for the necessity of the levelling-up agenda is that there was not a just transition. This is an opportunity for us to ensure that we do not make the same mistakes as we have in the past, and that we play our part in making sure that we get to net zero in a timely manner. I think that is what most people in this House and out in the country would want, and on that I shall finish.

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• 12 Jan 2022: Afghanistan: Humanitarian Crisis

  13:38

  Afghanistan, as has been heard, is facing an escalating and multi-faceted humanitarian crisis. In response, the United Nations launched its largest ever single country appeal, in part because the crisis in Afghanistan embodies a new breed of 21st century international crisis, where the hazards of war collide with the hazards of climate change and a global viral outbreak. This has created a nightmarish feedback loop that punishes some of the world’s most vulnerable and destroys their country’s ability to cope. So far, the UK’s response has been woeful. It took five months for the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme to be put into place, while our aid commitment to Afghanistan in 2021 was lower than what was delivered in 2019.

  In October, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon—the Minister of State for south and central Asia, the United Nations and the Commonwealth—attended the annual open debate on women, peace and security at the UN Security Council, where he made it clear that the rights of Afghan women need to be front and centre. The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and many other Ministers discussed Afghanistan with world leaders in the margins of COP26. We all urge the need to address the acute humanitarian situation. We are continuing to work very closely with countries across the world and across the region.

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• 1 Dec 2021: Limiting Global Heating

  We know the oil of Cambo and the coal of Cumbria have to stay in the ground if we are to keep temperature rises at below 2.4°C. I say 2.4°C because that is the new reality after this year’s COP26. Will the COP President commit to stopping Cambo and the new coalmine in Cumbria, and end the climate hypocrisy that so undermined his presidency at COP26?

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• 21 Oct 2021: COP26: Limiting Global Temperature Rises

  13:57

  I will congratulate the Government on some of the work they have done, and continue to do, on moving towards rectifying our climate crisis. However, the analogy I would use it this: imagine we are all sat in a car heading off a cliff edge. What we actually need is a big, hard handbrake turn to avert that cliff edge. What we have at the moment are a Government who are gently taking their foot off the accelerator. Quite simply, that is not good enough. We need a big shove on the brakes: a big handbrake turn and a big skid to turn away from there. That is not happening. I am happy that they are taking their foot off the accelerator, but frankly, for where we are at the moment, that is simply not good enough. The depressing fact is that we are still having these debates. We are still talking about keeping the temperature down to 1.5° C, even though we know this is an existential threat. We are fiddling not just while Rome burns, but while the planet burns. For those of us who have known about this for 30 years or more, that is frankly ridiculous and future generations will never forgive us.

  The 2021 IPCC report was a code red for humanity, but alas a green light for business as usual for this Government. As I said earlier this week, there are two problems with the Government’s net zero strategy: net and zero. Zero, because we know, as those who were quick enough to get on the internet and see what documents the Government had put up will have seen, that aviation emissions will be increasing well beyond 2035. We will be pumping out millions of tonnes into the atmosphere well beyond 2035 and beyond 2050. And net, because the negative emission technology we are relying on to suck the carbon out of the atmosphere does not exist at scale yet and shows no signs of doing so.

  Let us be honest: I believe the net zero strategy is classic greenwash, big on soundbites, small on detail and absolutely limited on systemic change—the kind of systemic change that we need if we are to avert a climate crisis.

  [Source]

• 14 Jul 2021: Health and Care Bill

  17:26

  With the climate crisis and the reality of an ageing population, there has never been a better time for the Government to centre the wellbeing of people and planet and the way in which public services and the economy are run. Sadly but unsurprisingly, the Bill fails in this context, so I will vote against it, because it does not fundamentally deal with the very real issues facing our healthcare system. It does not address the desert of NHS England providing oral and dental healthcare, which has made it impossible for my constituents to get an appointment. It does not guarantee fair pay and conditions for the key workers who have seen us through the pandemic, and it does not deal with the scandalous state of mental health- care. Patients in my constituency are in crisis, are discharged too early, or not admitted at all, while for a decade, Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust has failed to end the practice of sending patients out of area.

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• 20 Apr 2021: Climate Change: International Co-operation and the Global South

  What diplomatic steps his Department is taking ahead of COP26 to work with partners in the global south to tackle climate change. ( 914460 )

  [Source]

  A recent Cambridge Sustainability Commission on Scaling Behaviour Change report says the world’s wealthiest 1% need to emit 30 times less carbon than they currently do by 2030 if we are to have a fair transition to net zero and, according to the science, save the lives and livelihoods of millions, perhaps billions, of the world’s poorest from the worst effects of the climate emergency. Given the stakes and given the UK’s historical and disproportionate carbon emissions, will the Minister commit to ensuring that not a single penny from the public purse will be used to fund or subsidise the fossil fuel industry, including through development aid?

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• 4 Mar 2021: Income Tax (Charge)

  14:09

  As we know, the context of the Budget yesterday was a debilitating global pandemic. It was also the last Budget before the UK hosts the COP26 climate conference. It was therefore arguably the most critical Budget since the second world war. I say “critical” because my friends, my family and my community matter to me, and having a viable future for them and myself matters to me. I saw so many of them struggling before the pandemic because of this Government, and now even more are struggling because of this Government.

  What the people of this country needed from the Chancellor’s Budget yesterday was so much more than simply a reaction to the crisis at hand. What the people of this country needed was a strategy that would support all people and businesses struggling amid the pandemic, tackle the rising epidemic of inequality and debt, initiate a massive programme of decarbonisation, invest in local authorities and public services—the backbone of the successful part of the pandemic response—and rebuild our town and city centres as the vibrant hubs of sustainable communities and community activity. By those measures, the Chancellor’s Budget has failed on every single metric.

  What I have seen in the pandemic is the best of the British people and the worst of this Conservative Government. In my constituency of Norwich South, I have seen care and compassion in the face of adversity, and I have seen the power of collective action in public services such as our NHS and schools, which stepped up to carry this country through extreme circumstances. In this Conservative Government, I have seen corruption and cronyism as well as indifference to growing inequality and climate change. That is ingrained in the detail of this Budget, which is going to punish the public and our public services, instead of taking the transformative action needed to support the livelihoods of all people and businesses, not just today but for generations to come.

  This Budget will entrench inequality and it failed to tackle the climate crisis. It will be the job of those of us on this side of the House to remind the public in the years to come that these were the choices of this Government and this Chancellor.

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• 24 Feb 2021: Topical Questions

  The UK’s credibility as COP president rests on demonstratable climate action at home, yet much like the Government’s failed pandemic response, which has left 130,000 people dead, the Government are acting too slowly, prioritising profit over public wellbeing. The Government’s boasts of our road building, and their plans of cutting £1 billion from the public rail infrastructure budget and allowing the Cumbria coalmine to go ahead are simply not compatible with achieving net zero. Will the Minister therefore admit that the Government’s stated ideological beliefs are incompatible with even their own meagre climate goals?

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• 15 Jan 2020: A Green Industrial Revolution

  16:42

  Later this year, the UK will host the COP26 gathering of nations still struggling to set up a robust framework to avoid climate breakdown. It is an opportunity for Britain to lead rather than just to host. Are there any measures in this Queen’s Speech to show how we will do this? No, of course there are not. Has anyone actually told the PM that one cannot just turn up to COP and go, “Bing, bang, boom, bong, phwoar, climate crisis!”? We have to stand on our record, and this Government do not have one. Members do not have to take my word for it. In its latest assessment, the Committee on Climate Change said that the UK is not

  Ultimately, I fear that nothing we say in this place will change the mind of this Government. The entirety of this Government’s mandate has been founded on one thing, which is to get Brexit done—it pains me to say that. When we understand that this is a hard right political project, we will understand that this Government have no intention of facing up to the climate crisis. Brexit has always been about trade deals that do not give a damn about climate, inequality or the global south. It is about deregulation that lets corporations raping our planet do so with ever more impunity. That is what Brexit is actually about, and that is why the Queen’s Speech has failed even the most basic of tests.

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• 7 Jan 2020: Oral Answers to Questions

  For what have been described as a “post-truth” Government, here are two clear and simple facts: first, COP 26 is coming to the UK and, secondly, the eyes of the world will be on this Government’s climate crisis policies—or, rather, the appalling lack of them. As Australia burns, millions in African states face climate-driven famine and floods have swept the north of England, will this Government give a damn about this existential threat and act, not posture?

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• 17 Oct 2019: The Climate Emergency

  15:13

  It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) who I believe is one of the few Conservative Members who gets the scale of the challenge before us. Most Members of the House agree that something needs to be done, but the difference between many Conservative Members and Labour Members comes down to the speed, scale and ambition of that change. For example, in 2017 the Government’s manifesto stated that they would plant 11 million trees over five years in their efforts to challenge and tackle the climate crisis. Compare that with Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in the world, which has just planted 350 million trees in 12 hours. That tells us everything we need to know about the scale of the Government’s ambition when it comes to tackling the climate crisis.

  Labour Members are committed to nothing less than the total transformation of our economy—not just how it works, but for whom it works. So many of us who came into politics as Labour Members understand that the fight against the climate crisis is the fight against inequality. Why? Because we know that the poorest 50% of people in this country, and between countries, consume just 10% of the resources and emit just 10% of the carbon. The wealthiest 10% consume 50% of the resources and emit 50% of the carbon. It is therefore clear that the fight against climate change is also the fight against global and domestic inequality. The poor cannot give up what they do not have; they cannot give up carbon that they are not emitting. The people who can are those at the top—the top 10%; the top 1%. Those are the people who must give up their carbon and their use of resources.

  My hon. Friend—I will call her that—the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) has said that the Queen’s Speech contained just six words about the environment, and there was not a single mention of the climate and ecological crisis facing our planet. That is hardly surprising, given this Government’s track record on the climate emergency. We have had a green light for fracking, and fossil fuel subsidies have been boosted by billions. Onshore wind has been scrapped and solar support axed. The green homes scheme has been eviscerated, and zero-carbon homes abandoned. The Green Bank has been sold, Swansea tidal lagoon stuffed, and Heathrow expansion approved. After 10 years of that, the Government tell us to trust them to tackle the climate crisis, but many Labour Members, and many members of the public, are extremely sceptical about their claims.

  That is the challenge. Can the Government prove mastery not just of themselves but of their ability to tackle the climate crisis? It is time to get a grip.

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• 15 Jul 2019: BBC

  18:04

  When it comes to climate change, there is a weight of evidence among the scientific community, and then there are the ideas put about by right-wing think tanks, newspapers and politicians. Similarly, when it comes to debates about the BBC, there are the allegations of bias advanced by many of those same right-wing interests, and then there are the findings of independent academic research. What does the social scientific evidence tell us about BBC impartiality? One consistent finding is that the BBC allows the press and senior politicians to set the agenda for its reporting. In the BBC’s Bridcut report of 2007, it acknowledged that impartiality should mean representing a range of views in society, not just the perceived political centre ground or the balance of opinion in Westminster.

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• 1 May 2019: Environment and Climate Change

  17:14

  So often as politicians we talk about what is politically possible, but with the climate crisis we need to move from the art of the politically possible to the science of what is necessary. When you are drowning, you do not ask yourself, “Ooh, what is politically possible?”; you do whatever it takes to survive. When the banks crashed in 2008, the political consensus in this place was to save them by any means necessary. According to the National Audit Office, the cost was £1.2 trillion, which meant 10 years of austerity, public service cuts and vast human suffering. But now, instead of a banking collapse, we face a climate and ecological collapse. We face catastrophes of biblical proportions: droughts, pestilence, famine, floods, wildfires, mass migration, political instability, war and terrorism. Global civilisation as we know it will be gone by the end of the century unless we act.

  It was against that background—with the science of the climate crisis over here and Government policy over there—that Greta Thunberg, the youth strikers and Extinction Rebellion appeared. They arrived at the climate crisis debate like gatecrashers at a premature funeral, smashing through the window in a shower of glass to announce to a hushed congregation that the patient was still alive. Their message to this place is simple: “The time for incrementalism has passed. Act now, change now, or be swept away by those who will.”

  This motion offers us a chance to fundamentally restructure our economy to deliver good, secure, well-paid jobs as we mobilise to decarbonise our economy on a grand scale. It offers us a chance to reinvigorate and strengthen our democracy, to massively reduce social and economic inequalities, and to protect and restore vital threatened habitats and carbon sinks. We must onshore the global financial system, bringing it back under democratic control.

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• 9 Apr 2019: Renewable Energy: Public Funding

  Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to one of this country’s most successful publicly funded renewable energy programmes ever? I am of course talking about the last Labour Government’s export tariff, the feed-in tariff scheme, the biggest single democratisation of energy that the UK has ever seen, cutting 700,000 tonnes of carbon. This month, however, in an act of supreme national and international self-harm, the Government killed it off—kaput, finito, game over. In the real world, how can anyone, anywhere believe that this Government take their climate change obligations seriously?

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• 19 Mar 2019: Oral Answers to Questions

  From listening to the Government’s rhetoric on climate change, we could be forgiven for thinking that the school strikers are coming out in support of them; they are coming out against them, and if we cut through the greenwash we see the feed-in tariff axed, the solar energy sector decimated, and now the exports payments framework about to be ended and no replacement put in place. So let me ask this: will the Government ever announce a cut to the lavish support they dole out to their friends in the fossil fuel industry?

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• 5 Mar 2019: New Technologies

  I am sorry, but when it comes to funding the new technologies that really matter, this Government, and especially the Treasury, have been abysmal. The climate crisis is upon us now, but this Government’s reaction has been to axe carbon capture and storage funding; to cancel the Swansea lagoon, despite the fact that we were poised to be a world leader in tidal technology; and to slap innovative emerging storage technologies with business rates. At the same time, they are throwing billions into new tax breaks for oil and gas. Does the Chancellor agree that this Government are not facing the climate emergency but creating it?

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• 28 Feb 2019: Net Zero Carbon Emissions: UK’s Progress

  15:51

  I am speaking from the Back Benches, but I was appointed by the shadow Chancellor as the first ever shadow Minister for sustainable economics. The next Labour Government understand that we can no longer allow the Treasury’s short-termism and obsession with neo-classical economic orthodoxy to block the bold and radical fiscal, monetary and regulatory changes we need to deal with the climate crisis. Labour understands the scale of the challenge before us and the national and international purpose that we must set ourselves. It can be nothing less than a radical transformation of the way our economy works.

  We know that the wealthiest 10% are responsible for more than half of all greenhouse gas emissions on our planet and in our country, and yet we also know that the poorest 50% are responsible for just 10% of greenhouse gas emissions. This is not about a false choice between consumption for the poorest and the environment. The poor cannot cut what they are not consuming. We need to see a contraction and a convergence. The poorest in the world and in this country will need to consume more, and the wealthiest—not just individuals, but corporations—will need to do more of their fair share. That is a challenge to the economic orthodoxy that those on the Conservative Benches champion.

  That is the challenge before us, and we can see what happens when we do not ensure that social justice is at the heart of the changes we make. If we look at the gilets jaunes movement in France, we see that it happened because of the technocratic centrist fixes the Macron Government were trying to make. There were €40 billion of carbon taxes, yet only a small fraction of that was invested in public transport or for the poorest, and it fell disproportionately on those least able to pay, who are actually those consuming the least carbon. As a result, there was not one single tax on French aviation fuel. That is what caused the frustration and anger in France—inequality and a lack of justice at the heart of that economic policy.

  How did we respond to climate change and the sustainability issues facing us in the UK? We decided to expand Heathrow—fantastic! I think the Heathrow issue is probably one of the most decisive splits we will see in politics in the coming years. It is the biggest single source of emissions in the UK, and the expansion has now given the green light to 300 million tonnes more of carbon being poured into our atmosphere. No Government who aspire to tackle the climate crisis and to keep temperature rises below 1.5°C would ever allow Heathrow to happen.

  Let us quickly run through some of the failings of this Government. They have slashed solar subsidies, blocked onshore wind and prevented a closed-loop reuse and recycling sector. They have supported fracking, privatised the Green Investment Bank and supported Heathrow expansion. They have blocked mandatory climate risk-related reporting for the finance sector, they have never issued a green bond, and they have axed their own flagship energy efficiency policy. Those young people were not just calling for incremental change. They were calling not for climate change, but for system change.

  [Source]

• 16 Jan 2019: No Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

  18:22

  Let me deal with an issue that the House and, in particular, the Government have failed to adequately address: the impending climate catastrophe and biodiversity loss. Above all else, given the timescales we are talking about, this is a calamity waiting to happen, but the Government are comprehensively failing on it. Time after time, we hear the greenwash from Conservative Members that they will do what it takes on the environment. They slashed solar subsidies, with 9,000 job losses; and fracking has been announced, put forward and is now actually happening, and not just in this country—they are also doing it in China, with taxpayers’ money. The climate science tells us that we need to leave that gas in the ground—80% of it—and that this cannot happen. In the words of that legend of Norwich, Delia Smith, I say to those on the Government Benches, “Let’s be ’avin’ you.” Let us have that general election. Let us have that vote. Support this motion.”

  [Source]

• 15 Jan 2019: Local Government Funding

  15:27

  Let us consider the challenges that this country and our children will face in the coming century, such as climate change, the loss of biodiversity, rampant inequality, threats to our democracy, and undreamed of technological changes. Surely it is nothing less than criminal to pursue policies that will cut the social and educational tools that people will need to navigate their way through those coming challenges.

  [Source]

• 4 Dec 2018: Finance (No. 3) Bill (Fifth sitting)

  10:45

  The Opposition believe there are a number of fundamental flaws to the proposals. Transferable tax history is fiscally irresponsible. It expands the very tax breaks that put the Exchequer on the hook for exorbitant future decommissioning liabilities, which the Government have set aside no money to pay for. It creates perverse incentives, providing a windfall for companies exiting the North sea, and it fails to ensure a long-term commitment from incoming buyers on workers’ rights, capital investment and emissions reductions for the benefit of the UK. It also totally disregards the UK’s role in avoiding catastrophic climate change, and does nothing to address the urgent need for a just transition to a low-carbon economy.

  Rather than assessing purely commercial viability, we should also assess how much remaining oil and gas in the UK can be exploited within the confines of the Paris climate agreement. It would therefore be helpful to know if and how the Government intend to assess the compatibility of TTH with that agreement. Do the Government have a view on how much of the UK’s remaining 7.5 million barrels of discovered undeveloped oil and gas resources can be equitably developed if we are to play our part in meeting the Paris goals?

  Ultimately, this issue ties into the Government’s wider policy of maximum economic recovery, by which they have committed to extracting as much oil and gas as is commercially viable. Recent reforms, such as tax reduction and the decommissioning relief deed, as well as the proposal before us, are designed to make ageing marginal fields attractive to investment, even if that means reducing the per-barrel tax take or subsidising decommissioning costs to improve corporate returns. That approach is wholly inappropriate in a climate-constrained world, and it is entirely inconsistent with the Paris agreement, which requires not only a moratorium on new exploration, but the winding down of a substantial portion of current projects. In short, we need sustainable economic recovery, with Paris-compatible maximum-production targets, and a strategy to determine which combination of oil fields can most safely, efficiently and equitably exhaust the UK’s quota.

  [Source]

• 6 Nov 2018: Support for Businesses and Entrepreneurs

  In his Budget speech, the Chancellor failed to make one single mention of climate change, yet by scrapping enhanced capital allowances for small and medium-sized enterprises, the Government have again cut vital support for energy efficiency and decarbonisation. Given the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change climate change report and given this Government’s support for fracking and their abysmal failure on tidal, onshore wind and solar, do the Conservatives realise that not only will they fail to meet their climate change targets, but they have breached their quota for hot air on this issue?

  [Source]

• 12 Sep 2017: Oral Answers to Questions

  19. Pope Francis warned yesterday that history will judge adversely politicians who do not act on climate change, so when will the Government heed his words and publish their long overdue report and fifth carbon budget emissions reduction plan? ( 900802 )

  [Source]

• 13 Mar 2017: Budget Resolutions

  21:40

  Last June, the British people did not vote to apparently reclaim their sovereignty, laws and rights from Brussels only to see the Government auction them off to the highest bidder, behind closed doors. We are talking about our NHS, our Climate Change Act, and our employee rights. Nor did the British people vote to divide the Union, yet the Government’s hard Brexit is the key reason Nicola Sturgeon has given for requesting a second referendum. The First Minister wants the people of Scotland to have a choice, just as the Government now have a choice: do they want hard Brexit or do they want to retain the Union?

  [Source]

• 23 Jan 2017: Industrial Strategy Consultation

  16:46

  I do agree with my right hon. Friend. An industrial strategy offers us the opportunity to align policies that reinforce each other. We have some of the world’s best researchers in energy storage, and one of the world’s most effective, efficient and innovative automotive sectors. We are one of the leaders in renewable energy through offshore wind. If we bring them together, one will reinforce the other to give us this chance to be a world leader in a set of technologies that, under any reasonable estimate, seems likely to be taken up around the world in the future.

  If the Secretary of State is serious about building an industrial strategy that works for the whole country, and that encourages and maximises the opportunity for research and innovation, there must be space in it for the development of marine renewable energy—wave and tidal power. World-leading work on that is being done in my constituency at the European Marine Energy Centre. Will he visit and see for himself the way in which our island communities can help to build the strategy that he says he wants to create?

  [Source]

• 31 Oct 2016: Nissan: Sunderland

  17:18

  I am delighted that my hon. Friend has mentioned that. One of the great opportunities in industrial strategy is to combine our world leadership in offshore wind renewable energy with our commanding position in the automotive sector, and to bring them together so that when it comes to electrical vehicles and battery storage, we can lead the world, which is what we intend to do.

  They are indeed vital, and I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman makes that point. One of the advantages of having responsibilities for energy and climate change within the business and industrial strategy set of responsibilities is that these conversations can be joined up. The Minister for Climate Change and Industry and I share an interest in making sure that we maintain our leadership in green technology to the great advantage of our industrial future.

  [Source]

• 23 Mar 2016: Oral Answers to Questions

  6. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and Ministers of the Scottish Government on withdrawal of funding for the carbon capture and storage scheme at Peterhead. ( 904205 )

  [Source]

  The Government’s own advisers on energy and climate change have warned that the cost of meeting our climate change targets could double without Peterhead and CCS. Given that the Government are having a good run on U-turns when it comes to saving the Chancellor, perhaps they would also like to make a U-turn when it comes to saving the planet—something that people feel is far more worth while.

  [Source]

• 3 Feb 2016: Fuel Poverty

  10:38

  One of the most cost-effective ways of meeting our climate change commitments and tackling fuel poverty is to increase energy efficiency, which has been mentioned so many times today, but it is being fundamentally undermined. Any serious attempt to tackle fuel poverty will require serious action to improve our housing stock. Poor-quality housing and fuel poverty are almost inseparable. The figures speak for themselves: 73% of households in fuel poverty live in properties with the lowest energy ratings—E, F or G. Only 2% live in properties with the highest energy ratings—A, B or C. The Government’s goal of ensuring a minimum energy-efficiency rating of band C by 2030 is woefully inadequate.

  The Energy and Climate Change Committee is clear that the most cost-effective option for decarbonising our economy is set out in the carbon budgets. We have made it clear in the past few weeks that if we intend to decarbonise our economy, renewables will play a crucial part. Our problem with Government policy is that it is going backwards on renewables. Renewables will play a crucial part in ensuring that this country meets its climate change commitments and carbon budgets cost-effectively. We must have a balanced energy portfolio; the dash for gas and going all out for fracking is not the way forward. The Opposition are calling for a more balanced approach as the best way to achieve our commitments.

  Between 2010 and 2013, only 70,000 fuel-poor households upgraded, leaving 95% still to be improved. As the hon. Member for St Ives said, at that rate the Department will miss its own target by 100 years. The Energy and Climate Change Committee estimates that investment of £1.2 billion to £1.8 billion per annum is needed to attain the Government’s fuel poverty strategy for England. The cheapest third of our approach to tackling our climate change commitments is the energy that we never use. Energy saved through efficiency is the cheapest. We talk about energy security, but energy that we never use is the securest. Funding for energy efficiency for the fuel-poor has been cut in real terms by a fifth, and the installation of energy efficiency measures has been cut by a third. As Members are aware, two new Government incentive schemes were introduced in 2013: the green deal and the energy company obligation. Two years later, the green deal has been stopped, and support for ECO is yet to be set beyond 2017 and no new funding is due to be announced until 2018.

  [Source]

• 2 Feb 2016: Energy BILL [ Lords ] (Fifth sitting)

  14:15

  Throughout the debate on the Bill—in Committee, on Second Reading and in the other place—we have heard that Government decisions on energy policy, particularly with regard to renewables, have had a corrosive effect on investor confidence. It is appropriate to go through the list again, because it is quite despicable: the solar subsidy has been cut by 64%; the biomass subsidy has been cut; the biogas subsidy has been cut; the green deal has been scrapped; the renewables exemption from the climate change levy has been ended; and support for community renewable energy products has been slashed.

  I will come back to that point. Let us have a look at the renewable energy country attractiveness index, which saw a major reshuffling of the 10 most attractive countries for renewable energy potential and growth. One of the biggest losers was the United Kingdom, which dropped out of the top 10 for the first time since the information was published back in 20013. It was specifically because

  “a wave of policy announcements reducing or removing various forms of support for renewable energy projects has left investors and consumers baffled”.

  I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has seen the report from the Climate Action Network, which I understand is an umbrella group of dozens of NGOs involved in climate change, including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, which recently ranked Britain the second-best country in the world for tackling global warning, right behind Denmark, and represents a very strong commitment for tackling climate change. I would be interested in his thoughts on that.

  I will come back to that. I am informed that it relates to climate change commitments, not the renewables that this Government and the previous coalition Government have invested in, or as my list just demonstrated, have been cutting left, right and centre. But let me give you a counter-quote from Neil Woodford, head of Equity Income, one of the best performing funds. In December 2014, he said:

  I will push on. I have a few more of those chocolate sweets I might give away. If successful, the Government will be going back on their own legislation and closing the renewables obligation for onshore wind a year earlier on 1 April 2016, a date that will not be lost on any hon. Members here. If successful, the Government will have adversely singled out the most cost-effective, low-carbon technology available to us, at a time when the Secretary of State herself admits that the UK is on track to miss its legally blinding EU obligation on renewable energy by an estimated 50 TWh hours, a shortfall of almost 25%.

  [Source]

  14:30

  I do not buy this lack of market confidence. Paris and everything else point to a decarbonisation of energy generation. Investors are not going to have that policy pulled from under their feet. That should give plenty of market confidence to the private sector and others to invest. To have them continually drip-fed public money, irrespective of which purse it is taken from, has to stop. If the market pretends to be surprised by that, the Government would be surprised, because our policy was trailed very well months in advance of the election.

  A report last week from Bloomberg New Energy Finance research forecast that these measures will see the UK lose at least 1 GW of renewable energy generation, enough to power 660,000 homes over the next five years. The figures suggest that after 2020 the renewables infrastructure will collapse to almost nothing because of a lack of investment.

  “The Government’s decision to end prematurely financial support for onshore wind sends a chilling signal not just to the renewable energy industry, but to all investors right across the UK’s infrastructure sectors. It means this Government is quite prepared to pull the rug from under the feet of investors even when this country desperately needs to clean up the way we generate electricity at the lowest possible cost—which is onshore wind. People’s fuel bills will increase directly as a result of this Government’s actions. If Government was really serious about ending subsidy it should be working with industry to help us bring costs down, not slamming the door on the lowest cost option.”

  As part of the Bill, the Government propose to close the renewables obligation to new onshore wind projects from April 2016, one year earlier than originally planned. As the only current mechanism that enables large-scale onshore wind to enter the power market, the proposed early closure of the RO poses a significant threat to the future of the onshore wind sector and the UK’s growing green manufacturing, export and investment potential, while increasing the difficulty and cost associated with achieving our decarbonisation targets.

  Indeed, the Minister stated clearly her intent at the Energy and Climate Change Committee of 20 October 2015, when she pointed out that the primary purpose of the grace periods was ensuring,

  [Source]

• 24 Nov 2015: Fuel Poverty

  17:26

  In the Department of Energy and Climate Change annual statistics report, the number of households in fuel poverty in England was estimated in 2013 at 2.35 million, or—in other words—one in 10 homes where there was a choice between heating or eating. And it is not set to improve any time soon. In fact, by DECC’s own measure, the next set of figures is expected to show an increase in fuel-poor households. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the abject failure to get to grips with the plight of those in private sector rented accommodation. Compared with other housing sectors, the private rented sector has the highest proportion, at 9.1%, of the most energy inefficient homes—those in bands F and G.

  [Source]

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