Janet Daby MP: Climate-Related Speeches In Parliament

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Janet Daby's Speeches In Parliament Related to Climate

We've found 18 Parliamentary debates in which Janet Daby has spoken about climate-related matters.

Here are the relevant sections of their speeches.

• 9 Oct 2024: Skills England

  16:16

  The west midlands LSIP has been recognising local challenges, as well as opportunities, including the advancement of the country’s fastest growing tech sector, facilitating emerging strengths in clean tech and green energy, and stimulating growth in priority growth clusters identified by the West Midlands Combined Authority, and creating a pipeline of new entrants into the logistics and distribution industry by increasing the availability of apprenticeships.

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• 9 Oct 2024: Higher Education: Staffordshire

  19:35

  Those measures will support our mission to break down barriers to opportunity and to help to get young people to achieve. That is why I am delighted to see the work of Keele University and the University of Staffordshire in delivering degree apprenticeships. Keele collaborates with a diverse range of employers, including the NHS and Unilever, and has been recognised as outstanding by Ofsted for its climate change skills bootcamps, while the University of Staffordshire, through its state-of-the-art, £40 million Catalyst building, supports more than 2,000 apprenticeships, partnering with more than 150 employers, including police forces and the NHS.

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• 8 Nov 2023: Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunity

  17:36

  Because of 13 years of Conservative Government, we have seen multiple failings. To name a few, we have seen a failure to tackle the cost of living crisis; the shameful watering down of net zero targets; the mishandling of the covid-19 pandemic; the personal protective equipment scandal; partygate; the wrecking of the economy through an unfunded mini-Budget; constant incidents of sleaze; and court delays and backlogs. We have already heard about many of those issues in the Chamber today. We have also seen high mortgages and rents; school buildings crumbling; sewage pouring into our streams and rivers, while water companies are allowed to get away with paying large bonuses; long NHS waiting lists; a shortage of doctors and nurses; and an inability to get GP and dentist appointments.

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• 5 Jun 2023: Reaching Net Zero: Local Government Role

  18:44

  It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson). I say that because, in the context of this debate, he is very anti and I am very for, so I hope I will level things up in some way. First, to respond to some his comments, I want to say that I support every method that moves us towards net zero. In my speech, I will talk about some of the health implications and about how citizens need clean air; otherwise, we will suffer the consequences of not having clean air. As well as speaking about that, I will present some statistics, so I do hope that the right hon. Member will be paying attention.

  I am proud that it was a Labour Government under Gordon Brown who passed the Climate Change Act 2008. It set a legally binding target for the UK to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, compared with 1990 levels; that was increased to 100% in 2019. Unfortunately, 13 years of Conservative Government have slowed progress. Since 2010, local authority funds have been stripped away, and that has severely delayed and hindered what local authorities can do. However, as we have heard, local authorities are ambitious for change and for their communities. I will focus on how this Conservative Government and Conservative councils can probably learn a lot from the London Mayor and from Lewisham Council in my area—if I can be so bold as to say so, which I believe I can.

  In 2019, Lewisham Council led by example and became one of the first local authorities in London to declare a climate emergency. Its many achievements in delivering net zero include its climate emergency action plan, which obviously covered schools, housing, cycling, green spaces and so on, being rated as one of the best in the country. Lewisham planted 25,000 trees between 2018 and 2023, and it has increased food waste recycling rates by 250%. Lewisham Council is therefore stepping up and providing leadership where the Government sadly are not. Lewisham’s climate action plan is estimated to reach net zero for our borough by 2030, and it will cost a minimum of £1.6 billion. Against the backdrop of the cost of living crisis and the hardship that people are experiencing, the Government must resource local councils so that they can deliver on the net zero plans.

  The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has also set a target for London to be net zero by 2030. To do this, he is working to achieve a target of over 2 million homes and a quarter of a million non-domestic buildings being properly insulated. I also support his action to extend the ULEZ. Right now, toxic air is thought to contribute to the premature deaths of 4,000 Londoners each year—that is 11 deaths a day. Those are 4,000 deaths that could probably have been prevented. I remember hearing a paediatrician at an event speak about particles in a new-born baby’s lungs. It was astonishing, shocking and awful to hear that CO 2 emissions in the air have done this injury to a baby at such an early stage in their life.

  It is clear that the Mayor of London and Lewisham Council are miles ahead of the Government in delivering net zero, but I would love to see the Government trying to outdo them and to hear from them how they are trying to make that difference, rather than making things harder. I urge the Government to rethink their approach, and I look forward to their serious response on this serious matter.

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• 6 Dec 2022: Southeastern Railway Timetable Changes

  15:13

  Southeastern really needs to ask whether it is trying to deter people from using the train service, or is it trying to encourage people to use it. It seems that the former is being achieved. My concerns about the timetables include the impact on the safety of young girls, women and vulnerable people, as they have to make an extra change at London Bridge late at night. I am concerned about commuters’ ability to get to work on time and about the timetable making it harder for Londoners to use public transport during the climate crisis, as already mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft).

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• 15 Mar 2022: Commonwealth Day

  10:36

  Having saved the best until last, the Commonwealth must come together to tackle the climate emergency. There is surely an opportunity in Kigali to set the stage for COP27 in Egypt and to announce continued deepening of shared Commonwealth programming. What are the Government doing to engage with Commonwealth states in June on the acute needs that many have on climate financing and on adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage funds?

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• 1 Nov 2021: Budget Resolutions

  21:04

  On a serious note, the Government have not made promises to bring people out of poverty, tackle the climate crisis, fix our healthcare system and deliver safe, affordable homes for all. That is what my constituents wanted out of this Budget, and that is what I wanted. We heard in detail about the various drinks that the Chancellor plans to lift taxes on but there was not a single mention of the climate. It is astonishing, considering we are hosting the historic COP26 summit. Are our Government more interested in supporting offshore tax havens than offshore wind farms?

  Coming out of the pandemic, we need commitments on supporting green industries, which will provide sustainable energy and great new jobs. We need to lower our vehicle emissions and clean up our air. The Government started making excuses about not being able to achieve a 1.5°C global warming pledge before the summit had even started. What sort of message does that send to the world leaders approaching negotiations? It is a mindset of defeatism and not so Churchillian from our Prime Minister.

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• 8 Jul 2021: Fuel Poverty

  15:01

  I hope the Government are listening, as this problem can be solved. We need a new fuel strategy—a new fuel strategy that focuses on green energy and a new fuel strategy that equally focuses on the customer’s welfare.

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• 18 May 2021: Affordable and Safe Housing for All

  18:23

  This year’s Queen’s Speech is just more evidence of the Government’s refusal to carry out their duty of care for the country. What we have seen from the Government is 11 years of poverty-inducing policies, with cuts to public services and cuts to the third sector. We have seen, and are seeing, a rise in food banks, and that was the situation pre-pandemic. Post-pandemic—we are still going through it—things are even worse. Young people and families earning a decent wage cannot afford to buy their first home. New, wonderful green homes are needed, along with support to get on to the market. The Government must prioritise safety. Fixing the problems in housing from the fire safety scandal to the rise in homelessness, improving the quality of life and responding to the climate crisis are all part of building back better. I support the Labour amendments.

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• 28 Apr 2021: District Heat Networks

  17:10

  This is not the first time that I have spoken in a Westminster Hall debate on district heat networks. Such technologies are important for bringing green energy into ordinary people’s homes and making Britain carbon-neutral as soon as possible. However, as we have heard, work needs to be done to ensure that district heat networks provide not only energy efficiency, but cost efficiency. District heating providers must be brought under the control not just of formal regulators, but of consumers.

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• 4 Mar 2021: Income Tax (Charge)

  16:24

  Our country had high hopes for this Budget at a time when we need it most; not only are we experiencing a pandemic crisis but we are still in a climate crisis, and the Government seem to have forgotten this. After a year of economic devastation, the gap between richest and poorest in our society has become wider. We needed long-term investment in our public services and our communities, but the Government were silent on the matter.

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• 17 Mar 2020: Income tax (charge)

  17:35

  We are behind our European friends. I am sorry to say that we are not leading the way on this—not under this Government—and nor are we leading the way on the climate crisis. Out of the G7 countries, the UK’s health spending per person is the second lowest, behind France and Germany. We do not want to be a country that is behind others; we want to be a country at the forefront—at the cutting edge. Our current position is a consequence of a decade of NHS underfunding, wrapped around the auspices of austerity.

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• 26 Feb 2020: Environment Bill

  17:27

  The Government fall short in other critical areas. The responsibility for planning is vague, with limited parliamentary oversight. There is inadequate recognition of the role that all public bodies must play in reducing air pollution. Lewisham Council declared a climate emergency in 2019 and proposed a target to be carbon neutral by 2030. The cost of delivering that is £1.6 billion. Taking action will create many opportunities in the area to improve health, create jobs, and provide other environmental benefits and significant social benefits, but if that is to be done the Government need to provide local authorities with the resources they need to take action. Otherwise, this is only a fantasy, not a reality. A failure to do that will cost lives and expose our society to a range of unknown costs. We need to value people’s lives—we need to value everybody’s life—and deal seriously with our climate crisis. There is a clear link between action on climate crises and air quality, waste, recycling, biodiversity and protecting our oceans.

  I have recently received letters from pupils at the brilliant Brindishe Manor School in my constituency. This time, there were more than 40 letters about the toxic levels of air pollution and other significant climate crisis issues that have come to my attention. I have young children, as do many other MPs and staff here. We do not want our children to be affected by toxic chemicals or to suffer. There is a long journey of recovery for us as a nation that involves composting; planting more trees; walking and cycling more; reducing plastic; disposing of mattresses correctly; preventing the stripping of our oceans; preventing habitats from being under threat; removing all diesel cars; preventing car idling; having fewer cars on the roads; replacing cars with electric cars, at an affordable cost; providing firefighters with the knowledge and means to put out electrical fires; recycling; reducing flights; and reducing flight paths over concentrated areas. The list goes on and on. We need clean air for everyone; it is our responsibility to protect our citizens, society, country and planet.

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• 5 Feb 2020: Transport

  18:36

  Aviation emissions in the UK have more than doubled since 1990. The Government plan to build a third runway at Heathrow airport and according to the Department for Transport projections for Heathrow expansion, the UK’s legally binding targets under the Climate Change Act 2008 will be missed. While there is an economic argument for expanding Heathrow airport, there are clear legitimate concerns about the environmental impact and a need to reform the aviation sector.

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• 3 Feb 2020: Agriculture Bill

  19:57

  I welcome the changes made to the Bill relating to the importance of soil and the plans to assist farmers, but the Bill is not robust enough and remains vague on key areas of importance. It provides many powers but very few duties for the Secretary of State to take action, and for a Bill on food production it remains remarkably vague on food. It is silent on action to reduce food poverty and there are no provisions to promote healthy foods. It is also a missed opportunity to provide a much clearer priority in respect of food sustainability. In the world’s sixth richest country, no one should be going hungry. Food is a basic human right, but the Government’s welfare policies have seen food bank usage rise, and continue to rise. The climate crisis and reckless post-Brexit trade deals could make food insecurity even worse.

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• 17 Oct 2019: The Climate Emergency

  16:40

  Air quality is an issue of huge importance to my constituents in Lewisham East, to London and to the country. It is a key part of efforts to tackle the climate emergency. The concentration of nitrogen dioxide in the air in many areas of my community exceeds World Health Organisation standards, which are designed to protect us. People living in London’s most deprived areas and disadvantaged communities are, on average, exposed to a quarter more nitrogen dioxide than others. According to the British Health Foundation, air pollution is now linked to 36,000 deaths a year nationwide. That is tragic.

  The Government are not moving far or fast enough to improve our air quality and protect our children. I have marched, I have visited, and I have spoken at a number of climate change and air quality events across my constituency. We are passionate about this issue. In many cases it is children, the next generation, who are leading the way for cleaner air. Let us make it easier for them.

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• 1 May 2019: Environment and Climate Change

  16:50

  We need our environment, and the environment needs us to care for it. In the last week, we have had powerful reminders from Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion that the time to take decisive action on climate change is now. Scientists project that in 12 years it could be too late to prevent levels of pollution from causing irreversible damage to our planet and, indeed, our society.

  I will focus particularly on air quality, as it is about this issue that I have mostly been contacted by my constituents. The concentration of nitrogen dioxide in the air in my constituency is falling, but in many areas it still exceeds the legal limits put in place to protect us. There are 453 London primary and secondary schools in areas that exceed legal air quality limits. I have recently spoken about improving air quality at Heath House school in my constituency, and to children at Torridon Primary School, who have written beautiful letters to me about climate change. Children are clearly leading the way on this, which is to the credit of our schools and our teachers. It is time we took notice, time we paid attention and time we took action.

  We must live more sustainably. We need transformative action, and it is important that we do this. I urge the Government to recognise the scale of the problem, to declare a climate emergency and to begin legislation for a net zero emission target as soon as possible.

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• 14 Mar 2019: UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union

  16:28

  In our conversations, we are failing to tackle some of the issues that we need to. People in our country are suffering and in grief because we are missing these matters—because we are not discussing them and decisions are not being made in this Chamber. These are real, tangible issues such as in-work poverty, the housing crisis, the climate change crisis and improving our education system. We need to be thinking about these things and so many others, including public services and tackling serious youth violence. It is not good enough just to invest in the police; it is a partnership, and we should be investing in partnerships to tackle this problem. I will therefore be supporting an extension to article 50 and I invite others to join me.

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See all Parliamentary Speeches Mentioning Climate