Kerry McCarthy MP: Climate-Related Speeches In Parliament

• Timeline
• Votes
• Speeches
• Tweets
• Contact

Kerry McCarthy's Speeches In Parliament Related to Climate

We've found 174 Parliamentary debates in which Kerry McCarthy has spoken about climate-related matters.

Here are the relevant sections of their speeches.

• 17 Dec 2024: Climate Change: Nature-based Solutions

  We know that nature-based solutions have a key role to play in climate mitigation and keeping to 1.5°C at home and abroad. I have met the Minister for Nature, my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry East (Mary Creagh), and the Government have appointed two special representatives for climate and for nature, who will be working closely together too.

  [Source]

  We are not convinced that the Bill is necessary as a well-developed legislative framework with legally binding targets is already in place, including, of course, the Climate Change Act 2008 and the carbon budgets. However, I appreciate the action on both climate and nature and the hon. Member’s commitment to both. I believe that our offices are already trying to find a date for us to meet.

  [Source]

  I am aware of the excellent work being carried out at Lochwinnoch. We know that protecting and restoring our peatlands is essential for tackling the climate crisis. We are committed to restoring approximately 280,000 hectares of peatland. We are also looking at innovative ways of getting funding into those nature-based solutions so that they can thrive.

  [Source]

• 10 Dec 2024: Cleve Hill Solar Park

  11:16

  Although the development consent order for Cleve Hill solar park was granted by the previous Government in 2020, as she said, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero may still be involved in any proceedings relating to the implementation of that order. As a result, I cannot comment today on the details of that project. The reasons for the decision and details of supporting plans are available on the Planning Inspectorate’s website, as the hon. Lady knows. I am afraid I cannot elaborate or speculate on that published material.

  The hon. Member spoke eloquently about the importance of the site to her constituents—the views, the biodiversity and the birds, and the importance of wetlands. My colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and I are working closely on nature-based solutions to climate change, and wetlands play an important role. I am also glad that the hon. Member acknowledged the importance of reaching our net zero objectives, with that mission for clean power, by 2030.

  As I said, I cannot speak specifically about Cleve Hill, but I hope I can reassure her by speaking in general terms about Government policy. First, it ensures that all local impacts are considered in the planning process. Secondly, it makes a steadfast commitment that those who host clean-energy infrastructure should benefit from it. In order to achieve our goal of clean power by 2030, we will need to deploy various renewable energy sources. According to the recent National Energy System Operator clean power pathway report, we need to increase solar deployment from 15 GW to 47 GW. Along with onshore wind, solar is the cheapest clean power option available to us right now, making it an essential part of the UK’s energy mix. Without a substantial increase in solar deployment, the clean power mission becomes very difficult.

  That is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State relaunched the solar taskforce earlier this year. It is also the reason that the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks), who has this portfolio, cannot reply to the debate, because he is at a meeting of the solar taskforce. The taskforce brings together the industry and Government to discuss the actions needed to rapidly increase the deployment of solar panels on rooftops and in solar farms, and it will publish its recommendations in a solar road map very soon.

  We should never lose sight of the core motivation behind our clean energy mission. Clean power generated here in Britain will reduce our dependence on volatile imported fossil fuels. It will provide lower bills in the long term and create thousands of highly skilled future-proofed jobs across the country. Delivering those benefits for the British people requires the development of new infrastructure. We accept that a top priority should be the deployment of solar on rooftops. That is why we are bringing forward new standards to ensure that all newly built houses and commercial buildings are fit for a net zero future. We will encourage the installation of solar panels on those buildings where appropriate.

  All proposed solar projects are subject to a robust planning process. Most projects are assessed by local planning authorities themselves, and those assessments are governed by the national planning policy framework, which encourages developers to engage with local communities before submitting an application. Local planning authorities will continue to seek representations from local communities and will continue to weigh local considerations against the need for renewable energy.

  A wide variety of community benefits can be delivered, including funding for local projects, investment in the local area, direct benefits to individuals and, as I said, opportunities for community ownership. Great British Energy will build on existing community energy schemes, helping communities to unlock opportunities through the local power plan. In the hon. Lady’s constituency, up to 1,400 homes are powered by Orchard Community Energy, which is a community-owned solar farm near Sittingbourne that provides power to Swale and Medway. That puts communities at the heart of the energy transition and gives them a stake in the transition to net zero as owners and partners in clean energy projects.

  As I said, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North, is today at the meeting of the solar taskforce, which brings together industry and Government. It is considering the question of how a community can benefit from the infrastructure that is hosted on their patch, and its recommendations will be published in the solar road map.

  To conclude, the Government are committed to considering the interests of local communities affected by proposed energy infrastructure. I thank the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent for securing the debate and for giving me the opportunity to set out the Government’s vision. We will work to balance the local impact of new projects with the delivery of our clean power mission. The renewable energy transition will always be done through co-operation rather than coercion, ensuring that all parties benefit on our journey to net zero.

  [Source]

• 25 Nov 2024: Draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2024

  18:11

  I thank the shadow Minister for his contribution. As I said, the UK emissions trading scheme is a key pillar of the UK’s net zero policy regime. I am slightly surprised by his decision not to support the SI —perhaps not from a political point of view, but because I am pretty sure that if he was still in the Department occupying the post I am in now, he would have supported the measures. As I said, they are just about ensuring that the scheme retains its credibility and moves forward and adapts to circumstances.

  I am glad the shadow Minister agrees on that. He asked a specific question about the pricing. As the market conveners, we cannot comment on the price. I will leave it at that, other than to say that the market determines the price of the allowances, and opting for the top of the net zero-consistent range means that more allowances will be available while we can still deliver against our net zero trajectory.

  The draft order is a key part of our net zero policy regime. We believe that the maintenance of a strong UK ETS will play a key role in making Britain a clean energy superpower and in delivering our mission of having secure and clean electricity by 2030. By driving green investment as part of our industrial strategy, the UK ETS will also help to deliver a just transition, thereby growing the UK’s economy and securing good jobs for people throughout the country.

  As I said, the changes proposed in the SI will bring in a net zero-consistent cap. I remind the shadow Minister that it was his Government who legislated for net zero, and at one point they were proud of having done that. The SI will also alter the industry cap and expand the scope of the ETS to the venting of CO2 in the upstream oil and gas sector. The change follows a comprehensive consultation on developing the UK ETS that was carried out in 2022. The proposals deliver on commitments made in the response to that consultation in July 2023, when the UK ETS Authority set out a comprehensive package of reforms to the scheme. The proposals have the long-standing support of the four Governments of the UK.

  We, as part of the UK ETS Authority with the devolved Governments, are determined to manage and improve the scheme effectively. Our aim is to be predictable and responsible guardians of the scheme and its markets. We are committed to being attentive to views and to carrying forward changes as required to ensure that the scheme operates efficiently to achieve emissions reductions. The changes to the UK emissions trading scheme in the SI will support the scheme’s role as a cornerstone of the UK’s climate and net zero policy. I therefore commend the draft order to the Committee.

  [Source]

• 12 Nov 2024: Oral Answers to Questions

  I think the shadow Secretary of State needs to seek a debate if she wants to elaborate on these issues. Having attended COP last year as part of a cross-party delegation, I found it incredibly depressing to see the way the UK was received. It is really important that we are stepping up and showing global ambition. Reaching net zero in this country and getting to clean power by 2030 is a massive opportunity, not a cost.

  [Source]

  We hope that, at COP29 in the coming weeks, we can settle on a figure for a new ambitious goal, which will not just bring in finance from donor countries, but mobilise private sector finance. We will use all the mechanisms we can to ensure that we get money to developing countries as quickly as possible. As my hon. Friend said, it is more urgent than ever to act.

  [Source]

• 12 Nov 2024: Climate Change: International Leadership

  Today, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Ed Miliband), is already at COP29 in Baku, where he will be leading climate negotiations. He sends his apologies. The Prime Minister is also at COP29 and will be speaking at the global leaders summit, announcing our ambitious 1.5°C-aligned nationally determined contribution and showing that the UK is truly back on the international stage. A written statement will also be made later today.

  [Source]

  On the question of looking at our policies across the piece, that is very much my job. We will be responding soon to the Committee on Climate Change’s report, which the hon. Lady will know was quite critical of the previous Government’s action. We will be setting out our plan to implement the NDC and looking at the next carbon budget. All those things require effort share across Departments to ensure we actually meet them. It is about not just setting ambitious targets, but making sure that, unlike the previous Government, we have a strategy to get us there.

  [Source]

  I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I know he was at Cali. There was some progress on such issues as digital sequence information, but more needs to be done. We are very seized of the need to join up action on the nature and climate crisis. When I head out to COP29 tomorrow, Members will hopefully hear more from us on our efforts to protect forests and on the support we are giving to countries at risk of deforestation. We are also looking at nature-based solutions to climate change. The nature Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry East (Mary Creagh)—will be out there as well, and we will have more to say, but I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) that we cannot deal with one crisis in isolation from the other.

  [Source]

  The energy Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks)—is very much involved with that issue. We have also set up the energy superpower mission board, headed by Chris Stark. I had a conversation with him yesterday about what we can do to ensure grid capacity and grid connections in the right places. If the hon. Lady has a specific issue to raise and would like to write to me, I will make sure it is passed on to him.

  [Source]

• 12 Nov 2024: Fusion Power Plants

  We agree that fusion could be a globally transformative green energy solution. The UK Government’s fusion programme continues to lead the world in the development of fusion energy, and our ambition is to continue to do so.

  [Source]

• 22 Oct 2024: Renewable Energy: Cornwall

  11:17

  My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth will be aware that one of the Prime Minister’s five missions for national renewal is making Britain a clean energy superpower, including delivering clean power by 2030 and accelerating to net zero. As has been mentioned, we have wasted no time in getting started. Within our first 100 days in government, we lifted the onshore wind ban in England, consented to more nationally significant solar projects than had been consented to in the past 14 years, and delivered the most successful renewables auction in British history. Now we are busy setting up Great British Energy, which will drive clean energy deployment, creating jobs, boosting energy independence and ensuring that UK taxpayers, bill payers and communities reap the benefits of clean, secure, home-grown energy. As we heard, Cornwall has a vital role to play in that clean energy mission, and indeed our mission to secure economic growth.

  As I said, unlocking Cornwall’s potential is slightly different from going into other areas. That is absolutely key. Planning was mentioned; we must undo some of the blockages in the planning system. In relation to the grid, I very much remember, from when I visited, the knock-on impact of the fact that the transmission line goes only as far as Indian Queens. Until we create the grid infrastructure to cover the right areas and provide sufficient capacity, we cannot deliver on Cornwall’s potential. I think that one of the things holding the Eden Project back with its geothermal work was that it could not get that broader grid connection. The former chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, Chris Stark, has been put in charge of the mission board, and one of his key tasks is to bring in a more strategic approach to grid planning, speed it up and stop those blockages that mean that projects just do not get off the ground because they are stuck in that system.

  Looking at Cornwall, we have mentioned floating offshore wind, onshore wind, geothermal, tidal, solar, lithium, tin and manganese. Can the Minister name anywhere else in the UK where there is such a distillation of critical minerals and renewable energy opportunities? I am very excited by what she said about the cluster concept. Would not Cornwall be an ideal place to be an official cluster for renewables and critical minerals?

  [Source]

• 10 Sep 2024: COP29: UK Priorities

  10:46

  My hon. Friend was a powerful voice on climate issues as deputy leader of Ealing council and as its cabinet member for climate action. I acknowledge from the outset—it has been brought up by a few Members—that local government has a huge role to play in helping us to deliver net zero. As a Bristol MP I would be expected to say that; I have previously boasted about the many achievements of Bristol council on that front in this House. I will not do that today, but it is really important and we are looking at how we can make the local net zero forum work more effectively.

  My hon. Friends the Members for Ealing Southall and for Manchester Rusholme (Afzal Khan) mentioned the impact on diaspora communities living here, including on constituents of Pakistani and Indian heritages. As a Bristol MP, we have a significant Somalian community and we know that the Horn of Africa has been absolutely ravaged by droughts and floods. We are dealing with the consequences of climate change here in the UK, but some people are also dealing with the consequences where their families and friends are based. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Southall, and I am sure that she will continue to drive this agenda forward in Parliament. I also thank other Members for contributing to the debate and I will reply to some of their specific points later.

  We are almost halfway through what is a decisive decade to halt climate change. As global surface temperatures continue to rise following 12 months of record-breaking warmth; as people around the world face the very real effects of this crisis with rising sea levels, nature loss and food insecurity; and as we see climate vulnerable countries devastated by extreme weather events, it is clear the decisions that we make now will define our planet’s tomorrow. If we want to leave future generations a world that is liveable and safe, we must stick to the Paris agreement and keep 1.5° of global warming within reach.

  As we have heard, we are currently way off track. Last year’s global stocktake confirmed that emissions need to peak by next year and fall by 43% between 2019 and 2030 to reach the Paris goal, yet we are currently on course for global emissions to fall by just 2%. We need to increase climate finance at least fivefold, phase out coal seven times faster, and reduce forest loss at least twice as fast.

  Here in the UK, the Climate Change Committee’s July report provided a wake-up call. It found that the UK is not even on course to hit our own 2030 target of 68% emissions reductions, and highlighted a slowing of pace and reversed or delayed key policies. I will not reply here in detail, but the Government’s response to that report is coming. We will address some of the specific criticisms about domestic policy, including on the new homes standard and energy efficiency. I hope that the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) has heard enough about retrofitting and the warm homes agency in other forums. We will very much be announcing our policies across the piece.

  We very much need to up the pace. We are determined as a Labour Government to get us back on track by becoming climate leaders at home and abroad. That means decarbonising our power sector by 2030. We have already taken ambitious steps by lifting the onshore wind ban, giving the go-ahead to major solar proposals despite opposition in some quarters and setting up Great British Energy. We will also ensure that every large company has credible 1.5°-aligned plans for transition. As I said, we will be revealing more details as we move on, particularly in terms of setting out the next carbon budget, but also in our response to the CCC report.

  Demonstrating strong leadership at home will give us the credibility that has been sadly lacking in recent years to demonstrate strong leadership abroad. Several Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford and Bow (Uma Kumaran) and the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), mentioned that we were in Dubai last year. It was quite a depressing experience, particularly when we met climate activists from climate vulnerable countries who pressed us on what the UK was doing—the country that led with the groundbreaking Climate Change Act 2008 and then raised the ambition to net zero—and whether it had completely abdicated its sense of international leadership. That was a constant refrain.

  The Energy Secretary hosted the COP29 and COP30 presidencies, as well as Lord Sharma, who presided with distinction over COP26 in Glasgow, at a recent event in London to discuss how we can ramp up global ambitions. He then travelled to Brazil to strengthen ties ahead of next year’s Amazon COP, reflecting that this is a sequence. It is not just about what happens in Baku; we are already looking ahead to COP30 as well.

  In Glasgow, we saw the proportion of global GDP committed to net zero go from 30% to more than 90%. In Sharm El Sheikh, we agreed a landmark fund to support those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Last year in Dubai, we saw real progress on the pledges made in previous years. We welcomed 13 new members to the Powering Past Coal Alliance, including the USA and the UAE, meaning that 180 Governments, businesses and organisations have now committed to phasing out unabated coal power.

  We were one of 123 countries to support the global pledge to triple renewable energy and double energy efficiency by 2030. We expanded the breakthrough agenda, which is our clean technology accelerator. We announced £1.6 billion of new international climate finance projects. We agreed half a billion pounds to protect forests and the rural communities depending on them. We committed £50 million for loss and damage to help developing countries to deal with the impact of climate change, and we signed an international green public procurement pledge to boost the use of green steel, cement and concrete.

  Going into this COP, we have three priorities. The first is increasing finance. COP29 presents the first opportunity in 15 years to agree a new post-2025 finance goal. It is critical that the new collective quantified goal addresses the needs and priorities of developing countries, and we stand ready to work with Azerbaijan and its COP29 presidency to make that happen. As I said, meetings have already been taking place with them.

  The second priority is raising ambitions to speed up the global net zero transition. In particular, we want to use COP29 to build momentum for the new nationally determined contributions, which are due by February 2025. We have already started planning our next NDC and we will do everything we can to encourage partners to be ambitious and wide-ranging with theirs. We will also develop a clean power alliance to bring together a coalition of countries at the cutting edge of ambition. Every country must show domestic action to contribute to the critical targets agreed last year on energy, methane, forests and more.

  Thirdly, we must deliver on existing commitments and continue to support people on the frontline of the climate crisis, championing their voices through initiatives such as the climate and development ministerial, which places developing countries at the heart of work to improve access to finance for climate adaptation. I know that the hon. Member for Bath feels strongly about that. We look forward to co-chairing the fourth climate and development ministerial in Baku later this year. We also want to encourage even greater action on deforestation, which accounts for about 10% of global emissions, and we are committed to co-ordinated action outside the main negotiations, including making vital clean technologies accessible and affordable through the breakthrough agenda.

  I will quickly turn to some of the key points made in this debate. I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford and Bow support what we are doing in the consultation on no new oil and gas licences. As they said, it is important that this is a just transition and that we take local communities with us. My hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) talked about the importance of nuclear to his constituency. He has already proved to be a real champion for that; nuclear is very much part of the mix.

  [Source]

• 15 May 2024: Biodiversity Loss

  10:10

  I also want to focus on nature-based solutions to climate change. There is huge benefit in restoring biodiversity and helping with carbon sequestration. I echo what others have said about the huge importance of peatlands. Rather than sequestering carbon, as they could be doing, they are currently releasing it into the atmosphere, because they are not being treated properly.

  [Source]

• 24 Apr 2024: Oral Answers to Questions

  I thank the Minister for his positive response. He will be aware of the ecological disaster at Lough Neagh, which supplies 40% of Northern Ireland’s drinking water. It is partly caused by the run-off of agricultural fertiliser, climate change and the spread of the invasive zebra mussel, but has been exacerbated by sewage dumping. Can he say a bit more about this issue? In the past, I have found that his Department and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have not been willing to work with Stormont to address environmental issues in Northern Ireland. What can he do to address them?

  [Source]

• 16 Apr 2024: Oral Answers to Questions

  I welcome the Minister to his post. I think he is struggling a little bit to get with the programme, but hopefully he will soon be on message. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] That was in terms of his answer to the question about being anti-net zero.

  The Department confirmed last month that curtailment payments cost a whopping £1.4 billion last year. That is bill payers’ money being used to pay providers to switch off wind power and switch on gas. Why should people be paying even more on their energy bills to switch off cleaner and cheaper energy because the Government have failed to deliver the net zero capacity that we need?

  [Source]

  I look forward to hearing the Minister’s predictions of what the curtailment payments will be in the coming year, because they were up for the previous year. In a survey of energy industry leaders, nearly 90% said that we need new policies to make the UK more attractive to investors. Nearly two thirds are moving investment out of the UK, and three quarters blame a lack of clarity from this Government on net zero. Is it not time for Ministers and Back Benchers to drop the culture war and put British industry and jobs first?

  [Source]

• 22 Mar 2024: Greater London Low Emission Zone Charging (Amendment) Bill

  12:50

  The hon. Member, who has left the Chamber now, may not feel that ULEZ is an air pollution issue, but I very much feel that it is because low emissions are a public health issue. In my role as shadow Climate Change Minister, people often come and talk to me about air pollution as though it is primarily a net zero issue, and we have seen some depressing attempts to make net zero part of the anti-woke culture wars by saying that net zero comes at a cost. We saw the Secretary of State for Transport buy into the whole conspiracy theory about 15-minute cities at party conference, which is incredibly depressing. Reducing emissions from transport is obviously very much part of our ambition to meet net zero, but the immediate driver is the need to clean up our air.

  We have heard mention of the switch to electric vehicles. It is obviously the long-term objective that we want to ensure that all the vehicles on our roads reach safe emission standards. It was therefore disappointing that the Government rowed back the 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles. The signal that that sent to the market and consumers was entirely counterproductive. Although initially there was some resistance to a 2030 target—rather than a 2035 target—within the car manufacturing trade, the trade then got with the programme and was critical of the Government for that row-back, because it affected sales. It had made the switch and was producing EVs; it is still bound by zero emission vehicle mandate, so it is making the new electric vehicles.

  As I have said, I believe that the immediate imperative is not reducing transport emissions with the aim of reaching net zero but dealing with air pollution, which we know has a significant impact on people’s health and on children’s health in particular. When I was at school there was just one girl in my class with asthma, but nowadays the majority of kids in any inner-city primary school probably have it. Children are more vulnerable in this regard because their airways are smaller and still developing, because they are closer to traffic fumes because they are small, and because they breathe more rapidly. They are also more likely to develop more serious lung conditions in later life—although of course asthma can be very serious.

  Again, I am going to say something nice: we have had confirmation today that First Bus has received funding under the next wave of the zero-emission bus regional areas scheme to turn all of our buses into electric vehicles. We have been experimenting with biogas, but that funding will do an awful lot. We do have some clean biogas buses, and my right hon. and learned Friend the leader of the Labour party got to drive one on one of his previous visits to the city. He was like a little boy with a new toy, it has to be said—I think he greatly enjoyed it.

  [Source]

• 6 Mar 2024: Energy Rebates: Highlands and Islands

  10:21

  Again, we know that renewable energy is going to be way cheaper than fossil fuels, and that is one of the reasons why Labour is committed to the “clean power by 2030” mission—because we know that that will help bring down energy prices. However, I can appreciate how absolutely galling it is to be somewhere where so much energy is generated—I think the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber talked about an economic renaissance for the highlands and islands linked to renewable energy—yet to be last in the queue to actually benefit from that. We absolutely need to tackle that unfairness.

  Yes, of course. The point—I think I have to underline it again and again in this debate, and I think that the hon. Lady understands this—is that there is already a windfall tax, and other taxes coming from the highlands and islands through renewable energy, and we are getting nothing back. We are already seeing the effect of money being taken out, and it is not going back into the pockets of the consumers who are being punished in this way.

  Scotland’s huge potential for renewable energy generation shows the need for a place-based approach that allows people to feel that they are part of the transition and are directly benefiting. It is particularly galling that Scotland is responsible for so much of the new renewable energy generation, but is not benefiting. In some ways, it should be benefiting more than other parts of the country because it is doing the generation.

  [Source]

• 24 Jan 2024: Oral Answers to Questions

  The former right hon. Member for Kingswood and Government net zero tsar, Chris Skidmore, said that what businesses and investors need from the Government is certainty, clarity, consistency and continuity. Never has that been more true than in Scotland, where there is huge potential for businesses and communities to flourish as a result of the green transition. However, they are not getting the certainty, clarity, consistency and continuity that they need from this Government, are they?

  [Source]

• 14 Dec 2023: Persecution of Buddhists: Tibet

  15:19

  I got back from COP28 on Monday. Events there this week have underlined just how difficult it is to facilitate global action on climate change. The 1.5° target is increasingly in doubt. When the Tibetan people cannot even defend their own environment, cannot speak up for themselves and are having to rely on a hostile force —the Chinese Government—to speak for them, the possibility of their concerns being recognised is even less than it would be for many climate-vulnerable places trying to speak up. We have to consider not just the terrible human rights record of the CCP in Tibet, but the environmental impact of what it is doing.

  [Source]

• 12 Dec 2023: Public Sector Food Procurement

  16:46

  More plant-based meals would help with sustainability, too. I have just returned from the climate change talks at COP, where there were some very interesting discussions. Land use and food systems were meant to be on the agenda at COP for the first time, and I hope that the Minister would support that. At the moment, only 5% of public procurement contracts—across the board, not for just food—require a carbon reduction plan, so I will finish with this question: does the Minister see public sector procurement of food as helping to reduce our carbon footprint?

  [Source]

• 12 Dec 2023: Points of Order

  12:30

  On a point of order, Mr Speaker. With crucial talks at COP28 locked in disagreement, we are hearing reports that the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), is on his way back to the UK. It is said that he

  Mr Speaker, can we bring the Minister to the House to explain why he has left the COP talks and what that means for our negotiations?

  Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Government, as the hon. Lady knows, is seamless. While the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero is anxious to support the Government on the important legislation tonight, my noble Friend Lord Benyon, who is one of the UK’s greatest experts on climate change, is at the COP in Dubai today to ensure that a senior Minister is representing Britain in those vital negotiations.

  [Source]

• 7 Dec 2023: Climate Change: Impact on Food Prices

  6. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero on the impact of climate change on food prices. ( 900507 )

  [Source]

  I thank the Secretary of State for his response. The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit reports that energy costs and climate change have pushed up food bills by an average of £605 over the past two years, with climate change driving 60% of that increase. We already import £8 billion-worth of food from countries struggling with extreme weather. Obviously, we want to support those countries on an international level with climate adaptation. In terms of our food security here, will the Secretary of State review his predecessor’s decision to secretly scrap the horticulture strategy, which could have helped domestic growers and made us more resilient to the impact of climate change on food security and food prices?

  [Source]

• 28 Nov 2023: Oral Answers to Questions

  Fifteen years ago, the Labour Government introduced the Climate Change Act 2008, a landmark piece of legislation that has guided climate policy and progress in this country and inspired similar action around the world—admirably led, it has to be said, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). But where is that leadership now? How can the Prime Minister show his face at COP when, in the words of the Climate Change Committee, his entirely cynical backtracking has created

  “Net Zero considerably harder to achieve”?

  [Source]

• 16 Nov 2023: COP28

  12:35

  Simon Stiell, the UN climate executive secretary, said at COP27 that we need

  “everybody, everywhere in the world, every single day, doing everything they possibly can to address the climate crisis.”

  One would not know it from the speech that the Minister has just made, but we do not have a Government who are taking the action on all fronts that is needed now: we have a Government who are not just stalling, but taking us backwards. I thought it was quite a cheek for the Minister to cite electric vehicles, given that the Government have just rowed back from the 2030 ban on the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles. The motor manufacturing sector, including the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and the Ford motor company, was quite happy with that 2030 date. The only reason that date was moved was that in the wake of the Uxbridge by-election, the Prime Minister wanted to play party politics with net zero. The Minister is quite audacious at times: he said that some countries were seeking to stoke division at COP, but that is exactly what his Government have been doing in recent weeks on net zero.

  Let me turn to domestic progress. Again, to listen to the Minister, one would think that everything was going swimmingly. The Climate Change Committee has assessed that the UK is unlikely to meet its NDC to reduce emissions by 68% between 1990 and 2030. The Government’s own carbon budget delivery plan conceded that Ministers only have plans for 92% of our NDC, but they have said that they are confident about delivering those emissions savings—that is something we often hear from the Minister, without any actual detail about how we will get there. In fact, it has been assessed that the Government have credible plans for only 28% of the required emissions reduction. There is a lot of work to be done.

  The Climate Change Committee assessed the Government’s policies in October with and without the Prime Minister’s climate climbdown, and found a 20% increase in the proportion of the NDC pathway covered by “insufficient plans” having taken into account the Prime Minister’s intervention. It said that the

  is more difficult to quantify, but, as I have said, at all the meetings I have had, people are saying that this has absolutely knocked them off course. There is a huge amount of enthusiasm for going down the path to net zero and I am told that there is a lot of private sector finance ready to invest, but they need a stable economic climate, not a Prime Minister who is U-turning just when action is needed.

  Following the disastrous contracts for difference auction, the proportion of the electricity supply pathway with significant risks increased by over 5,000%. The refusal to help renters contributed to a fivefold increase in insufficient plans for buildings. When the Government’s policies are, as the Climate Change Committee found,

  “making Net Zero considerably harder to achieve”

  and driving up energy bills, how can Ministers go to COP trying to boast about how well things are going in the UK? I do hope for action before COP. We have the autumn statement next week, and we were expecting some plans—I think the Chancellor promised in the spring that he would bring them forward—in response to the Inflation Reduction Act and the measures we then saw in the EU. I hope that we do get something on that front to at least reassure businesses that the Government still have net zero in their sights and see it as an important part of a future industrial strategy for us.

  The Minister may recall being on the Green Benches in 2008 when the Labour Government introduced the world’s first Climate Change Act, which was then adopted by more than 100 countries around the world. It was groundbreaking.

  If the hon. Lady wants to have a history lesson—and we did, indeed, come in together—she will remember that it was David Cameron, as the leader of the Conservatives, who was the first leader of a major party in this country to call for a climate Act. I think the Liberal Democrats leader followed suit a few hours later, and the Labour Government then eventually did so. I served on the Joint Committee, chaired by the brilliant David Puttnam, that put this into place, so I will not take any lectures from her. It was the Conservatives who led the charge to get that going—the first major party to support it—and I was pleased to see it put on the statute book. We were of course the first major economy in the world, and the first Government, to legislate for net zero overall.

  It was a Labour Climate Change Act brought in by the now shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). I can see why the Minister may be desperate to try to claim credit for it, because the Government have so little else that they can claim credit for, but it was a Labour Act introduced by a Labour Government. It is because that was enacted that we have seen so much progress, and as I have said, it was taken as a model for many other countries to follow. However, we are now setting entirely the wrong example to other countries by scaling back on our net zero ambition and last year the Prime Minister had to be forced to attend COP.

  This is a really important topic, and it is important that we get our language right. The Government have not scaled back our net zero ambitions for either our NDC in 2030 or net zero by 2050. The hon. Lady can make lots of points, partisan or otherwise, but it would be great if she acknowledged that this country has, under this Conservative Government, cut emissions by more than any other major economy on earth and has the most ambitious plans for 2030.

  The Minister will also know that the Government had to be taken to court, because it is one thing declaring targets and ambitions, but unless they have the strategy— [ Interruption . ] The Government were taken to court, and that is why they had to produce the delivery plan earlier this year. The Climate Change Committee, which by his account was all his idea because it was all his idea to introduce the Climate Change Act, has said that the Government are not on track to meet their ambitions. So the Minister cannot just rely on grandiose boasts about where he wants to get us to if he does has not have a plan to get us there, and it is very clear that he does not have a plan to get us there.

  “A rapid reduction of the world economy’s reliance on fossil fuels towards clean energy is central for reaching global net zero”.

  That sounds to me like an endorsement of Labour’s clean energy mission for 2030. Unlike the Government’s short-term approach, this will increase our energy security, create good jobs and reduce energy bills—unlike, as the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero admitted the other day, the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill—and it will mean that the UK is leading the world in tackling the climate crisis.

  The Minister mentioned nature-based solutions, and I was very pleased to hear that, but can he say a bit more about what global action the Government will be supporting with sustainable land management—I understand that that will be on the agenda at COP in a way that it has not been in the past—as well as terrestrial and ocean carbon sequestration? What discussions are there likely to be on the role of setting up credible international carbon markets? To give one example, we know that wetlands have huge potential, but we are still waiting to hear about the saltmarsh code—the former Secretary of State for Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), may have something to say about that—and whether we can add saltmarshes to the greenhouse gas inventory. With the UK’s leading position as a world financial centre, we are ideally placed to be playing a role in creating these markets both on the nature side and on the carbon side.

  To conclude, the UN has previously warned that the world is on course for a catastrophic 2.8°C of warming, in part because promises made at COP26 and COP27 have not been fulfilled. We are running out of last chances, but we can still avert the very worst of it, because we have the knowledge and tools to do so; it is just the willpower that is lacking at the moment.

  The UK under Labour will, as called for in the global stocktake, transform our energy system with a plan to double onshore wind, treble solar, and quadruple offshore wind. Our warm homes plans will see 90 million cold and draughty homes brought up to standard, and Labour’s answer to the Inflation Reduction Act will restore Britain’s international leadership and create jobs across the country. Our proposals for a clean power alliance will lead ambitious countries and support the most vulnerable. A net zero target should not lead to complacency. There is so much more that the UK can and must do, not only to reduce emissions but to deliver energy security, reduce energy bills, and enable British industry to thrive over the long term. That is the vision we need to see at COP.

  [Source]

• 8 Nov 2023: Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunity

  17:19

  Doubling down on fossil fuels is not the answer. Clean, cheap home-grown energy is the only way to make us energy secure. As the Prime Minister stumbles in the starting blocks in the race for net zero, or indeed seems to be going backwards, Labour stands ready to lead the sprint for renewables with all the opportunities that they will bring—whether it is green jobs in communities that are making the transition away from dirty fossil fuels; whether it is community power, which we have heard about; or whether it is economic regeneration and technical advances. There is so much potential.

  [Source]

• 19 Sep 2023: Climate Change Committee: 2023 Progress Report

  According to the Climate Change Committee,

  [Source]

• 4 Jul 2023: Energy and Trade Intensive Industries

  The Committee on Climate Change said last week that

  “the Government has high ambitions for decarbonisation but no policy to deliver it”.

  [Source]

• 27 Jun 2023: Energy Company Obligation Schemes

  15:23

  I have just come from the Energy Bill Committee, where we were talking about how we ensure that we have the skills for a just transition. This work tends to be carried out by small and medium-sized enterprises and sole traders—it is not as though there is one big company that will deliver it—and they need certainty that this is a line of work in which there will be jobs for the foreseeable future. With schemes stopping and starting as they have in the past—there was lack of consumer confidence because of the way some earlier schemes floundered—people will not move into those jobs, particularly given the shortages of construction workers, plumbers and electricians. It can be difficult to get people to do even the traditional jobs, let alone move into this area. We must address that to create stability.

  The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero acknowledged the increased costs when consulting on the ECO+ scheme back in December, but ECO4 has not been aligned. There is also the problem I mentioned of the gaps between schemes causing confusion and a drop in uptake. There was a four-month gap before ECO4, and I think at one point prior to that there was an 18-month gap between schemes, which I am told had a major impact on the skills front. We cannot allow the same to happen with ECO+. Continuity is needed.

  [Source]

• 6 Jun 2023: Net Zero: 2050 Target

  17:12

  I congratulate the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) on securing this debate. I am pleased to see that he is still pursuing an interest in net zero. I agree with some of what he said, but there were some points I would have liked him to cover. For example, when he talked about the grid, as the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) has just said, the biggest problem is not the question where the pylons go in east Anglia, but the lack of grid connectivity, which is a massive obstacle to economic growth. That is something we need to solve as we move towards greater use of electricity in our industrial sector.

  The right hon. Member for Spelthorne mentioned green levies and incentives for decarbonisation. It would have been interesting to hear his thoughts on the hydrogen levy. We were in the Energy Bill Committee earlier today and it must be said that, based on Second Reading of that Bill, there is a lot of unhappiness on both sides of the House. We will oppose the hydrogen levy on bills, and I would welcome his support on that, because I do not think we should be putting the burden on consumers when it is mostly industry that will benefit.

  The Government’s commitment to a net zero target is to be welcomed, but a target for a date set far into the future—2050—is pretty meaningless unless it is backed up by a comprehensive road map as to how we are going to get there. We know that the majority of that journey needs to be done in the very early years, with just the hard-to-decarbonise sectors following at the end, so we need to know how much ground we are going to cover and when. The Government were taken to court on this issue last year, with the High Court ruling that they had provided insufficient detail. There was a big hype about “green day” at the end of March; eventually, the Government decided that it was not quite green enough and changed its name to something else, but what we got was a plan that—even in terms of our 2030 nationally determined contribution—only sets out how we would deliver 92% of that. We are still way off track.

  Net zero is not a slogan or a mere box-ticking exercise: it is a whole paradigm shift that we must instigate, as a country and as a global community. Scientists are warning that we are likely to breach the 1.5° threshold in the next four years. We are running out of time, and we need to do everything as fast as we can. There has been a lot of negativity in recent days about net zero, with people pushing back against Labour’s announcement that we would not support any new oil and gas licences. Again, people have been repeating that old trope that it is too expensive to reach net zero, when we know that renewables are far cheaper now.

  The Government do not seem to grasp that this is a huge challenge for the country, but as has been said, it is also an enormous opportunity. The right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), who authored the recent net zero review, said that it is

  Businesses I meet now are describing the Inflation Reduction Act as a game changer, and are warning that they will transfer investments to the US. There have been occasional success stories—the news that Jaguar Land Rover is set to establish a gigafactory in the south-west, in Bridgwater, is very welcome—but that comes with a sense of relief that that company has made that announcement, rather than real confidence that there is a coherent industrial strategy that will deliver the 10 gigafactories that the Faraday Institution predicts we need. I would dispute the Minister’s suggestion that we are decades ahead: we need to have a coherent industrial strategy, a response to the Inflation Reduction Act sooner rather than later, and a revised net zero strategy that shows that we really are on course to meet that goal.

  [Source]

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

  19:04

  We know that the Government’s plan to reach net zero is totally inadequate; that is the context for today’s debate. Thirteen years of failure has left us exposed to higher bills, energy insecurity, lost jobs and climate delay. As the Chair of the Climate Change Committee—a former Conservative Cabinet Minister—has said,

  “This has been a lost decade in preparing for and adapting to the known risks that we face from climate change.”

  The right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) —another Conservative—found in his net zero review that the Conservatives had failed on nearly every aspect of net zero policy. How are the Government responding? They have doubled down on fossil fuels, with billions in taxpayer cash being handed out to oil and gas giants. They are blocking the cheap renewable power that Britain needs; there is a de facto onshore wind ban, and war-torn Ukraine has built more onshore turbines in the past year than the UK. There is still no response to Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. There is dither and delay. There is no ambition and no urgency.

  I celebrate all local councils’ work to reach net zero. I appreciate that the hon. Lady is going to make up for my not mentioning Labour councils. I am sure that there are many good councils across the political divide that are making good progress on net zero.

  I turn to Hull. There was a recent event in Parliament with the aptly named “Oh Yes! Net Zero” campaign. It is a really good example of collaborative local working; it involves 150 local organisations that support the city’s efforts to reach net zero. In Oxford, the Labour-led authority has been leading the way with innovative solutions, particularly on battery technology. Redbridge is home to Europe’s most powerful electric vehicle charging hub, and a project called Energy Superhub Oxford launched in July last year with the wider aim of decarbonising the city, uses the latest in battery technology, and, for the first time in the UK, infrastructure that links directly to the national grid’s high-voltage network. I echo what was said about the need to ensure that the grid has capacity to support local innovative projects. To give one last example, in Liverpool, there is a groundbreaking project: an agreement between the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and the Korea Water Resources Corporation to create what could be the world’s largest tidal power scheme in the Mersey.

  Taking a placed-based approach to net zero is vital in ensuring that the opportunities from the transition start to finally level up the towns and cities of the UK, as opposed to letting them down as this Government have done. Around 95% of Britain’s population lives in areas where the local authorities have declared a climate emergency but, as has been said, councils and combined authorities must be given the resources and powers they need to act. As one contributor to the right hon. Member for Kingswood’s net zero review put it:

  “Net Zero achievements at local government level are in spite of government, not because of it”.

  [Source]

• 23 May 2023: Energy Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

  11:00

  To draw on the hon. Gentleman’s comments about unknown knowns and so on, we have to be careful at this early stage that we do not regulate to the point that we choke off innovation and research. A complaint is often made at several levels about how difficult it can sometimes be in this country for innovators and entrepreneurs to move forward without getting tied up in huge amounts of red tape. Given the global competition that exists in the field of climate change, environment and green energy, we want to have a competitive advantage.

  We all talk about the huge potential investment in the green economy, about the green investment bank and about the massive changes that have taken place in the Treasury in recent years. Of course, we talk about having a smooth transition when there is a potential change of Government. That is why the Bill is so important and why I pushed to be on this Committee. The Bill is a major change that will stand this country—and indeed the world, if we can export some of the technology—in good stead in terms of achieving the better society we are trying to achieve on climate change. It is important that we go down this road, but let us not make the provisions so restrictive that we choke off the innovation at which this country excels.

  [Source]

• 23 May 2023: Oil and Gas Exploration: Subsidies

  I think the Minister needs to look at the dictionary definition of “subsidy”. The approval of the Rosebank oilfield would be an astronomical waste of public money, handing £3.75 billion in subsidy to a Norwegian company in tax breaks and incentives without making any difference to British people’s bills. Does he accept that it will not create jobs or solve our energy security needs, and that it will be a backward step for climate targets as it pumps out carbon dioxide equivalent to running 56 coal-fired power stations a year?

  [Source]

  Rosebank is an oilfield and 80% of the fossil fuels produced will be exported. If what the Minister says is true, why has the Government’s own net zero tsar said that approving Rosebank would undermine our climate leadership on the world stage and “trash” our net zero pledge? Why are leading scientists warning that

  [Source]

• 11 May 2023: Public Procurement: Net Zero

  19. What assessment he has made of the role of public procurement policy in helping the Government meet their net zero targets. ( 904873 )

  [Source]

• 2 May 2023: Marine Protected Areas

  15:52

  We think that 98% of carbon stored in the UK’s seafloor is in areas with no trawling restrictions, and the right hon. Member focused on bottom trawling. I come back to the value of protecting our marine environment, in terms of carbon sequestration and the importance of nature-based solutions to climate change, and creating nature markets.

  Damaging that habitat comes at a huge environmental cost. According to the Climate Change Committee, the organic carbon stored in the soils of marine ecosystems is equivalent to around 17% of the UK’s total emissions. That was calculated in 2020. Damaging those ecosystems risks releasing all that carbon into the atmosphere. We need to protect our seagrass meadows and our seabeds, and we need to enhance them.

  In the short term, seagrass meadows are about nature and biodiversity. In the longer term, the carbon sequestration benefits could also be huge, but there is a difficulty in evaluation at the moment. The Climate Change Committee has said that there are currently no estimates of carbon accumulation rates in UK seagrass ecosystems, and that UK-specific data is urgently needed. We also need a seagrass code, so that it can be properly accounted for.

  Last year, the Climate Change Committee recommended that saltmarsh and seagrass be included in the greenhouse gas inventory, and called for a roadmap to identify the additional data required to enable that to happen. In response, the Government accepted that there were

  The Government said that such information must be collected before a decision on inclusion in the greenhouse gas inventory can be made.

  As I understand it, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has established a cross-Administration UK blue carbon evidence partnership to make progress on the evidence base for blue carbon, and I hope that the Minister can give us an update on how that is going. I also remind her that she promised me a meeting when, at DEFRA questions, I asked how the Department was working with the newly created Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on nature-based solutions. I would like to gently chase her up on that, because it would be really useful to see how we can make progress.

  I have talked about the positive side—the potential—and now I want to flag up something that is very worrying. This was contained in the briefing sent to MPs today by Uplift, an organisation that provides the secretariat for the all-party group for climate change. Some 900 locations in the UK’s oceans have been offered as sites of development for oil and gas extraction in the latest offshore oil and gas licensing round, and more than a third of them clash with marine protected areas. I do not expect the Minister to comment on the Government’s dash for more fossil fuel extraction—I know that is a matter for another Department—but she should be very concerned about the overlap with marine protected areas.

  [Source]

• 23 Feb 2023: Climate Change: Nature-based Solutions

  4. What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero on her Department’s future role in promoting nature-based solutions to climate change. ( 903653 )

  [Source]

  Coastal wetlands have huge potential both in terms of biodiversity and as carbon sinks, but there is an evidence gap that means we cannot exploit their potential by attracting full private and public sector investment. The right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) said in his recent net zero review that that needs to be part of the greenhouse gas inventory, but we need the evidence base. Can the Minister clarify whose job it is to conduct that work so that we can fully maximise the potential of wetlands? Is it her Department, or is it the new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero?

  [Source]

• 22 Feb 2023: Oral Answers to Questions

  8. What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on support for renewable energy in Scotland. ( 903690 )

  [Source]

• 22 Feb 2023: Electric Vehicles: Infrastructure

  14:52

  In the next seven years, we will need five times as much grid connectivity as in the last 30 years because of the move towards clean power and things such as EVs, but I just do not see a strategy. It is good that we have a new Department that is prioritising energy security and net zero, but we need to see a strategy for grid connectivity, for the sake of green investment, house building and EV charging points.

  [Source]

• 9 Feb 2023: Independent Review of Net Zero

  14:04

  My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) talked about the local context, how enthusiastic young people in her constituency are, the impact of Heathrow and the fact that new social housing should be low carbon, as well as electric vehicle charging infrastructure, which is a subject dear to my heart. She said that local leaders need support to deliver this agenda. The right hon. Member for Kingswood will know what Bristol is doing on that front in trying to lead the way in becoming a net zero city. Again, I thank him for his support on that as a near Bristol MP.

  My hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) mentioned the creation of the new Department, which I welcome. I just hope that the net zero and climate change side of it does not get too swamped by the energy side, because the Government have made pretty good progress on decarbonising the energy sector. Much more, however, needs to be done in other sectors, and as the report we are discussing today says, there needs to be faster progress on that. It cannot just be seen as the energy Department with the occasional reference to other aspects of achieving net zero.

  This report makes clear what we have known for some time now: this Government are failing to grasp the economic opportunities that come with net zero. I am pleased that the report is so unambivalent about the benefits that can come from a transition to a greener economy. It calls it

  We hoped that the next prime Minister would learn from the mistakes of his predecessor and embrace climate action as the huge economic opportunity that we know it to be. However, what were his first moves in office? He sacked the President of the COP26 climate summit, tried to duck out of attending COP27, attempted to resurrect the ban on onshore wind and was whizzing around the country by private jet, which I gather he was at again this morning. Those are hardly the actions of a climate champion.

  Given that context of two Prime Ministers who, let us be frank, clearly could not care less about the climate, I am pleased that this review is not the greenwash many of us expected it to be. It does a comprehensive job of highlighting the many areas where the Government are falling woefully short in getting us to net zero. It makes clear that constant U-turns and lack of continuity make it impossible to plan and invest. All the businesses that I speak to in my role are telling me that time and again. They do not care about the politics of who is doing it; they just want that certainty, stability and sense of direction. It is clear also that the Government are not doing enough to make green technologies affordable for ordinary households. It is clear that this Government’s decision to axe support for home insulation in 2013 is the reason for plummeting energy efficiency improvements. It is clear that this Government have failed to set out a proper plan to restore nature or balance land-use pressures. It is crystal clear that we are falling behind in the global race to seize the economic opportunities of net zero.

  We need to green and retain our steel industry here. Other nations are not facing the exodus of jobs but are actively encouraging their own green industries. They understand that green investment pays for itself. The United States has just announced unprecedented support for green industries through the $369 billion Inflation Reduction Act. Much of that support is linked to support for domestic green industries and designed to attract investment from overseas, too. The European Union has been quick and clear in its response to that Act, with more support for green industries that need it, and proposals for a net zero industry Act and a critical raw materials Act.

  As much as I welcome the report’s findings, it has only told us what we already know about the Government’s progress towards net zero. We are simply not going far or fast enough. The right hon. Member for Kingswood is far from alone in that opinion. His report is merely the latest in a string of scathing assessments of this Government’s record on climate change. The Climate Change Committee said in last year’s progress report that the Government’s climate strategy “will not deliver” net zero. The High Court said that the net zero strategy is unlawful and inadequate. How many times do the Government need to be told that before they get their act together? Given the repeated warnings about the snail’s pace progress towards net zero, the huge uncertainty for investors and the staggering lack of ambition on crucial policy areas, I have little faith that the Government will finally step up a gear. I hope that the creation of the new Department is a sign that it will, but we will be there to hold them to account if they do not.

  If this Government do not act, the next Labour Government will. We have put forward a transformative agenda for Government, with a fairer, greener future at the core. We will invest £28 billion per year to tackle the climate emergency through our green prosperity plan, which will allow us to insulate 19 million homes within a decade; to deliver a clean power system by 2030; to establish GB Energy, a publicly owned clean energy company to ensure the benefits of our green investments are returned to the taxpayer; and to set up a national wealth fund to invest in those green industries that the Government seem happy to ignore and drive overseas. That means investment in new gigafactories, renewable-ready ports, green steel plants, green hydrogen, net zero industrial clusters and carbon capture and storage. It means good green jobs and growth for every corner of the UK. That is the kind of vision that this report makes clear is necessary. It is the kind of vision that British industry and this country are crying out for.

  [Source]

• 11 Jan 2023: Fossil Fuels and Cost of Living Increases

  10:24

  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Robert. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing the debate. This is certainly not a one-off debate on this topic; it is something that affects us all as constituency MPs, as well as being very much about the underlying issue of what we do to tackle the climate crisis.

  A few years prior to those floods, we had floods on the Somerset levels. Again, it was seen as an almost freak event. Oliver Letwin was given—as he usually was—a taskforce to chair that was going to bring up all the answers. Then, of course, it dropped off the agenda when we had a few years without floods. My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood was quite right to warn that we should not be complacent. That there is a constant fear that flooding could return, which is very much connected with the climate crisis.

  Returning to the opening remarks from the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion, she said that last year was very much dominated by soaring energy prices and a worsening climate crisis. It exposed our reliance on dirty and volatile fossil fuels. Gas prices soared to 10 times their level in the first half of 2021, meaning that the price of gas was nine times higher than the cost of cheap renewables such as wind and solar. That is an important message to get across to people. Renewables are not the expensive option any more; they are way cheaper than the fossil fuel route.

  As has been said, the Minister will mention the illegal war in Ukraine. Of course, that was a major factor, but it does not explain why leading economists are predicting that the UK will face one of the worst recessions and the weakest recoveries in the G7. According to the OBR—the previous Chancellor and Prime Minister were keen to avoid telling us what the OBR thought, and now we know why—the UK has already fallen into recession and is facing the biggest drop in living standards since records began. The reality is that we simply were not prepared for the energy shock that we saw last year, partly because we have had years of wasted opportunities to develop cheap, clean and renewable energy sources and to wean ourselves off fossil fuels.

  I know that there have been U-turns on quite a lot of that—although it is difficult to keep up sometimes—but ordinary households are now paying the price for the dithering, delay and years of inaction on renewables. New research suggests that households could have saved £1,750 a year if the Government had moved faster to reduce emissions through support for renewable energy, energy efficiency upgrades and other green investments. For the 9 million households now living in fuel poverty, that £1,750 could have made a world of difference.

  Labour would also double down on cheap, clean renewable energy through our pledge to achieve a clean power system by 2030. That would mean doubling onshore wind capacity, tripling solar capacity and quadrupling offshore wind capacity. We would achieve that goal by establishing a publicly owned renewable energy generator, GB Energy, so that the profits of those investments actually benefited the British public.

  That is a clear, long-term strategic plan. We are not hearing anything like that from the Government. I hope that today we will hear a serious response from the Government setting out not just how we will tackle the cost of living crisis in the short term and help people with their energy bills, but how we will put fossil fuels to bed once and for all and support the sprint towards green energy.

  [Source]

• 7 Dec 2022: Marine Renewables: Government Support

  10:32

  We know we need a diverse mix of energy sources if we are to get to net zero. It is always frustrating when clean energy sceptics say, “What happens when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow?” and conveniently ignore the fact that our tides, as the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) said, are a predictable source of energy and something we should be harnessing. We could also use hydroelectric reservoirs, which I do not think anyone has talked about, which release stored water and therefore generate energy at short notice.

  In Merseyside yesterday, metro Mayor Steve Rotheram signed a deal with the South Korean state-owned water company, which owns and operates the world’s largest tidal range scheme, to develop the Mersey tidal power project, which could generate enough energy to power 1 million homes. It will create thousands of jobs and help the region get to net zero by 2040.

  We also need action across the board to simplify and streamline the planning system, not in the way proposed by the previous, short-lived Administration, who were all about scrapping vital environmental protections and riding roughshod over the wishes of local communities, but by ensuring we do not place unnecessary burdens on renewable energy developers that delay or even derail new projects.

  [Source]

• 30 Nov 2022: Greening the Financial System

  15:12

  Of course, sustainable growth in the 21st century means green growth. Climate change is the defining social challenge of our times, and we have seen this year what happens when we are overly reliant on fossil fuels and foreign dictators for our energy needs. Globally, the risks associated with climate change from the ever increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events will require insurance and reinsurance, as well as sustained investment in climate adaptation.

  The Prime Minister did not inspire confidence in his initial approach to going to COP27; he was eventually dragged there. On the issue of international climate finance, there was the groundbreaking announcement of a loss and damage fund to assist developing countries, in response to the damage that they have incurred through climate change. There was a call for financial institutions to raise the ambition, to change the models and to create new financial instruments to increase access to finance. We ought to be at the heart of that global transfer of funds from developed countries that have polluted to countries that need support. Yesterday, I was with representatives of the overseas territories who are really struggling to get finance just to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy production in what are very small territories. We ought to be looking to support that through finance from the City of London.

  The Government promised radical action on a green transition, and we were promised that the UK would become the world’s first net zero financial centre. Instead, as we have heard, we are falling behind global competitors. A recent report from the think-tank New Financial revealed that in both share and penetration of green finance in capital markets, the UK is a long way behind the EU. It found that green finance penetration in the UK is at half the EU level and roughly where the EU was four years ago.

  [Source]

• 21 Nov 2022: Autumn Statement Resolutions

  20:41

  The answer to the cost of living crisis is not squeezing wages, eroding public services and taxing working people as living costs soar. It is about investing in public services, investing in infrastructure and investing in British workers. At conference, Labour unveiled its green prosperity plan, with thousands of new jobs across the country in green energy and retrofitting. We also announced a modern industrial strategy that will see workers and businesses flourish and a long-term plan for growth that will allow us to cut bills and tackle inequality and poverty. That is what was missing in yesterday’s statement, and that is what Britain needs—not a return to austerity.

  [Source]

• 17 Nov 2022: Oral Answers to Questions

  Yesterday I met the chair of Natural England, which is doing excellent work. Will the Minister say a bit more about what she sees as Natural England’s role in nature-based solutions to tackle climate change?

  [Source]

• 15 Nov 2022: Fracking: Local Consent

  09:55

  Is this not also a sign that the Government are entirely behind the curve? When fracking was mooted a decade ago as a transition fuel, it might have been something that could be considered, because the legislation at the time was aiming only for 80% renewable energy by 2050. Since 2018, we have known that we need to get to 100%, so transition fuels are a complete nonsense. Does the hon. Lady agree?

  The Minister for Climate, the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness, tried to gaslight the British public with his recent claim that fracking is green. He has also tried to say that oil and gas exploration in the North sea is green because the alternative is importing it, so we would have the extra costs of importing from elsewhere. Clearly, the green alternative is renewables. I would ask the Minister for Climate why, if he was right to say that fracking is a green option, it is opposed by so many of his colleagues, including the right hon. Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma), who was the President of COP26, and the right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), who is conducting the net zero review. Extracting fossil fuels will never be green, and I hope that the Minister who is here today will make that clear when he replies to the debate.

  Right now, there is immense pressure at COP27 to secure genuinely ambitious agreements to leave fossil fuels in the ground for good. Sending a clear message about our commitment to net zero and the move away from fossil fuels is vital, but the Government have been sending out such mixed signals—as has been said, the Prime Minister was not even going to go to COP, and had to be dragged there. That sends a terrible message about our global leadership. If our climate commitments are called into question, how can we expect other people to step up to the plate? It is time to end any doubts about the UK’s commitment to climate action. Listening to communities and implementing a permanent ban on fracking, and bringing back onshore wind and solar, would be a good start.

  [Source]

• 3 Nov 2022: Energy Sector: Trade Opportunities

  Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of meeting the Foreign Minister from the Maldives. Like many small island states, it would very much benefit from UK support when it comes to renewable energy; it is just not in a position to do that itself. It would also benefit from the lifting of tariffs on tuna, which I hope the Secretary of State is aware of. What support can we give small island states such as the Maldives?

  [Source]

• 3 Nov 2022: Climate Change and Human Security

  14:19

  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Efford. I thank the hon. Members for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) and for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) for securing this debate, which is a very timely one, given that COP is about to start. I think I agree with the hon. Member for Glasgow South that this debate should have fallen within the remit of the FCDO or the Ministry of Defence, but the Minister and I, with our climate change briefs, will try to do justice to some of the issues that have been raised.

  The hon. Member for Bath was right to talk about Putin’s hostile actions in Ukraine, which have drawn energy security to the forefront of people’s minds. It has always been quite difficult to get people interested in energy policy—it is sometimes seen as a very techy issue—but when we put it in the global context of how undue reliance on Russian energy supplies affects our security and the security of many countries, the lesson to be learned is that we need to be more self-sufficient. Obviously, the way to achieve self-sufficiency is through a quicker shift towards renewables, and—as I hope Members spotted—at its recent conference in Liverpool, Labour made a pledge for clean power by 2030. That is not just based on the awareness that we need to tackle the climate emergency, or that renewables are far cheaper—nine times cheaper—than gas; it is about our energy security needs as well.

  It was interesting to hear the hon. Member for Bath talk about the impact on the financial system. I have spoken to insurance companies that are having to reappraise what they do, given that some of the risks they are used to insuring against are getting to the stage where they are either uninsurable, or those companies are far more likely to have to pay out on them. Flooding is an obvious example, but there is also this issue of stranded assets when it comes to their investments. Both the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) and the hon. Member for Bath talked about how this is an opportunity, and as the shadow Secretary of State for climate change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), said at Labour conference,

  The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about the irony of there being flooding one moment in Northern Ireland and hosepipe bans the next, which brought home the fact that this is not just something that is happening in the most climate-vulnerable countries: we are seeing the impacts of climate change everywhere. Even just in recent times, we have seen floods in Pakistan, as has been mentioned; droughts and famine in east Africa; extreme weather events hitting central America, the Caribbean and the Asia-Pacific; and wildfires in California. We are seeing those physical manifestations of climate change around the globe, and the associated geopolitical risks.

  Obviously, climate migration—the outflow of people from areas where their lives or livelihoods are threatened—is one of those risks. In some cases, those people are in mortal danger and it is imperative that they flee; in other cases, it is because their former way of life is no longer economically viable. A report from the World Bank suggests that 216 million people may be displaced by 2050 due to climate breakdown. Of course, not all of those people will choose to leave their homes, but they will then be left in an increasingly vulnerable situation where they are likely to be in immense poverty and at risk of resorting to desperate measures.

  The other aspect is the battle over resources—for example, the melting of the ice on the third pole, the Himalayas. That is absolutely crucial to the water supply in India and China, and we may well see those two major superpowers at war with each other over access to that resource. Increasingly, we also see criminal elements being involved in deforestation in a bid to plunder the forests. Somali piracy, which was an issue a few years ago, is not quite a climate change issue, but it is closely linked to overfishing. It might not be climate change, but it is about the plundering of the world’s natural resources, and the inadvertent consequences of Somali fishermen not being able to make a living from their traditional way of life, and therefore turning to other activities.

  The climate crisis accelerates instability around the world, and opens up a vacuum in which extremism can fester. As the UN Secretary-General said, it is a “crisis amplifier”. It often contributes to a breakdown of law, increased inequality and rapid social change. For example, in the Lake Chad basin, Boko Haram has taken advantage of a scarcity of natural resources to conscript young people to its cause. In war-torn Yemen, the humanitarian crisis has been exacerbated by drought. ISIS has exploited water shortages in the middle east. As well as turning people towards terror, the damaging effects of climate change also risk leaving countries dependent on hostile states. A delegation from Madagascar is here this week, for example, and we know the role that China is beginning to play there. Countries in desperate need of economic support and security are turning to China, which gives China a huge degree of influence over their politics and full access to their resources.

  At COP, there should be a big focus on climate mitigation, renewed ambition when it comes to countries’ nationally determined contributions, and a focus on keeping 1.5° alive. Somebody said during a debate this week, I think, that 1.5° is on a life support machine, but we certainly must ensure that it is still very much the ambition. However, COP cannot be just about mitigation. We must also hear much more about adaptation, and how we can support the most climate-vulnerable countries as they try to make their nations more resilient. That could be about building sea walls; about natural defences against rising sea levels, such as planting mangroves; or about buildings that can better withstand extreme weather events.

  There is a lot that we can do, but those countries need finance. In some cases, they are very poor countries that would normally be in receipt of aid, or they are tiny countries, for example the small island developing states. They tell me that they find it almost impossible to access climate finance. There are too many hurdles for them to jump over. In some cases, that is because they do not have the resources: they are tiny countries, and do not have the people to do all the research for the paperwork.

  According to the UN, the 10 most environmentally fragile countries receive a mere 4.5% of all climate funding. That falls far behind other nations. It is not just about giving them climate finance; it is also about supporting them with their own initiatives. For example, the island and coastal states are increasingly looking at blue bonds. I know that Seychelles is doing so, as is—I think—Belize. As the centre of global finance, whether it is green finance or blue finance, the City of London could play a good role by helping those countries to access that money. That would be money from investors that are looking to do climate offsetting, for example. I am not that keen on carbon offsetting. It is not the solution to reaching 1.5°, but if there is an opportunity to get climate finance to climate-vulnerable countries, the UK ought to be playing a leading role.

  We need to see progress at COP27 on loss and damage, too. There should be a formal mechanism in place so that those with the responsibility and capacity to pay for it do so. I was part of a meeting last week in Parliament with John Kerry, the US climate envoy. I asked him about the issue, and it was good to see that he thinks that it is important. He spoke about trying to bring forward progress on loss and damage, so that it is something we can deliver on at the 2023 COP, rather than perhaps something for 2024.

  The Foreign Minister spoke to me about how the country hopes to get to fully renewable energy by 2030. Although its own carbon footprint is absolutely minuscule, it is doing its bit. The islands are of course surrounded by salt water, but fresh water is really important, and the rain water is so polluted by the industrialisation of neighbouring India that it cannot be used. That demonstrates the interface between what the industrialised world is doing, and small countries such as the Maldives. They cannot sort out this issue by themselves. They need collective responsibility to be shown.

  On finance, it was shocking to hear that the UK has not yet coughed up its contributions to the green climate fund and the adaptation fund—the $300 million promised in Glasgow. We currently hold the COP presidency. If we cannot meet our promises when we are meant to be showing leadership, we really cannot expect anybody else to do so. It is a total abdication of responsibility, as is the Prime Minister’s reluctance to attend COP27. He is going now, but it is pretty obvious he regards it as an inconvenience. I suspect he is only going because the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) is going and he does not want to be upstaged.

  I hope that when he gets there, the Prime Minister rises to the challenge. It is crucial that, in the outgoing days of our presidency, we bring together countries to co-operate and that we show climate leadership. I hope that he has a bit of an epiphany as he flies out to Sharm El Sheikh and realises that he is there to do a serious job, and that he does it.

  [Source]

• 2 Nov 2022: Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use

  It is disappointing that the COP President has not been allowed to answer questions today. I hope that Lula’s election victory in Brazil at the weekend heralds a new era in protecting the Amazon from deforestation. Globally, however, it seems that little progress has been made on the ground since the COP26 promises last year. We have also just heard that the UK has failed to pay out more than $300 million promised at COP to the green climate fund and the adaptation fund. Was the Prime Minister trying to avoid going to Sharm el-Sheikh because he is embarrassed that the UK has not delivered on all its promises?

  [Source]

• 31 Oct 2022: Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill

  19:30

  On the one hand, I welcome the Bill and I certainly welcome and support science-based approaches to technologies such as genetic modification and what the Government refer to as precision breeding. They have the potential to deliver a major improvement in productivity and on the environmental front, reducing the impact of farming. Genetic modification can have a positive impact by allowing us to address pest and disease pressures on crops and farm animals, and so reduce our reliance on fertilisers and pesticides; that helps more broadly in the fight against climate change. Genetic modification also provides opportunities for us to meet global need, including the food requirements of the global poor. However, there are problems with the Bill, and reasons why I would support the Government being more open to amendments from the other place, and especially to amendments 3 and 4 tonight.

  [Source]

• 27 Oct 2022: National Food Strategy and Food Security

  13:34

  I am glad to hear that; it is a good step. I will not go into the environmental arguments. I hope that people accept that I am not trying to force people down a particular path, but the Climate Change Committee, the UN and several Cabinet Ministers have accepted that, for environmental and health reasons, we could do with reducing meat consumption.

  What he said about the need for the land to be carbon-negative—not net zero—was spot on. The potential for carbon sequestration is huge, and by taking some of the least productive agricultural land out of production, we could enhance biodiversity at the same time as creating natural carbon sinks.

  [Source]

• 19 Oct 2022: Ban on Fracking for Shale Gas Bill

  18:45

  Let us not forget that this reckless decision comes in the middle of a climate emergency. At COP26 this Government made a commitment on the world stage to prioritise the clean energy transition and end public support for the fossil fuel sector by the end of 2022. How is that going? One year on, they are not only bringing back fracking for gas, but issuing hundreds of new licences for fossil fuel extraction. No wonder the Prime Minister is trying to wriggle out of attending COP in Egypt next month.

  Let us call this what it is—it is climate vandalism. The decisions of this Government are undermining our climate targets and trashing our reputation on the global stage. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) said, it is taking a wrecking ball to years of patient climate diplomacy. I am sure the COP26 President would have something to say about that.

  [Source]

• 21 Jul 2022: Net Zero Strategy: High Court Ruling

  10:32

  (Urgent Question ) : To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to provide a response to the High Court ruling that the net zero strategy is unlawful.

  Over the past three decades, the UK has driven down emissions by more than 45%— the fastest reduction of any G7 country. We have one of the most ambitious carbon-reduction plans in the world, pledging to reduce emissions by at least 68% by 2030 and by 77% by 2035, compared with 1990 levels, before of course reaching net zero by 2050. Our track record speaks for itself: the UK overachieved against the first carbon budget and exceeded the second by nearly 14%. The latest projections show that we are on track to meet the third carbon budget as well.

  In its judgment on the judicial review of the net zero strategy, the High Court found that Government had not complied with Climate Change Act 2008 in relation to some specific procedural issues and the level of analysis published as part of the 164-page net zero strategy. I stress that the judge has made no criticism about the substance of our plans to meet net zero, which are well on track. Indeed, even the claimants in the case described the net zero strategy as “laudable”. The independent Climate Change Committee described the net zero strategy as

  “the world’s most comprehensive plan to reach Net Zero”.

  Let us be clear: we are here because the High Court has ruled that the Government’s net zero strategy is unlawful and is in breach of the Climate Change Act. The Climate Change Committee, which the Minister cites, said only a few weeks ago that the Government

  “will not deliver Net Zero”

  on current projections. Not only have the Government failed to set out the detail of how they will reach net zero, but Ministers cannot even do basic maths, because, as the High Court made clear, adding up the emissions cuts in the strategy will leave a 5% shortfall. How embarrassing that his Department must be dragged to court to hear what we have known for months—that the numbers simply do not stack up.

  This week has made it clear why we have to act now. The country has suffered through a sweltering heatwave causing fires across the country and infrastructure failure. But at a crucial time, this Government are directionless and collapsing in on themselves. The High Court has ordered that a revised strategy must be presented by next March. That will be under a new Prime Minister. Yet the current candidates have made their views on net zero clear. One has spent two years in the Treasury blocking climate action that might have saved the Government this embarrassment; the other wants to scrap green levies.

  So forgive me if I have little faith that the situation is set to improve—but it has to. We need to insulate millions of homes to slash emissions and bring down bills. We need a green sprint for renewable energy to wean ourselves off expensive fossil fuels. Labour will deliver that, and more, with our £28 billion climate investment pledge. That is what the public want and what the planet needs, so will the Government get their act together, meet their legal obligations, and finally deliver the green future that we need?

  I thank the hon. Lady for that set of questions. Let me first stress that the net zero strategy—I have it here—is a very comprehensive document with pages and pages of annexes as well. It would be well worth all Members re-reading it today. It is a comprehensive plan for meeting our climate targets, outlining measures to move to a green and sustainable future. The Court found that we had not complied with the Climate Change Act only in relation to specific procedural issues and the level of analysis published as part of the strategy. The judge agreed that it did not need to contain measures with quantifiable effects to enable the full 100% emissions reductions required. [Interruption.] We are talking here about a strategy for the next 28 years. Inevitably, there will be some evolution in the strategy, and inevitably there will need to be some flexibility in a strategy with a 28-year timeframe.

  The hon. Lady asked about the Conservative leadership candidates. In all the hustings that I have been to—and I think I have been to almost all of them—all the candidates made strong commitments to meet net zero, including at the hustings chaired by her near neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore).

  When it comes to net zero and climate change, I am not going to take any lessons from Labour, which is the party that said in 1997:

  That has set us back decades. There is a reason why 11 of our 12 power stations are coming off-stream before the end of this decade: the decisions, or non-decisions, by the last Labour Government, who increased our dependence on gas from 32% to 46% of our electricity generation—which could only have cheered Vladimir Putin. On energy efficiency, we inherited a position where 14% of properties in this country were rated A to C. We have increased that to 46%. When we took office, renewables made up only 7% of our electricity generation mix. That is now at 43%. So I am going to take no lessons from Labour. It is this Government who are taking the tough decisions, including on Sizewell yesterday, and moving forward on renewable energy and nuclear—not any of the Opposition parties.

  Will my right hon. Friend confirm that this Government, whoever leads them after the summer, will remain committed to the net zero by 2050 target, given that, as he rightly said, in successive hustings, all candidates confirmed their commitment to maintaining that target? Will he also confirm that the UK oil and gas companies are at the forefront of driving forward the energy transition through so many different initiatives, such as carbon capture and storage, which will be so important to the St Fergus gas terminal in my constituency?

  My hon. Friend is correct. He is always a strong voice for all the industries in his constituency, whether they be traditional oil and gas or those making the transition to carbon capture, utilisation and storage, hydrogen and so on. All these technologies will be crucial. The Climate Change Committee itself has said that carbon capture, utilisation and storage is “essential” to the achievement of our net zero goals. We remain on course to reach net zero by 2050 as a world leader, particularly under the COP presidency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma).

  What confidence has the Minister that his Government’s climate policy can be fixed when both candidates for his party's leadership are at best lukewarm on climate issues, and at worst willing to sacrifice net zero? The Foreign Secretary said this morning that she would scrap the green levies, for example.

  In 2020, the Met Office conducted a hypothetical thought experiment to determine what the weather would be like in 2050 if climate change accelerated as expected. Several of those projections are coming true now, 28 years early. Does the Minister not agree that it is vital for our plans to fight climate change to be up to the job, and that the next Prime Minister must remain completely committed to that fight?

  It is entirely wrong to say that any of the candidates to be the next Prime Minister are lukewarm on climate issues. On the contrary, the commitment to net zero from all the candidates—well, both the candidates in the last round—is absolute. I am a little surprised by the Scottish National party at times: this is the UK Government who brought COP26 to Glasgow and brought it to the attention of the world, and all that the SNP has done in the last year is snipe from the sidelines.

  The hon. Lady mentioned jobs. There are already 430,000 people across the United Kingdom working in low-carbon businesses. The British energy security strategy will increase the number of clean jobs in the UK, supporting 90,000 jobs in offshore wind, 10,000 in solar power and 12,000 in the UK hydrogen industry by 2028. I think it is about time the SNP got behind our energy transition—supporting, for example, the move to nuclear power, which is a key part of decarbonised electricity generation—and got behind what the UK Government are doing on behalf of the people of Scotland, as well as the rest of the UK.

  I attended nearly all the hustings as well, and I was pleased to hear all the candidates support the net zero target and express their commitment to climate change. One of the challenges that we face, however, is the fact that the homes of people in rural areas are less likely to be well insulated and less likely to be easy to insulate. Furthermore, we have no mass transit systems—which, indeed, would be impractical in most rural areas—so we rely much more on fuels for our cars. What can the Minister do to ensure that, as we move towards climate change as a country, we do so in a way that does not penalise those in the countryside most financially, but spreads the risk and the penalty evenly?

  I strongly agree with my hon. Friend that the commitment of this party and this Government to net zero is absolute, and one of the strongest in the world.

  Oil and gas giants have driven the climate crisis, yet one Cabinet Minister banked £1.3 million from an oil company while a Back-Bench MP, and another has accepted £100,000 from a firm run by an oil trader. I will be tabling a Bill to kick oil and gas money out of politics. Is it not time we did just that?

  That is a familiar refrain from the hon. Gentleman, and he ignores a lot of evidence that those same companies are big contributors to our world-leading renewable energy programme. We have Europe’s largest installed offshore wind capacity, we are moving into tidal, we are increasingly moving into onshore wind and we are ramping up our solar ambitions. A large part of our hydrogen production and our carbon capture, utilisation and storage is being done by energy companies. I look forward to seeing whether the Labour Front Bench supports his Bill.

  The Climate Change Committee has warned that the Government are on track to cut only 40% of the emissions required to reach the 2050 net zero target. The reality is that the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is not sufficiently senior to co-ordinate the Government’s net zero response. Does the Minister agree that, perhaps as part of the evolving strategy he has described, we should have a Department and a Secretary of State for climate change, as there used to be, so they can be held accountable for delivering on that net zero target?

  On the hon. Lady’s central point about the net zero strategy, this country remains on course to deliver net zero by 2050. Nobody ever said it would be straightforward or easy. The strategy set a 29-year path at the time of publication, and we are on good course. I have every confidence that the strategy will be the blueprint as we move forward.

  I believe the heat over the last few days means that 2050 will be too late for much of our population. We have to revise the target and move faster. There are some good things coming, but there are still so many closet climate change deniers in the Government and in the country. It is about time they opened their mind to the fact we now have to move faster and firmer.

  I am afraid to say that is an extraordinary attack, even by the hon. Gentleman’s standards. Actually, this Government were the first to introduce a net zero target. At COP26, we saw our Prime Minister and our COP President leading the world on action against climate change—action that others now seek to copy.

  I just remind the Minister that it was Labour’s Climate Change Act that called for those targets to be set—in section 4. However, it seems that this Government were asleep at the wheel, knowing that there is a 5% deficit in terms of being able to attain—this is what the judgment said—their net zero target. Therefore, the Government’s inaction has led to the decision of the courts. The Government’s inaction is also leading to the absence of a new green deal for York. We have been promised that by his Department, which supports 4,000 jobs and the upskilling of 25,000 people with a new green deal, yet the Minister has not come forward with the money. When are we going to get that?

  I was referring to the adoption of net zero, of course, which was by this Government in 2019. I answered a question earlier about the jobs being provided through our action on climate change and our move into renewable energy, which I would hope the hon. Lady supports. The hon. Lady suggests that this Government and this party are not taking the tough action that we need and not putting the money there, but we have pledged £30 billion to combat climate change over this spending review. That is a considerable sum and a considerable political commitment by this Government.

  The High Court ruling that the Government’s flagship policy on climate change is unlawful is a clear warning that this UK Government are not doing enough on climate change. They should embrace that criticism and do something about it urgently, but instead they try to dodge it. The Minister mentioned the Climate Change Committee. It has said that nuclear will take too long; there needs to be a rush for electricity through renewables, and carbon capture and storage needs to be developed more quickly too. Why are the Government lagging behind and not taking this advice to deal with this important issue?

  As I said, we are considering our options in the aftermath of the Court ruling, but let me deal with some of the substance of what the hon. Gentleman is saying. He is saying that nuclear will take too long. The SNP has been opposed in principle to nuclear power since its very existence. So on the one hand he is saying he does not want it, but on the other hand he is saying it is taking too long. That makes no sense at all. The hon. Gentleman will remember that on the very day we published the net zero strategy we also announced the programme to move forward with carbon capture, utilisation and storage—we are on good track there.

  On renewables, the whole of the UK is taking part in our huge move into and boost for renewable energy. Scotland is a vital part of that, which is why we have announced the first ever tidal contracts in the contracts for difference regime, as well as the first floating offshore wind deals. We are making sure that the whole of the UK benefits from our offshore wind assets, including, for example, in the Celtic sea between Wales and Cornwall, as well as off the north-east coast of Scotland, the North sea and the Irish sea.

  I am surprised by the right hon. Gentleman’s response to this debate, because the summary of the findings highlights that the net zero strategy

  We have to understand the context, which is setting out where 95% of emissions will come from in carbon budget 6. CB6 covers the years 2033—not 2023—to 2037. If we were to have gone back 30 years and asked, “How will we do our emissions over the next 30 years?”, I venture to suggest that that would not have been an entirely accurate exercise. I think that 95% is very credible for CB6, which covers 2033 to 2037. It is worth pointing out again that the court judgment was on this very narrow aspect—it is not about the net zero strategy as a whole. It sounds as though the hon. Lady has read part of the net zero strategy, and I strongly commend that she goes through the whole thing in more detail.

  There are two zero-emission policies that the Government could adopt to comply with the High Court’s request for a deliverable plan. One is a zero-emission home strategy. Since this Government have been in power, 1 million homes have been built without those standards in place, which makes a huge contribution to carbon outputs. The second is onshore wind, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) has already mentioned. Why have the Government not taken on board the carbon savings that we could have if a significant amount of new growth in onshore wind could be invested in?

  The Climate Change Committee recently said that the Government had credible plans to reduce only 39% of UK emissions and that the UK was not on track to meet net zero. Now the High Court has said that the net zero strategy is unlawful. Is it not simply the case that the Government need to grasp the nettle, accept responsibility and just get on with making those detailed plans? When will the Minister do that?

  The court did not say that the net zero strategy was unlawful; I refer the hon. Lady to my earlier remarks. The Climate Change Committee praised this Government for the moves we have made on electricity decarbonisation. As I say, we are a world leader in this space, and I think she should show a little bit more pride in the efforts that the country is making, including off the coast in the North sea near her constituency, and also in our efforts on electric vehicles. There is a great deal for us all to take pride in across the whole country in terms of our net zero strategy and decarbonisation.

  This week, Conservative Members have given both a full vote of confidence and an enthusiastic standing ovation to a Prime Minister who deliberately missed an emergency Cobra meeting to plan for the heatwave emergency because he was away playing at “Top Gun” with the RAF—playing the part of Maverick, I understand. How can anyone take seriously the climate change credentials of a party that so wholeheartedly supports a Prime Minister who, like some latter-day Nero, chooses to fiddle with his joystick while London burns?

  The Minister will agree that we need to strike a balance. Will he outline how he intends to address concerns in the agri-industry sector in Northern Ireland about the fact that livestock numbers in Northern Ireland would have to halve if we are to meet the net zero target by 2050? That would put 113,000 jobs at risk. Can he outline the steps that will be taken to ensure that the demands being made will not have that result?

  [Source]

• 20 Jul 2022: Oral Answers to Questions

  Last month the Climate Change Committee issued a scathing annual progress report warning of “major policy failures” and “scant evidence of delivery” on net zero. This week, as we have heard, the Government had to be dragged to court to be told their climate plans are so woefully inadequate that they are unlawful and must be revised.

  What kind of leadership does it set if the country holding the COP presidency cannot get its own house in order? I know the COP President will say that the Conservative party’s leadership candidates have paid lip service to net zero, but does he really have any confidence that things will get better?

  [Source]

• 19 Jul 2022: New Pylons: East Anglia

  10:35

  When I found out that I was speaking for the Labour Front Bench in this debate and saw that the subject was posited as local opposition to renewable energy projects, the first word that came to mind was nimbyism. Such debates can be about people not wanting something that spoils their view, but it has been made very clear that the debate today is not about that.

  The hon. Member for South Suffolk also said that all East Anglian MPs support net zero. Having listened to some of the contributions to the Conservative leadership contest, I am not entirely sure whether the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch) would say the same, but that is a debate for another day. The hon. Member for South Suffolk said that the consultation was inadequate and did not cover the offshore options, which were buried in the small print. Again, I will leave it to the Minister to say whether he feels that the consultation was adequate. The hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) also said that the consultation was not adequate and warned about getting lawyers involved, which we would probably all want to avoid. I speak as a lawyer myself.

  Let me conclude because it is important that the Minister has plenty of time to reply. The need to make the shift to low-carbon energy is real and urgent, and the push for 50 GW of offshore wind by 2030 is very much part of that. In recent weeks, the Government have been criticised by the Climate Change Committee for the inadequacy of their plans to reach net zero, although they are doing better on energy than on some other aspects, and only yesterday, Friends of the Earth successfully brought a court case against the Government, which will require them to rethink their net zero strategy.

  I hope that there will be a revised strategy as a result of the court case and the criticisms of the Climate Change Committee, and that must include a big push to get the right low-carbon infrastructure in place. Opposition to onshore wind has been a disaster for efforts to ramp up renewable energy capacity in the UK, and it is now easier to build a road than to put up an onshore wind turbine in this country.

  [Source]

• 12 Jul 2022: Oral Answers to Questions

  I welcome the Minister to her post. We all agree that supporting investment in new low-carbon technologies is an important part of reaching net zero—well, most of us do. In the past week, one of the candidates for Prime Minister has said that

  “we need to suspend the all-consuming desire to achieve net zero by 2050.”

  for net zero. The frontrunner spent two years at the Treasury blocking additional climate spend. It is all well and good for the Minister to talk about the need for investment, but how can we, and more importantly the investors out there, have any confidence that it will continue?

  [Source]

• 5 Jul 2022: Action on Climate Change and Decarbonisation

  18:29

  I wish there was a bit more to discuss. As we have heard, last week the independent Climate Change Committee delivered its annual verdict on the Government’s climate strategy, or what there is of it. I think the Chair of the Select Committee let the Government off a little lightly in his quote from that report, which was an absolutely damning read. It talked about major failures in delivery programs and stated that

  It also said that the current strategy will not deliver net zero. The committee concluded that the Government have credible plans for achieving only 39% of the emissions reductions required. This comes less than a year after COP, when we still hold the COP presidency and ought to be showing international leadership.

  It is not just the Climate Change Committee saying that the Government have fallen short. The Public Accounts Committee report published at the beginning of March said that the Government still have

  “no clear plan for how the transition to net Zero will be funded”,

  “how it will…replace income from taxes such as fuel duty…and…has no reliable estimate of what the process of implementing the net zero policy is actually likely to cost British consumers, households, businesses and government itself.”

  We have seen that day-to-day spending in BEIS has increased by 71% since the last supplementary estimate. That has mostly been driven by this increase of £11.6 billion for the energy bill support scheme. As has been said by several people, including the right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) and the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, this is not a net zero measure unless it is linked to ending investment in fossil fuels, which we know it is not. I expect that we will shortly hear criticisms on that front. It was quite damning how the right hon. Member for Kingswood said that it was simply not true to say that this is a net zero measure. He talked about using false figures in our accounting; I thought those were strong words, but they are true. Once that figure is discounted, we see that little money is going on the most important measures that should be being put in place to deal with emissions. Several people mentioned the need to insulate and retrofit homes, which would simultaneously slash emissions and bring down energy bills. That should have been an urgent national priority as energy costs soared. As has been said, if we invested in that, it would bring down energy bills year on year.

  I pointed out that the £11.6 billion is money out of the door with no consequential effect on delivering on net zero. That money—£400 a person—could have been delivered on the condition that it was later spent on green home improvement measures using a voucher scheme. We need to think carefully about how we deliver those schemes in future so that we can benefit people in a cost of gas crisis—it is not just a cost of living crisis—and see real change on the ground.

  There are other examples where the now ex-Chancellor seemed keen to claw back green spending wherever he could. The plug-in grant for electric vehicles was scrapped just weeks ago. The planned landscape recovery fund to rewild our countryside was recently gutted from £800 million a year to £50 million over three years. In these estimates, we see a £76.8 million reduction in funding for carbon capture and storage, despite the Climate Change Committee highlighting concerns last week about the Government’s support for the sector. As the Chair of the EAC said—I seem to be quoting him a lot, which is a tribute to his excellent speech—CCS is not a magic bullet. We are simply not there yet; there is huge potential, but we cannot magic it out of thin air. There has to be a strategy to get us into a position to make use of it.

  The Government are simply not going far or fast enough to tackle the climate emergency. There has been no investment in the gigafactories that we desperately need to boost production of electric vehicles in the UK. That is about not just producing batteries here but ensuring that we retain the car manufacturing that is essential to many of our communities. That investment would also create 30,000 good green jobs in the process.

  The Government seem to be running scared of investing in climate action. They can only see the cost and they are blind to the opportunities. The Minister should remember that the Climate Change Committee estimates that even without factoring in the benefits of green growth or the impact on public health, reaching net zero will cost less than 1% of GDP. Another 0.5% of GDP could be saved by moving away from costly fossil fuels rather than fracking for more, as the Department appears determined to do. Wise investment would lead to lower bills for consumers, good green jobs and sustainable economic growth. It is not just right to tackle climate change; it will get us out of this cost of living crisis.

  Labour will treat this issue with the seriousness it deserves by investing £28 billion a year to tackle the climate emergency, grow the green economy and get cheap green technologies into people’s hands. People want to upgrade their homes to bring down bills, they want to buy electric cars that will be cheaper to run as well as more environmentally friendly, and they want to make greener choices about what they consume, but the Government have to step up to support them in making this transition. That means recognising the urgency of the situation, putting climate action at the heart of every spending decision—on homes, energy, transport and more—and doing a lot better than the Government are doing now.

  [Source]

• 16 Jun 2022: Public Order Bill (Sixth sitting)

  15:30

  I agree with the hon. Member. The COP26 policing effort of last year involved mutual aid. That involved, for example, training in Scots law for officers coming from England and Wales, so that created an additional training requirement as well. We have to think about those things. As for my own police experience, my specialism was in sexual offences; I was a sexual offences-trained officer, but from a general perspective, I policed football matches, marches and local demonstrations, and interpreted the law accordingly.

  [Source]

• 11 May 2022: Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice

  15:07

  Now we have the measures on climate change activists. Again, the Government are trying to create a false divide. Most people, if we ask them, want to see greater action on climate change and support the right to peaceful protest, while thinking that the tactics used by some protesters are ill-judged, inconsiderate and counter-productive. People who are very much involved in the environmental movement share my opinion that some of the things we have seen do not help the cause at all. However, I am not convinced there needs to be legislation on this, rather than the Government working with infrastructure providers to obtain injunctions. Again, the reason is very much about headlines and trying to stir up antipathy. It is also interesting that the people who try to do that do not even manage to pay lip service to the need to address climate change.

  [Source]

• 31 Mar 2022: Food Security

  15:51

  The impact of the rise in the cost of living and the absolutely desperate situation in which many people find themselves is a really important debate to be had, but I want to talk about food sovereignty and what we grow in this country. According to the national food strategy, we are about 77% self-sufficient in food that we can grow in this country—64% self-sufficient overall. Importing more food, changing diets and eating more exotic foods is not necessarily a bad thing. I remember when spaghetti was considered exotic in the 1970s. It is good that we have far more varied diets and that we can buy fruit and veg out of season, but there is a point at which declining food sovereignty starts to have a significant impact on food security and our vulnerability to global food shocks is exposed. We have heard about Ukraine and Brexit, and we all remember the empty shelves and rotting food caused by trucks getting stuck at borders earlier this year. There is also the ever-present threat of climate change and the impact that it could have on future harvests.

  [Source]

• 2 Mar 2022: Oral Answers to Questions

  I thank the President for attending the meeting on small island developing states recently; they really appreciated that. If global warming is kept at 2°, we will lose 99% of our coral reefs; if it is at 1.5°, we will lose 70%. It seems particularly appropriate, with COP27 being held in Sharm el-Sheikh, that that should be a priority. Could the President tell us whether it will be?

  [Source]

• 1 Feb 2022: Oil and Gas Producers: Windfall Tax

  17:46

  The current regime just cannot be reconciled with our climate commitments. The long-term solution to this crisis is not churning out more fossil fuels, but switching to sustainable energy sources to avoid a reliance on volatile gas markets. That means investing now in renewable energy, insulation of homes and installation of heat pumps, rather than kicking the can down the road, as this Government have done with their net zero strategy.

  [Source]

• 5 Jan 2022: Deforestation in the Amazon

  11:45

  It is not clear when the Government’s proposals will come into force. The consultation that was recently launched suggests that it could take up to four or five years to implement them if all key commodities are covered at once. That is hardly an urgent legislative solution. At COP26, Brazil itself set a slightly baffling target to end illegal deforestation by 2028—I say “slightly baffling” because we do not really know what that means. There is every chance that Brazil could just move the goalposts and make legal what is now illegal—what does it mean by legal deforestation? If the UK’s own provisions do not come into effect until 2026-27, that will not really help the situation in the Amazon in the meantime.

  [Source]

• 16 Nov 2021: Oral Answers to Questions

  It has just been revealed that the Transport Secretary is spending departmental money to lobby against the development of private airfields. This includes lobbying against plans to build a battery gigafactory at Coventry airport. What hope do we have of decarbonising transport when the very Cabinet member responsible for that brief is more interested in having somewhere to land his private jet? What conversations is BEIS having with the Department for Transport to ensure that it takes this matter seriously?

  [Source]

• 4 Nov 2021: Oral Answers to Questions

  With COP under way, the Government should be sending the strongest signals on transport decarbonisation. On the one hand we have the chief scientific adviser telling people to fly less, as did a report from the nudge unit that the Government quickly deleted and suppressed, but on the other hand the Chancellor is cutting air passenger duty on domestic flights and the Prime Minister flew back from COP on a private jet for a supposedly urgent appointment that turned out to be a dinner for Telegraph journalists. Does the Secretary of State agree with the chief scientific adviser, or does he agree with the Chancellor and the Prime Minister? He cannot do both.

  [Source]

• 1 Nov 2021: Budget Resolutions

  19:55

  There were two main challenges facing the Chancellor as he prepared for the Budget. One, on the eve of COP26, was to accelerate progress on tackling climate change, yet he had nothing to say on that. Instead, he cut air passenger duty on domestic flights, sending out entirely the wrong signal when he should have been investing in our rail services. It was clear that net zero could not have been further from his mind.

  [Source]

• 28 Oct 2021: Biodiversity Loss

  The marine environment can play a huge role in climate mitigation, with blue carbon held in native oyster reefs, kelp forests, seagrass, salt marshes and so on. What are the Government doing to scale up the rewilding of our seas for biodiversity and blue carbon, an issue on which we could show global leadership at COP26 and at the convention next year?

  [Source]

• 26 Oct 2021: Motorcycling: Government Support

  17:08

  Finally, I want to talk about the need to decarbonise—an issue that the industry has contacted me about. Support for the industry so far, in terms of decarbonisation, has been pretty limited. The plug-in motorcycle grant, which helps support the sale of low-emission bikes, is £1,500 at the moment—less than for cars. The funding is guaranteed only up to March 2023. I was going to ask the Minister whether the Government plan to keep the grant beyond that date or, as is the case with the car plug-in grant, to reduce it year on year, but as we have the Budget tomorrow, I suspect I know what her answer would be. Could she answer this question instead? In the transport decarbonisation plan, the Government promised an action plan for zero-emission light-powered vehicles by the end of the year. We have not seen any sign of that yet. Will it be published before the end of the year?

  It is really important that the transition to zero-emission vehicles is smooth. I welcome the Government’s recent announcement that they will introduce a zero-emissions vehicle mandate, but there was no mention of motorcycle manufacturers in the summary, despite the 2035 commitment to banning new petrol motorbikes and the suggestion that plug-in grant support may end sooner than that, in 2023. Will the Minister explain whether the Government want to offer the same support to motorcycle manufacturers as they are to EV car manufacturers, through the electric car mandate, which will encourage them to make the shift to producing cleaner vehicles sooner? If not, why are motorcycle manufacturers being left out?

  [Source]

• 21 Oct 2021: Climate Change Committee Progress Report 2021

  14:01

  It is a pleasure to see you in the chair, Sir Christopher. I think we may have another Back-Bench speaker whose name somehow did not make it on to the list. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) stole my gag about climate debates being like buses—two turn up at once but they are not electric buses.

  I was one of the MPs who went outside yesterday to see the people who are pressing for more zero-emission buses. They had buses there from Ballymena, Falkirk, and Selby near Leeds to highlight the fact that, while the Government have pledged 4,000 zero-emission buses, only a small handful have appeared on the roads. Although the Transport Secretary responded to questions from one of my colleagues in the shadow Transport team to say that 900 were in production, we have pressed him on that since, asking where they are in production and when they are appearing, and he seems to have gone very quiet.

  I congratulate the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) on securing the debate, and I congratulate him on his optimism. We do need optimism when it comes to the fight against climate change. It can seem like a pessimistic environment. The zero-emission buses are an example of where the Government’s actions do not match their announcements. Unless we see an acceleration of action, not just warm words, we shall be nowhere near meeting the targets, which are good and ambitious. They set an example to the rest of the world, but if we cannot go to COP and demonstrate the real things that are happening on the ground, it all becomes greenwash, to put it mildly.

  The Committee on Climate Change report is huge, but one recommendation goes to the heart of everything. There is a recommendation for No. 10 and the Cabinet Office that says:

  “Ensure all departmental policy decisions…are consistent with the Net Zero goal and reflect the latest understanding of climate risks.”

  That is where we need to be. Everything the Government do should be through the prism of trying to achieve net zero. We have the announcement of new fossil fuel projects—the Cambo oilfield and the Cumbrian coal mine. Lord Deben, chair of the Committee on Climate Change, has written to the Government to say that it is simply incompatible with our stated ambitions to allow those new fossil fuel projects to go ahead. Compare what is happening with airport expansion with the recommendations of the Committee that there should be no net airport expansion. The word “net” is important. Although it does not work in the current context, where Heathrow and everywhere else is pressing for expansion, there is an argument that, if capacity declined at Heathrow, regional airports such as Bristol would be able to expand, creating regional jobs and economic growth as part of that net calculation.

  Take the Transport Secretary and the road-building programme, in which billions of pounds are going towards the construction of new roads. He was advised by his civil servants that that needed to be subject to an environmental impact assessment to see whether it was compatible with the Government meeting their climate change ambitions, and he refused to do so. I know that the Minister answering today is not from the Department for Transport, but that is another example of the actions of the Government just not squaring up with this recommendation in the Committee on Climate Change’s report.

  The Australian trade agreement is another example. How can we claim to be serious about climate change and protecting the environment when we are more than willing to trade away environmental protections as part of a trade agreement? When the Minister was in his previous post, I asked him about potential trade agreements with Brazil and the relationship with that country in general. On one of his overseas jaunts, the Prime Minister congratulated President Bolsonaro on being an environmental champion. This guy is almost single-handedly destroying the Amazon by allowing huge numbers of people to be displaced from their land, and allowing swathes of forest to be burned and used for cattle ranching or the growing of various commodities—soya for livestock feed, palm oil, and so on.

  My hon. Friend is entirely right. In some cases, the populations of those countries are smaller than the population of our constituencies, so it would not be a huge effort on the part of the UK Government to prioritise them and help them make the transition to renewable energy. In some cases, it involves getting out of very difficult contracts, sometimes with companies that are based in the developing world and are tied into electricity supplies based on fossil fuels. There is a lot that we could do to help them. The main plea is that we have to simplify the process. We all know of small organisations in our constituencies trying to apply for, say, lottery funding, or bidding for other funds. They face a similar situation; the paperwork and bureaucracy are immense.

  I was concerned to read today in The Guardian that a third of Pacific islands have said that they are unable to attend COP, partly because of covid. That goes back to the size issue. The people who would be coming over from those islands cannot afford to take a fortnight off work to quarantine at the end of the conference. When I asked the COP26 President, the right hon. Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma), about that, he told me two things: that the UK would ensure that all people from small and developing states could be vaccinated, and that there would be funds available to bring them over. The reason that delegates at Paris moved from 2° to 1.5° was partly because of the personal testimony and presence of the Pacific leaders in particular, and leaders of small island developing states in general. That really made the change. Their presence and their voices at Paris shamed the world and highlighted the fact that in some cases those countries will literally disappear underwater if we do not keep 1.5 alive.

  I am aware that I have been speaking for quite some time, although I am also aware that, given that this is a three-hour debate, I could probably go on a lot longer. I am sure that people do not want to be detained, so I will just mention one more thing. It was reported this week that a nudge unit report on behaviour change, which recommended reductions in meat eating and measures to curb aviation demand, was buried. Can the Minister explain why that report has not been published and is not being discussed? We can talk forever about technological change, what the Government need to do and what needs to be financed, but behavioural change is a significant part of how we will meet our climate objectives.

  Particularly with meat eating, the market has responded, but some Ministers, from an ideological point of view, do not see a role for the Government in nudging it along. There is a real debate about whether it is acceptable to nudge things along rather than wielding the stick to make people do things. That is the crux of the issue of whether we act upon the Climate Change Committee’s recommendations. For example, they recommended a

  The same goes for electric vehicles. I very much welcome the zero-emission vehicles mandate that was announced this week, but the Government have been cutting the plug-in grants for electric vehicles year on year, and there are rumours that they will be axed entirely. From what I hear from the Chancellor, I think we are okay for the next financial year, but not beyond that. It almost feels as if the Government have decided that the grants that have been given out so far have done their job. They have stimulated the market, but if we are to get to where we want to be and have a vibrant second-hand market by the time that the ban on the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles comes in, a lot more has to be done. At the moment, EVs are simply not affordable and accessible for many people, and that is partly because of the charging infrastructure points as well.

  I have spoken far too many times about EVs in this place as it is, so I will draw my speech to a conclusion—as I am sure you will be very pleased to hear, Sir Christopher. As it stands, I do not think that what the Government are doing will get us to net zero by 2050, I do not think that we are on track to achieve the pledged 78% emissions reduction by 2035, and very sadly I do not think that we are on track to keep 1.5 alive.

  [Source]

• 20 Oct 2021: Oral Answers to Questions

  The Minister will know that there is widespread concern about a lack of clarity, as we get so close to COP26, as to what will actually be happening at the summit and what the priorities will be. What discussions has he had with the small island developing states to make sure that their concerns are fully represented, that they have a voice at COP26 and that we come away from it with something that really helps them to meet the challenges they face?

  [Source]

• 21 Sep 2021: Oral Answers to Questions

  Experts have concluded that to reach net zero by 2050, there should be no new oil and gas fields approved for development and no new coalmines or mine extensions from the end of this year. Does the Minister agree with that assessment by the experts, and if so, does he agree that the Cumbrian coalmine and the Cambo oilfield surely cannot go ahead?

  [Source]

• 21 Sep 2021: Decarbonising Aviation

  15:29

  Thank you, Sir Gary, it is a pleasure to see you in the Chair. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) on securing what is a very important and timely debate, given that only a few weeks remain until the UK hosts COP26, where transport emissions will, of course, be a key item on the agenda. We have heard some excellent and informative speeches, including those by my hon. Friend the Member for Putney, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), who spoke out against the expansion of Heathrow. Other Members talked in more detail about proposals to decarbonise aviation and some of the obstacles in the way.

  Given that it remains the largest contributor to UK emissions, decarbonising our transport sector must be a priority for the Government. Aviation is a key part of that and accounted for 7.3% of UK emissions in 2018. Sadly, we have seen the progress on decarbonisation of transport flatlining over recent years. Progress has been made in some areas, such as in decarbonising the energy sector, but it is disappointing that so little has been done and so little progress has been made on transport.

  Aviation is one of the most difficult sectors to decarbonise, but as we have heard from hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan), there are solutions. There are sustainable aviation fuels derived from waste; there are electric or hydrogen-powered planes for at least short-haul journeys in the foreseeable future; and there is airspace modernisation.

  The Labour party’s position on Heathrow is clear: the new runway would not meet our four tests on air quality, noise pollution, national economic benefit or our climate change obligations. That is where we stand on that.

  I was pleased that we finally have the transport decarbonisation plan. I waited a long time for it and kept being told that it was due shortly. There is good stuff in it on electric vehicles and heavy goods vehicles, but it falls short on aviation. As the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) has said, there are so many consultations and, while it is important to consult, they can be a way of kicking things into the long grass when we need urgent action now.

  The targets to achieve net zero emissions for domestic aviation by 2040 and for international aviation by 2050 are welcome, but as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) mentioned, they rely heavily on carbon offsetting. That is problematic for a number of reasons. Carbon capture and storage technology is by no means guaranteed to reach a point at which it can be relied on to offset a significant amount of emissions, particularly if other sectors also need to rely on offsetting. More natural carbon solutions such as tree planting do, of course, have a big role to play in offsetting emissions, but rapidly increasing rates of deforestation—whether from deliberate destruction, or from wildfires in many parts of the world—mean that we cannot rely on that either.

  Back in July, I asked what proportion of carbon offsetting in aviation is expected to come from engineered carbon removal and storage, and what proportion is expected to come from natural carbon solutions. At the time, the Minister said that the Government did not know, so is he able to enlighten us further today? It is really worrying that the Government cannot come up with a response to that question, because even in its more optimistic scenarios the Climate Change Committee projects that over 20 metric tonnes of residual carbon emissions from aviation in 2050 will have to be offset elsewhere. That figure amounts to about half of the 40 metric tonnes of CO 2 attributed to aviation in 2019. With such a large proportion of emissions depending on offsetting, we need certainty about the pathway to achieving these targets, not vague projections and a reliance on technology that may not be ready in time.

  Once travel rates return to pre-pandemic levels, we have a responsibility to the planet to ensure that demand does not soar to unsustainable levels and undermine progress towards reaching net zero emissions, but the Government are simply ducking the decisions they need to make in this area. In its 2021 progress report, the Climate Change Committee recommended that the Government act to ensure there is no net expansion of UK airport capacity. However, just weeks ago, the Government refused to reassess the airports national policy statement, which would have provided an opportunity to do just that.

  The CCC also recommended that the Government reform aviation taxes to ensure that aviation journeys are not cheaper than surface transport, as a few hon. Members have already mentioned. However, at the moment, the only open consultation on aviation taxes is advocating reducing air passenger duty on domestic flights, in contrast with the regular hikes in rail fares. That is clearly a ludicrous prospect in the middle of a climate emergency, and it is only made worse when we read the small print and see that this tax reduction would also apply to private jets. There can be absolutely no rationale for that. Any Government serious about decarbonising aviation and setting an example ahead of COP26 would immediately scrap those plans, and I would welcome it if the Minister could explain how on earth a tax cut for the most polluting form of transport can be compatible with a trajectory to net zero. We should be investing in rail instead.

  The Government have also repeatedly refused to consider a frequent flier levy to address the fact that 70% of UK flights are taken by the wealthiest 15% of the population. That clearly needs to be addressed. Representations have also been made to me about whether zero air passenger duty on zero emission flights would be one way of stimulating that sector, but I know that that prospect is some way in the future.

  With the COP26 climate conference just a few weeks away, it is time for Ministers to face the facts on aviation and stop relying on vague future predictions that will simply not deliver in the timescale we need them to. The climate crisis is worsening every day. Aviation has to play its part, and I hope that today the Minister will come up with answers—things that will start to make a difference now, not decades in the future.

  [Source]

• 15 Sep 2021: Back British Farming Day

  09:46

  We cannot ignore the contribution of industrial animal agriculture to many of the issues we are facing, from the routine overuse of antibiotics and intensive systems to the destruction of the rain forest for cattle ranching and producing livestock feed. It was reported this week that in the Netherlands they are considering plans to force farmers to cut livestock numbers, due to the sheer scale of ammonia pollution. I am glad the NFU has thrown its weight behind the ambition for net zero but, if net zero is to become a reality and we are to have a genuinely sustainable food and farming system, all these issues must be addressed.

  I am proud to be a Member of this House who backs British farmers through my words and my actions. I have consistently supported better scrutiny for trade agreements, pushed Ministers to embrace more sustainable models for agriculture, and called for action on the growing crisis in our supply chains. With both COP26 and the Christmas rush approaching, I hope that all Government Members, not just the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), will join me in pushing the Government to act.

  [Source]

• 22 Jul 2021: COP26 Conference Priorities

  14:10

  We have come a long way since the Paris agreement, which was secured at a time before it was commonplace to have national targets for emissions. Six years later, many nations have set unilateral net zero targets and are beginning to publish plans to meet them. I am pleased that the UK has now significantly scaled up our nationally determined contribution to 78% by 2035, although, as the Minister will know, I have many criticisms about the progress we have made to date.

  The problem is that not all countries are prepared to pull their weight. Many have yet to set net zero targets, have set targets after 2050 or have failed to present more ambitious NDCs ahead of COP26. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on small island developing states, or SIDS, I want to focus today on the impact on them. They are in the frontline when it comes to the consequences of climate change, whether that is rising sea levels, extreme weather events, ocean acidification or collapsing biodiversity. These are all existential threats to these states. If we act to save them now, we will all benefit from the global scale of the action that is implemented.

  Nation-based solutions have a real role to play in both mitigation and adaptation, whether that is reversing the collapse of our natural carbon sinks or restoring the coral reefs, planting mangroves and so on. There is much more that could be done. As one of the Marine Conservation Society’s blue carbon champions in Parliament, I know that measures to protect the marine environment are particularly important for these countries. They are vital, given their dependence on the blue economy. I hope that the Government will seek to prioritise agreements on protecting and restoring blue carbon stores at COP26, along with stopping the global decline in marine biodiversity and protecting our oceans.

  While mitigation is, of course, crucial, I am pleased that a day at COP will be dedicated to the theme of loss and damage alongside adaptation. SIDS often do not have the funds to pay for the work that is needed—for example, the shift to renewable energy or the work that has to be done to rebuild after natural disasters. The pandemic’s impact on tourism has made the financial situation much worse for many of them. The recent volcanic eruption in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines could cost up to 50% of GDP, which shows the inherent economic vulnerability of these nations.

  I am pleased that there is a day dedicated to climate finance at the conference, which will be vital for less developed countries. In 2009, richer nations committed to mobilising $100 billion in climate finance per year by 2020 for vulnerable nations, but that commitment has not yet been met, and much of what has been delivered has been via loans with standard repayment rates, which tiny little countries such as the SIDS would struggle to pay.

  [Source]

• 21 Jul 2021: Trade and Agriculture Commission: Role in International Trade Deals

  14:49

  “commission an independent report on all proposed trade agreements, assessing their impact on: economic productivity; food safety and public health; the environment and climate change; society and labour; human rights; and animal welfare. This report would be presented alongside a Government response when any final trade treaty is laid before Parliament.”

  [Source]

• 14 Jul 2021: Draft Motor Fuel (Composition and Content) and Biofuel (Labelling) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2...

  14:35

  We need to move beyond a primary focus on biofuels when it comes to the RTFO. Many nations across Europe have taken the step of supporting the inclusion of renewable electricity in similar mechanisms, but the UK is yet to follow suit. I have not seen the transport decarbonisation plan yet. It is rather surprising, given that the statement is about to be made in the House, that when I went to the Vote Office earlier I was told that it would not be available until the Minister sits down. It seems odd to me that we can have a statement discussing a transport decarbonisation plan before people have been able to see it. Quite a lot of outside organisations seem to have obtained an advance copy, so it is a bit frustrating that MPs cannot. I hope that there is something in it on this issue.

  [Source]

• 13 Jul 2021: Draft Road Vehicle Carbon Dioxide emission performance standards (cars and vans) (amendment) (eu exi...

  14:34

  As we know, transport is the single largest contributor to UK emissions. That was the case before the pandemic and continues to be case even with the significant drop in journeys taken during lockdowns. We need to act, and I look forward to seeing, finally, the much delayed transport decarbonisation plan, which I gather will be published tomorrow, accompanied by a statement to the House.

  The Climate Change Committee recently highlighted how much could and should be done by the Government. In its annual progress report, it called for ambitious regulations on new car and van CO 2 intensities, requiring a 55% reduction by 2025 and a 97% reduction by 2030. That is the level of ambition that we need to deliver the green transport of the future, yet all we have today is a reiteration of the status quo that has failed to make a dent in our emissions. There is still time to change that, and I would welcome the Minister taking the opportunity to spell out now what will be done to increase UK ambitions on surface transport emissions.

  [Source]

• 30 Jun 2021: Official Development Assistance and the British Council

  15:38

  Saving people’s lives and lifting them out of extreme poverty, particularly in the wake of a pandemic that has had a huge impact in less-developed countries, absolutely must be a priority, but submissions to the International Development Committee’s inquiry show that aid cuts have also harmed numerous environmental charities. Climate Action Network said that there was a lot of uncertainty, with the organisation not knowing where the cuts to climate and environmental programmes were going to fall. Yet it looks as if CDC Group, with its £700 million fossil fuel portfolio—which Tearfund highlighted in its submission to the Committee—will be unaffected. That shows completely the wrong priorities from the Government in the run-up to COP26.

  [Source]

• 24 Jun 2021: Zero Emission Vehicles

  As the Climate Change Committee made clear this morning, the Government are not delivering on the policies needed to meet their climate targets. As well as incentivising EV purchases and improving EV charging infrastructure, we need EVs to be built in Britain. What conversations has the Secretary of State had with the Business Secretary about Government support for EV manufacturing at the Ford Halewood plant, which is crucial if we are to secure the future viability of the site, and about saving jobs making vehicle components at the GKN plant in Birmingham?

  [Source]

• 23 Jun 2021: Deforestation in the Amazon

  14:58

  “the United Kingdom has already committed £259 million to Brazil through its international climate finance programme to tackle deforestation.” —[ Official Report , 14 January 2021; Vol. 687, c. 471.]

  [Source]

• 21 Jun 2021: Grouse Shooting

  16:39

  We need to see more action from this Government. It is very disappointing that they refused to accept Labour’s amendment to the Environment Bill on the burning of heather and peatlands—again, I think we will hear more about that from the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam. I do not believe the measures introduced by the Government on 1 May go far enough. I note the comments of the Climate Change Committee in its latest report, which was released last Wednesday: that there is an increasingly urgent need to restore degraded upland peatland and manage it more sustainably. I would be interested to hear what the Minister thinks can be done, because obviously, that comment from the Climate Change Committee came after any action that has been taken by the Government to date. I hope that in light of what the Committee has said, the Minister will consider talking to her colleagues in the Lords and strengthening the Environment Bill to address that concern.

  [Source]

• 16 Jun 2021: Road Connectivity: Teesside to Scotland

  17:22

  We had a debate in this room this morning on the much-awaited and long-delayed transport decarbonisation plan. I made the point that the Government are committed to that huge £27 billion-worth of spending on road infrastructure but the Transport Secretary ignored the advice of his civil servants to carry out an environmental impact assessment. It is not my role to take a view on what local projects are needed. That is for locally elected representatives, and I would not want them to do that in my patch. However, I hope that we measure things against the impact on the natural environment and overall contribution to getting to net zero, because that cannot be done just by a shift to electric vehicles. We have to discourage road travel and give people alternatives, whether that is investment in rail or buses, as has been mentioned, or other means.

  [Source]

• 16 Jun 2021: Transport Decarbonisation Plan

  10:22

  I agree with what the hon. Members for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) and for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) said about the importance of electric buses, hydrogen, and the sourcing and manufacturing of batteries. These are real issues that we have to grapple with now. As has been said, decarbonising our transport sector is one of the most pressing challenges that we face as a nation, and we need more ambition and more action from this Government if we are to meet net zero. At the moment, whether it is the lack of a green recovery plan for our post-pandemic recovery or carbon budgets that will not be met through current policies, we are not seeing enough ambition or action from this Government. As the Scottish National party spokesperson, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, said, the rhetoric is great—we cannot disagree with that—but where is the road map? Instead, we have a Prime Minister who talks green but then flies to the G7 in Cornwall, where climate change is high on the agenda, in a private jet rather than taking the train. What kind of signal does that send to world leaders ahead of COP26?

  As has been said, transport is now the largest contributor to UK emissions. There has been real progress in areas such as energy, but we have not seen similar progress on transport. There has been a decade of inaction by this Government. According to the Climate Change Committee, surface transport contributed 24% of UK emissions in 2019, with aviation accounting for 8% and shipping 3%. I am glad that the Government have now said that they will look at including international aviation and shipping emissions when measuring our carbon footprint and on the agenda for COP.

  I am also glad that one speaker in this debate has withdrawn and the other speakers, if anything, came in under time, because there will be lots of time for the Minister to answer questions, and I have quite a lot of questions for her. Obviously, the first one is, “Where is the transport decarbonisation plan?” We expected it to be published last year, and then we were told throughout this year that it would be published in spring. This Sunday marks the start of the summer solstice, so unless the Minister has a very big surprise up her sleeve for us in a few minutes’ time, it looks like that is another missed deadline. The hon. Member for Rother Valley talked about his frustration at constantly being told, “Soon, soon, soon.” That is something that we have come to expect from this Government: “Soon, shortly, spring.” When are we going to see the plan? I hope that it is very soon. Could the Minister also say whether, when the plan is published, there will be an oral statement in the House to accompany it? I certainly hope that there will be, so that MPs have a chance to ask questions.

  We know that we urgently need to get polluting vehicles off our roads, get more people into zero emission vehicles, and get people back on public transport once it is safe to do so. Importantly—we have not heard very much about this so far this morning—we need to get people to engage more in active travel, whether that is cycling on conventional bicycles, e-bikes or e-cargo bikes, or walking. All of that will improve air quality, help lower emissions, reduce congestion, and improve physical health. With all the focus on technological developments, sustainable fuels and so on, I hope that people-powered travel—active travel—will not be overlooked.

  I also challenge the Minister on the £27 billion that has been pledged to road building by this Government, and on the fact that the Transport Secretary overruled the advice of his own civil servants to conduct an environmental review of the policy. I hope that the transport decarbonisation plan sheds some light on how and if such carbon-intensive construction projects can be made compatible with our net zero emissions target.

  We need the environmental impact assessment from the Department so that we can assess the carbon footprint of road building, and look at whether more sustainable materials can be used and whether the extent of the road building programme proposed by the Government is compatible with reaching net zero, or whether other decisions need to be made.

  We desperately need a comprehensive strategy to guide the Government’s approach. We do not want to see in this plan only platitudes and declarations of intent; we need clarity about how the Government intend to boost zero emission vehicle sales, speed up the transition to sustainable fuels, including for aviation and maritime, and encourage more people to use public transport, which we must ensure involves clean, greener vehicles.

  I would welcome any insight from the Minister as to what concrete measures we can expect to see. Are the Government considering a zero emission vehicle mandate, as recommended by the Green Alliance and Policy Exchange, to ease the transition to 100% new zero emission vehicle sales by 2030? Are they considering a sustainable aviation fuel blending mandate to incentivise production and the adoption of stable fuels derived from waste? Will we finally see the timeframe for the production and roll-out of the 4,000 zero emission buses promised by the Government? How does the Government’s consultation on cutting air passenger duty for domestic flights square with all of this?

  [Source]

• 8 Jun 2021: World Oceans Day 2021

  09:34

  Sadly, World Oceans Day has increased in importance each year as our seas fall victim to the impact of climate change and our abuse of our planet’s precious resources. Like the hon. Lady, I have signed up to be a blue carbon champion in this Parliament as part of the project run by the Marine Conservation Society and Rewilding Britain. I also support the WWF Ocean Hero campaign. I pay tribute to all those groups for their campaigning, along with the likes of Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd, Surfers Against Sewage, and Pew, to name but a few.

  As the hon. Member for North Devon said, we need a proper commitment to outlawing destructive practices such as over-fishing and bottom trawling, and we need sustainability to be put at the heart of our fisheries strategy, with the ramping up of monitoring and enforcement. The Government must also press forward with a ban on the detonation of munitions, as those detonations harm marine life, and the adoption of less damaging deflagration techniques. We need to think long term about ocean protection, setting out how we can reach net zero emissions in our marine activity and developing a blue carbon strategy to rewild our oceans, protect blue carbon stores and develop low carbon fisheries and aquaculture. I am glad that the Marine Conservation Society has called for exactly that today.

  Small island states desperately need support for ocean conservation measures and climate change adaptation, including natural climate solutions such as restoring mangroves and coral reefs. During sessions of the group, it has been really interesting to hear that instead of giving money for the building of concrete sea barriers, it would be far better to rely on natural carbon solutions. Reforming access to climate finance and investing in the blue economy—for example, through debt-for-climate swaps and blue bonds—will be central to that.

  This is a pivotal year for ocean protection with the convention on biological diversity, COP26, and the global ocean treaty being negotiated internationally. We know that our oceans have an immense capacity to heal themselves if they are given the space to breathe, but that requires us to be much bolder at home and abroad to ensure that those precious resources are protected and restored. When we talk about ocean protection, it is obligatory to talk about “Blue Planet”, which, as I never hesitate to point out, was made by the BBC’s natural history unit, based in Bristol. As Sir David Attenborough said last year:

  [Source]

• 8 Jun 2021: 0.7% Official Development Assistance Target

  17:00

  I want to make a special plea today, though, for the Government to recognise, ahead of COP26, our obligations towards climate-vulnerable countries. These countries bear very little responsibility for our changing climate, yet are most affected by its consequences, be they rising sea levels, changing temperatures, droughts, declining crop yields or extreme weather events, which are becoming ever more frequent and more severe. There is an urgent need for more funding for climate adaptation, as well as aid to help to address the deepening inequality linked to climate change; and, as we play host to the G7, we should be leading on debt relief for the poorest countries, too. We cannot carry on giving less with one hand and taking away with the other.

  I also want to flag up the plight of the small island developing states, as chair of the new all-party group. Although the UN has recognised SIDS as having particular social, economic and environmental vulnerabilities, the common metrics used to determine vulnerability and need when it comes to ODA do not take that into account. As a result, many SIDS do not qualify for aid, yet work by the United Nations Development Programme on a multidimensional vulnerability index shows that the majority of SIDS are far more economically vulnerable than their income level would suggest. SIDS are not only facing some of the very worst consequences of climate change; they have also been devastated financially by the pandemic because of the collapse in tourism and are particularly prone to extreme weather events and other natural disasters. The recent volcanic eruption could cost Saint Vincent and the Grenadines up to 50% of GDP. Other SIDS are trapped in a vicious cycle of debt, including Belize, which has defaulted on or restructured its debt five times in the last 14 years.

  [Source]

• 26 May 2021: Driverless Cars

  17:35

  Finally, I want to express my concern about how this fits in with the decarbonisation agenda. Obviously, we need to do much more to green our transport system. The switch to electric vehicles, and the ban on the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles from 2030 and of hybrids from 2035, are really important. As I understand it, autonomous vehicles could lead to emissions reductions by reducing congestion or because people go for an electric model, but they would not necessarily all be electric. Researchers at Imperial College London have highlighted concerns that automated vehicles could actually lead to an increase in global transport emissions if they are mostly fuelled by petrol and diesel, and if more people feel able to use them on the roads.

  [Source]

• 26 May 2021: Environment Bill

  13:00

  In conclusion, the Bill has been stuck for too long. I had hoped that the delay in bringing the Bill forward caused by the Government would have altered the Government’s pedestrian approach and resulted in bolder action, with more amendments to the Bill to take on the concerns of non-governmental organisations, stakeholders and, indeed, the constituents we all represent. But on air quality, it fails to put WHO targets into law. It fails to require enough trees or seagrass to be planted. It fails to look at our marine environment in a meaningful way. On targets, it is weak, and the difficult decisions required to hit net zero seem to be parked for future dates. It is absent on ocean protection, which is surely a key part of our environment as an island nation.

  DEFRA was at the heart of Government when the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) was in charge, but it has lost its way. It has lost its va va voom. It is now dominated by a bland and dreary managerialism. Where is the energy and drive needed to tackle the climate crisis? The Department has a lot of decent junior Ministers—one of them is opposite me now—but I think it has lost its way. This Bill is okay. It is passable. It is a bit “meh”. But it is not landmark. Indeed, it is deliberately not a landmark Bill.

  [Source]

  13:30

  I would like to speak primarily in favour of amendments 26 and 27, tabled by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish); I believe that birthday congratulations are in order today. Deforestation, which destroys vital carbon stores and natural habitats, is both one of the central drivers of the climate emergency and a driver of the devastating decline in biodiversity. As we have heard, it also plays a role in displacing people from their land and leads to modern slavery and exploitative working practices. It is clear that we need a no-tolerance approach to any deforestation in our supply chains, legal or illegal.

  This Bill is a unique opportunity to send a message to those states that fail to act to protect our planet. That is why I urge the Government to think again and to strengthen their proposals to include legal deforestation to show true climate leadership ahead of COP26. I am sure that, if we do not accept these amendments today, the noble peers in the other place will have strong words to say about that, and I hope they will send the Bill back to us suitably amended.

  It is a pleasure to be able to speak in this important debate today. I would like to cut to the chase, because time is short. I think it is worth reiterating the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard): we do face a climate emergency and an ecological emergency. Put simply, these are existential threats to humanity on this planet. We must, as he rightly said, not only slow down the car that is speeding towards the cliff, but stop it, turn it around and drive the other way.

  I will speak to amendment 45. Clause 95 is an important step forward because it changes the duty on public authorities: the duty is not just to conserve biodiversity, but to enhance it. That is a big change and one of the big measures in the Bill. Amendment 45 would add to that by requiring public authorities to consider what action they can take to contribute to the achievement of targets under the UN convention on biological diversity. This is a big year with COP26 coming up, but we also have, at Kunming in October—about the time the Bill may well become law—the renewal of the convention and the plan for the next 10 years. I invite the Minister to consider how we can leverage the nature target, for example, which has just been announced, to make such commitments international so that we are changing not just Britain, but the world.

  [Source]

• 29 Apr 2021: Oral Answers to Questions

  I do not know whether the Minister has recently visited Tory-controlled Derbyshire, but I have, and the roads are in a shocking state. Plugging potholes and patching up roads in a piecemeal fashion simply does not work. What we need is a proper road maintenance programme, yet the Government have slashed funding by £375 million and are ploughing £27 billion into road expansion during a climate emergency. Does the Minister not think that it would be better for motorists, cyclists and the planet if we focused on fixing what we have got?

  [Source]

• 17 Mar 2021: Offshore Wind Farms: Unexploded Ordnance

  17:01

  Offshore wind is absolutely essential to our efforts to decarbonise the UK grid and combat the climate emergency. Although I welcome the Government’s commitment to quadruple offshore wind capacity by 2030, and the funding package announced last October, we need much more sustained financial support and real leadership from the Government if we are to maximise the true potential of wind power as a clean energy source and promote green jobs and enterprise for the UK supply chain. We still need to see much more from the Government on a green recovery package to take us along that path.

  [Source]

• 11 Mar 2021: Transport Decarbonisation

  We know that the Government’s road-building expansion will lead to an estimated 270,000 additional tonnes of carbon entering the atmosphere by 2032. However, in an answer to a recent question, the Minister told me that she was content that the Government’s road-building expansion programme was compatible with the net zero target. Will she tell me how she reached that view when the Secretary of State overruled his own civil servants on the need to conduct an environmental review of the policy? And does she agree that if the Government are serious about reaching net zero and setting an example before COP26, that review should be carried out now?

  [Source]

• 9 Mar 2021: Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

  17:36

  Finally, we were promised a green Budget, yet we got nothing of the sort. We needed to see measures that would kick-start a transformative green recovery, but what we got was a pitiful lack of ambition from the Chancellor. Although I welcome the £4.1 million allocated to reducing car usage in the west of England, this kind of piecemeal funding is no substitute for a national strategy for decarbonising transport and encouraging take-up of active travel. Ahead of hosting COP26, we should be leading the way on tackling climate change and biodiversity loss, yet the Chancellor is more concerned with boosting his own leadership prospects and “brand Rishi” than with showing the international leadership that we need from our senior politicians on this issue.

  The UK is being eclipsed in green recovery spending at an international level. For instance, France and Germany have both delivered substantial green spending packages to decarbonise their economies. Labour has already set out its plan for a £30 billion green stimulus to support 400,000 new green jobs. I urge the Chancellor to read those plans, which might just help him to think bigger when it comes to protecting our planet.

  [Source]

• 16 Dec 2020: National Tree Strategy

  10:03

  As has been said, planting more trees is absolutely central to efforts to address the climate change emergency, the ecological emergency and the devastating collapse in biodiversity that we have we seen, by providing natural carbon sinks and habitats for wildlife to flourish. As has been mentioned, it also prevents soil erosion and flooding. In the winter of 2015-16, when I went to some of our northern constituencies that had been badly affected by flooding, there was much discussion about the need to plant more trees to prevent soil erosion. I went to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and talked to Yorkshire Water. It is about planting trees in the right place, as well. It is not just numbers that count but location and the type of tree.

  Without natural climate solutions we have little hope of reaching net zero emissions or preventing further species decline. The issue is not limited to tree planting; peatlands and sea grass meadows are also vital carbon sinks. I give credit to the RSPB and the WWF for their recent work to raise the profile of those areas. I hope the Government will finally act in response to their campaigns.

  I briefly want to mention my concern about deforestation overseas. We are here to talk about England’s tree strategy, but it is shocking to see the continued devastation in the Amazon rainforest, which is referred to as the lungs of the Earth, due to its immense capacity to convert carbon to oxygen. It faces an onslaught due to industrial agriculture, mining and forest fires linked to climate change. When the Environment Bill was in Committee we tried to add provisions to start measuring our global footprint and the links to deforestation in our supply chain.

  [Source]

• 8 Dec 2020: Draft Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations (Amendment) Order 2020

  14:34

  We can all support the transition to renewable fuels across the transportation sector. As the Minister will be well aware, transport is the largest contributing sector to UK emissions, and progress in trying to decarbonise the sector has been very slow in recent years. To achieve that, we need to make the types of vehicle that we use, and the fuel they consume, more sustainable. It was disappointing to hear this week that the transport decarbonisation plan will not be published until spring 2021; we really do need an overarching strategy and coherence in policy making, as well as a greater sense of urgency.

  The renewable transport fuel obligation was a key achievement of the last Labour Government. It has been a central part of encouraging the adoption of renewable fuels in transport, particularly fuels sustainably sourced from waste. I am pleased that the RTFO continues to be considered a success across the transport sector, but we must recognise that, as the climate emergency becomes more pressing and transport emissions continue to stagnate rather than reduce, it now needs reform.

  The statutory instrument goes some way towards meeting the need for reform. As the Minister has explained, from 1 January, it will mean that the buy-back price multiplier will increase from 30p to 50p, strengthening the RTFO by providing more incentive for people to meet our renewable fuel requirements, rather than buying themselves out of their obligations. The Government estimate that, without acting to raise the buy-back price, we risk losing annual greenhouse gas savings of up to 6.5 million tonnes of CO 2 .

  I hope to see more support from the Government for emerging sources of renewable fuels, especially in hard-to-decarbonise sectors such as aviation, shipping and HGVs, which at present cannot easily be electrified. Proper investment in genuinely sustainable fuels for those modes of transport may prove vital in meeting net zero targets and putting us back on track. I know that we are expecting more details of the sixth carbon budget soon, and I will be watching closely for future announcements.

  [Source]

• 26 Nov 2020: Climate Change Assembly UK: The Path to Net Zero

  15:20

  Having said that, I was won over by going along and listening to the discussions. There is a quote in the executive summary from an assembly member, who said that he or she—it was someone called Chris, so I am not sure—was worried when they got there that the debate would be somewhat one-sided and it would all be people who were very passionate about the climate emergency. They said it was refreshing to see that it ranged from people for whom it was a complete crisis to those who were in complete denial about the issue. Getting that balance is what an exercise like that should be about, but I worry that it means that the process will inevitably lean towards consensus. That could lead to a watering down of ambition when the scale of the twin crisis—the climate crisis and the ecological crisis—means that more radical solutions are needed.

  Some people have criticised the assembly for not reaching the right conclusions and have said that that was because they were not asked the right questions. These are people who feel that the 2050 target is not ambitious enough. It is worth noting that proposals to bring forward the 2050 date, without a specific date in mind, were put before the assembly but were rejected, with quite a significant proportion of people unsure about it.

  In the final few seconds I have to speak, I wish to reflect briefly on the additional recommendation that we should get to net zero without pushing our emissions to anywhere else in the world, which was endorsed by 92% of assembly members. The fact is that we are already doing that. We cannot tackle climate change in this country unless we also look at our global carbon footprint.

  [Source]

• 22 Oct 2020: Sixth Carbon Budget

  Can I get some clarity on the timing of this? In last week’s response to the Committee on Climate Change, the Government said that we would ideally be looking at negotiating a long-term emissions reduction goal for aviation at ICAO in 2022, and that we would be working at the IMO in advance of its revising its strategy for shipping in 2023. That would all be too late to put anything in the sixth carbon budget, particularly if there is insufficient progress at those talks. It would push action into the 2040s. Why are the Government stalling when it is very clear that we need action on international aviation and shipping emissions now?

  [Source]

• 14 Oct 2020: Capital Infrastructure Projects: Bristol

  16:13

  We also need investment in flood resilience infrastructure to help future proof our city against climate change, to protect our heritage tourism and cultural sites, and improve cycling and walking routes. It would also unlock land for up to 4,500 homes, protect 12,000 existing homes and businesses from flooding and add £6.2 billion to the local economy.

  [Source]

• 6 Oct 2020: Alternative Fuelled Vehicles: Energy Provision

  17:14

  It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Betts. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) on an excellent and comprehensive speech. As he said, fuelling vehicles through alternative means will be vital if we are to meet net zero, and there are exciting developments in the field.

  We have only 5% of the charge points that we need if we are to stick to the 2040 target and have half of all new car sales represented by zero-emission vehicles by 2030. If we bring that date forward to between 2030 and 2032, we will have to accelerate installation of those charging points. I hope the Minister can reassure us on that point.

  [Source]

• 1 Sep 2020: Fisheries Bill [Lords]

  20:00

  Our oceans and seas are facing a devastating and diverse range of threats: overfishing, climate change, ocean acidification, dredging, plastic pollution and deep-sea mining. Modern slavery and human rights abuses are also all too prevalent in the industry. The Thai seafood sector is one such example. We need concerted global action on all those fronts, but I appreciate that it is not the purpose of this Bill to address them all. I was pleased, however, to see amendments passed in the other place, making sustainability a primary objective of the Bill and requiring remote electronic monitoring on all UK fishing vessels to ensure that they are adhering to standards and quotas. It was really disappointing earlier to hear the Secretary of State confirm that the Government will seek to overturn those changes in Committee.

  [Source]

• 10 Jun 2020: Exiting the European Union (Civil Aviation)

  14:18

  It has been some four years since I stood at this Dispatch Box, so it is a pleasure to be back. I took part in Transport orals a few weeks ago, but that was on one of the screens above us. I am very pleased to be here shadowing the Minister today. We have already established a constructive relationship. We debated our first statutory instrument together yesterday in Committee. As I said to her, I will be writing to her and scrutinising what she does, but in a spirit of constructive working. We have the decarbonisation of transport brief and the EU transition brief, both of which are incredibly important in the current circumstances.

  [Source]

• 9 Jun 2020: Draft Air Traffic Management (Amendment Etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

  17:07

  There was much uncertainty for the sector because of Brexit, but that has obviously been heightened by the ongoing covid-19 crisis and the fact that so many flights have been grounded. The need for certainty and safety in aviation is why we will not oppose this statutory instrument, and why we will try to work with the transport team as much as possible. I do not have the aviation brief; I have the EU brief, and the brief for things such as decarbonisation of transport, on which the Minister and I have worked closely; I appreciate her doing that. I sent her another letter this afternoon—just to flag that up—about car scrappage. I am sure she looks forward to seeing that in her inbox when she returns to the Department.

  [Source]

• 13 May 2020: Agriculture Bill

  15:45

  Frankly, the dry phrase “public money for public goods” does not really convey the importance of what we are seeking to safeguard through clause 1 of this very important Bill: the air we breathe into our lungs every minute of the day; the precious soil that nurtures the crops that feed us; our rivers, streams and waterways; our hedgerows and wildflower meadows; our ancient woodlands and our rolling hills; the stunning country- side that is one of the greatest treasures of this United Kingdom we are lucky enough to call home. Of course, the “public goods” covered in the Bill also include the civilised and compassionate treatment of animals and the struggle to protect our planet from climate change.

  [Source]

• 19 Mar 2020: Tree Planting

  I thank the Minister for that response. The Committee on Climate Change has said that we need to plant 32,000 hectares a year for the next 30 years if we are to meet the net zero target, but my understanding is that the Government’s recent announcement was that they would be planting 30,000 hectares in full by 2025, not per year. Can the Minister clarify that? The manifesto commitment was per year, but I think the Government have not now committed to that.

  [Source]

• 18 Mar 2020: Oral Answers to Questions

  “It is unacceptable there is no specific climate change legislation in Northern Ireland”

  Given the close connection between the climate emergency and the natural environment emergency, is it not time that Northern Ireland was able to legislate so that it could develop its own climate strategy?

  [Source]

• 5 Mar 2020: Oral Answers to Questions

  17. A recent investigation by “Newsnight” and Greenpeace found that UK Export Finance is financing oil and gas companies that will emit 69 million tonnes of carbon a year—nearly a sixth of the UK’s annual emissions. It is ridiculous to talk about tackling climate change in this country when we are exporting our carbon footprint abroad. Will the Minister commit to phasing out this support by 2021? ( 901135 )

  [Source]

• 26 Feb 2020: Environment Bill

  15:18

  This Bill concerns the technical and mechanical arrangements for putting these measures into law. However, a real lack of vision surrounds not only this hefty piece of legislation but the Government’s general approach. I am increasingly concerned that we are not showing leadership in the run-up to COP26. We have not had a statement from the Government since the election or since the COP president was replaced by the Business Secretary, and there is so much more that could be done in showing global leadership on the climate and ecological emergencies.

  I would like to see much stronger action on land use in this country, particularly urgent action on natural climate solutions. There tends to be an awful lot of talk about planting trees, but that in itself is not enough to compensate for the damage that is being done to our environment. I was at a very interesting event with the all-party group on net zero yesterday, when I think it was said that natural climate solutions could account for 0.25 °C of trying to limit the rise in global warming to 1.5 °C or 2 °C.

  Alarmingly—this was mentioned in passing in an intervention—in the year we are set to host COP26 and there is also the international biodiversity conference in China, the Bill is completely silent on the UK’s global environment footprint. We cannot just try to put our own house in order when we are a global nation—we are trading, we are importing and exporting—and having a considerable impact often on countries that are contributing very little to climate change themselves.

  [Source]

• 25 Feb 2020: Agriculture Bill (Sixth sitting)

  14:30

  During the oral evidence sessions we heard evidence from Jyoti Fernandes at the Landworkers Alliance that the threshold resulted in smallholders being at a serious disadvantage. In designing any new scheme, the threshold should be scrapped. Every farm, no matter what its size, has the ability to deliver the public goods listed in clause 1. The farms and horticultural units showcased in the latest Landworkers Alliance report, “Agroecology in Action”, illustrate what they can achieve in terms of encouraging biodiversity, building soil health, replacing agrochemicals, mitigating climate change, integrating communities and enhancing economic resilience. Earlier we discussed the need to bring food production closer to communities. Often, it is the smallholdings that do that. They also tend to have higher levels of employment than conventional farms. A 2017 study of agroecological farms smaller than 20 hectares found that they employed 26 times more workers than the UK per hectare average. It would be a huge mistake to exclude them from financial assistance.

  [Source]

• 6 Feb 2020: Topical Questions

  During the debate before the election on restoring nature and climate change, the Minister, who is now in the Lords, told the House that a legislative response to the problem of burning peatlands was being developed. When can we expect to see legislation being published?

  [Source]

• 3 Feb 2020: Agriculture Bill

  19:14

  There is no commitment to net zero by 2040 in the Bill. The NFU supports that, and I would have thought that the Government felt able to commit to putting it in the legislation. That ties in with the whole debate that we need to have about land use, which ranges from the impact of the deforestation of the Amazon and the importation not just of meat but of livestock feed, which has a direct connection with our farming here, to the burning of peatlands—the natural carbon sinks that ought to be protected and preserved, not burned to a cinder because of grouse shooting.

  [Source]

• 15 Jan 2020: A Green Industrial Revolution

  13:48

  We also had an urgent question on Flybe yesterday. Again, in the Minister’s initial response, with regard to bailing out an airline and possibly cutting air passenger duty on domestic flights, there was no mention at all of the impact on carbon emissions and pollution. Surely, no matter what your views on whether Flybe provides an essential service, you have to mention climate change if you are serious about trying to reach net zero.

  Another thing that really worries me is that the COP25 climate change talks took place during the election campaign. A number of us had been hoping to attend, but were obviously unable to because of the election. We have not had a ministerial statement on COP25. We should have had an oral statement, particularly as we are hosting COP26. COP25 is widely regarded as a failure—very little was achieved. I would have expected, at the very least, a written ministerial statement assessing what did not happen in Madrid and putting forward a plan for how we can get things back on track as we host COP26 in Glasgow later this year.

  On UK Export Finance, it is a shame that the Secretary of State is no longer in her place. She was boasting about some of the work we do on reducing carbon emissions overseas, but, as the Environmental Audit Committee found, UK Export Finance spent £4.8 billion on fossil fuel projects overseas between 2010 and 2016. In fact, well over 90%—I think 95% or 96%—of the amount it spends on financing energy projects overseas goes on fossil fuel projects, rather than on cleaner renewable projects. That is almost equal to the total spending on international climate finance. There is no point boasting about what we do on the one hand, if we then finance the private sector to do damaging fossil fuel exploration on the other hand.

  [Source]

• 28 Oct 2019: Environment Bill

  20:21

  The environmental principles are not enshrined in law in the Bill either. Instead, Ministers only have to have due regard to them, which is a significant step backwards compared with the current EU arrangement. Long-term targets do not need to be set until 2022 and might not be enforced for almost two decades. We must have shorter-term milestones, perhaps in the same way that we have carbon budgets under the Climate Change Act 2008, because we need to know. There is no point getting almost to the deadline and realising that we have failed hopelessly to meet the targets. There has to be a way of monitoring progress more quickly.

  [Source]

• 28 Oct 2019: Restoring Nature and Climate Change

  17:13

  As the petition stated, we need to act fast to avoid a climate emergency. Reducing carbon emissions alone will not be enough to keep the heating of the planet below 1.5°C. We also need to find ways of removing carbon from the atmosphere, and nature is our greatest ally in doing that. Evidence suggests that natural climate solutions could provide more than one third of the greenhouse gas mitigation required globally between now and 2030, yet natural solutions currently receive only 2.5% of the funding spent globally on cutting emissions. The lack of focus on natural solutions is indicative of the wider lack of action on reversing the ecological crisis over the past 40 years.

  It is clear that nature is struggling against climate change, habitat loss, pollution and intensive farming, but we can turn that around radically by changing the way we manage land. Rewilding is the only solution that offers the opportunity to tackle the climate and ecological emergencies together. The benefits of rewilding our peatlands, heathlands, grasslands, woodlands, saltmarshes, wetlands and coastal waters are diverse. That would lock away carbon, clean air and water, reconnect us with nature, protect communities at risk of flooding, revitalise wildlife, restore our soil and support new economic opportunities.

  It is well documented that the intensification of farming since the second world war has left less and less space for nature in the UK. To turn that around, the Government ought to commit to a transition to sustainable agroecological farming by 2030. That is supported by the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. The Government must also commit to net zero emissions from agriculture by 2040 and reverting parcels of arable land, particularly the third that is used for animal feed, to permanent grassland, which has high levels of soil, carbon and biodiversity value.

  I mentioned that the Agriculture Bill’s approach of public money for public goods is a step in the right direction, but it needs to be more ambitious. If £1.9 billion of the £3 billion currently spent on common agricultural policy payments were allocated to supporting native woodland re-establishment, and the restoration and protection of peat bogs, heaths and the species rich grasslands over a total of 6 million hectares, that could mean sequestering 47 million tonnes of CO 2 a year, which is more than one tenth of current UK greenhouse gas emissions.

  As I mentioned, we cannot think of natural solutions only on a domestic level. The UK should play its part on the world stage by ensuring that all UK aid is nature-positive. I know that the Minister, in his role as Minister for the Department for International Development, thinks that is important. We need to support more integrated interventions that improve people’s lives and enhance the natural environment. We need to stop harmful investments that destroy nature and contribute to climate change, such as the deforestation of the Amazon. We need to look at how our consumption patterns here are harming the environment overseas.

  Finally, taking a different approach to the way land is managed is as important as high-tech solutions to address climate breakdown. I have heard the Minister of State for Climate Change and Industry talk about weird technological advances that would suck carbon out of the air. I do not see why we need to do that when trees and peat bogs can do the job for us.

  [Source]

• 7 Oct 2019: Amazon Deforestation

  17:01

  It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Moon. I do not think it will surprise anyone that I am not going to adopt the same conciliatory tone as the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies). The situation we face is far too serious to adopt such an approach. As we heard, the Amazon is being wilfully destroyed. It remains the biggest rainforest in the world and a vital check on climate change. The seriousness of the situation cannot be overestimated and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) said, there are people gathered outside this building who want us to take it seriously.

  As we heard, deforestation causes irreversible environmental damage if it is not checked in time. The clearing and burning of forests releases billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Scientists estimate that deforestation causes roughly a quarter of all human-induced carbon emissions, and then there is the loss of biodiversity. I have not been to Brazil, but I have been to countries such as Belize; the extent to which the rainforest remains undiscovered and unexplored is amazing. There is so much more to be discovered. Forests are home to more than 13 million distinct species, representing more than two thirds of the world’s plants and animals. Obviously, if their habitats are destroyed, many will be at risk of extinction. When the trees are gone, the soil becomes depleted, which often leads to water pollution as the soil gets washed away. That is something for which we in this country must accept responsibility.

  I finish by expressing my disappointment at the recent report from the Committee on Climate Change on how we reach net zero; it was, frankly, pathetic. At the launch, the chair of the committee said in his opening speech that his least favourite environmentalists were those who expected people to be cold in their homes or to eat disgusting food. I wondered what he meant by disgusting food, but I can guess. This was from the man who fed his daughter, Cordelia, a hamburger at the height of the BSE crisis; I think we know where he is coming from. We were then told that because people could not be expected to eat disgusting food, the recommendation of the Committee on Climate Change was for only a 20% reduction in red meat consumption, which was to be replaced primarily with pork, bacon and poultry rather than plant-based meals.

  The Committee on Climate Change was meant to be looking at how deliverable net zero was, primarily from an economic point of view; for example, it was looking at whether we could afford to make the transition to electric vehicles. It also looked at behavioural change and how palatable that would be to the general public. I gather that the behavioural scientist on the committee specialises in shifts in transport, rather than diet, but it took his word on what people would tolerate.

  [Source]

• 2 Oct 2019: Climate Justice

  10. I welcome the Minister to his post. I am sure he will agree that the food and farming system has a major impact on climate change in developing countries, from deforestation to water use and mountains of food waste, but that is not really talked about in DFID terms except for some small livestock programmes. Can he assure me that it will be at the top of his agenda as a Minister in this Department? ( 912510 )

  [Source]

• 4 Sep 2019: Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act

  The aim of this Act is to focus minds on the long term so that we leave things better off for the next generation than they are for us. Given the decade of austerity, the risk of a no-deal Brexit and the climate emergency we are currently in, how does the Minister think this legislation would fare in UK law judging by what we are doing to the future generations now?

  [Source]

• 11 Jun 2019: Sustainable Development Goals

  16:41

  Earlier today, I chaired a session of the all-party group on food waste that was looking at the issue of food waste—surprisingly—with the new food waste champion. Sustainable development goal 12.3 is specifically about reducing food waste. In this country, we have signed up to a target of 50% by 2030, and it is reassuring that the Government are committed to taking action on that. However, it was very disappointing that the Committee on Climate Change, in its recent recommendations to the Government, has suggested only trying to reach that goal by 2050. If we are serious about tackling the carbon footprint of food waste—I am very fond of saying that if food waste was a country, it would be the third highest emitter after the USA and China—may I suggest that we ignore the Committee on Climate Change and stick with what we have promised under SDG 12.3 instead?

  Goal 12 is on sustainable consumption and production. As a Parliament, we should focus more on that. Global plastic production is completely unsustainable and plastics use is growing fastest in countries where there is no prospect of safe disposal. Plastic packaging accounts for nearly half of all plastic waste globally. Of course, that contributes to climate change. Global plastic production emits 400 million tonnes of greenhouse gases each year —more than the UK’s total carbon footprint.

  [Source]

• 9 May 2019: Leaving the EU: Farming Policy

  I am glad that the Minister has had a change of heart on that because he argued against my amendment on soil during the Bill Committee, but now he is on the Front Bench. What are we doing to try to meet net zero emissions from farming either through the Agriculture Bill or other mechanisms? The Committee on Climate Change again endorsed that this week. What are the Government doing and when is the target going to be reached?

  [Source]

• 1 May 2019: Tibetan Refugees

  I am very glad that the Secretary of State is taking an interest in Tibet, but can I urge her, reflecting on an earlier question, to look at the impact of climate change on what is often dubbed the third pole—on the melting of the Himalayan glaciers? It is having a huge impact on the Tibetan area but is overlooked when we talk about climate change.

  [Source]

• 1 May 2019: Environment and Climate Change

  17:56

  We need action on so many fronts to tackle this climate emergency, but time is limited so I will speak about just one. Unsurprisingly, it is about the fact that 30% of our global greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to our food system.

  Lots of things contribute to the climate impact of our food system: the use of fossil fuels and synthetic nitrogen fertilizers on farms, methane emissions from ruminants, transportation and refrigeration. If food waste were a country, it would have the third largest carbon footprint, behind China and the USA. However, the biggest impact is from land use. Some 48% of UK land is used for animal agriculture, and 55% of that is used for animal feed, rather than for growing food that is directly eaten by humans. The destruction of the Amazon rainforest is driven by industrial farming, which destroys habitats, biodiversity and natural carbon sinks.

  It has been more than 10 years since I held a debate in Westminster Hall on the environmental impact of the livestock sector. To say that the reaction I got then was hostile is an understatement, but it now feels like there is a breakthrough. This breakthrough is being led by the public, and the private sector has responded to that public demand. It is not being led by politicians. I really think we need to rise to the challenge and start talking about it. We need a net zero emissions target by 2040 in the Agriculture Bill, which the NFU now backs. We also need to reward farmers who reduce their carbon footprint, to plant more trees and to store more carbon in the soil—and yes, we need to accelerate the trend towards healthier, more sustainable diets by reducing red meat and dairy consumption by at least 30% by 2030.

  Last night, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) and I attended an event in Soho hosted by the Meatless Farm Company, which is calling for people to sign up to a meatless consumption target. It commissioned research by Joseph Poore of Oxford University that showed that if people replaced one read meat meal a week with a plant-based meal, it would cut UK greenhouse gas emissions by some 50 million tonnes—that is a reduction of 8.4% or the equivalent of taking 16 million cars off the road. I call on all the politicians in this place who profess to care about climate change to take up that challenge.

  [Source]

• 9 Apr 2019: Renewable Energy: Public Funding

  3. What recent assessment the Government have made of trends in the level of public funding for renewable energy since 2010. ( 910297 )

  [Source]

• 12 Mar 2019: Modern Farming and the Environment

  14:56

  To reverse the decline of species and address the serious environmental challenges facing us, farmers must be incentivised to provide environmentally beneficial outcomes. That is why I have supported the introduction in the Agriculture Bill of the new environment land management scheme, based on the principle of delivering public goods, such as adaptation to climate change, improved water quality and public access, for which no functioning market exists. This approach is overwhelmingly supported by the public. A World Wide Fund for Nature/Populus poll found that 91% of those surveyed wanted the Government to pay farmers to protect nature.

  The final issue that I will mention is climate change. We have 12 years to avoid a catastrophic climate emergency, and we must openly discuss the impact of livestock on climate change and the environment more frequently in debates such as this one. It is now almost 13 years since the Food and Agriculture Organisation published its “Livestock’s Long Shadow” report, which stated that

  “the livestock sector is a major stressor on many ecosystems and on the planet as whole. Globally it is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases and one of the leading causal factors in the loss of biodiversity, while in developed and emerging countries it is perhaps the leading source of water pollution.”

  In its 2018 progress report to Parliament, the Committee on Climate Change identified agriculture as one of the key priority areas for an emissions reduction programme over the next decade. Otherwise, we will not meet our fourth and fifth carbon budgets.

  I know the hon. Lady is very passionate about this issue, and I believe that we are both on the soil inquiry that is being conducted by the Environmental Audit Committee. Does she agree that if only we could get our soils to the right level of health and standards, that would go a long way towards reaching all of our climate change targets, because soil holds so much carbon?

  [Source]

• 7 Mar 2019: The Modern Commonwealth: Opportunities and Challenges

  16:16

  I want to focus today on a matter that has already been mentioned: the adoption at CHOGM last year of the Commonwealth blue charter. Some Commonwealth countries are among those most affected by our failure to tackle what we should now call the climate emergency. We have heard of droughts in the Caribbean, Australia and many parts of Africa, sea level rises in Bangladesh causing flooding, loss of livelihoods, and what could become the climate migration of more than 20 million displaced people.

  In 2013 it was reported that in Tanzania, Mount Kilimanjaro’s shrinking northern glaciers, which are thought to be 10,000 years old, could disappear by 2030. In fact forecasts show that both Mount Kenya and Mount Kilimanjaro could be without ice within a decade. But I want to talk today mostly about the Commonwealth’s small island states, many of which are already vulnerable on a number of fronts—their size, their remoteness, and their narrow resource and export base. They are now increasingly being affected by climate change and extreme weather events.

  In the Caribbean, islands are experiencing more intense hurricanes, coastal erosion and rising sea levels, and their fisheries are also highly vulnerable to climate change. In Kiribati in the Pacific the shorelines are being pounded away by high tides: whole villages are having to be relocated, food crops are being destroyed, and freshwater supplies are contaminated by sea water.

  Climate change is not the only environmental threat. There has been a very welcome rise in public and political awareness of plastic pollution in recent years. Richard Branson recently led a dive expedition to the bottom of the beautiful Blue Hole in Belize, which is 400 feet deep, and found plastic bottles. In his blog he wrote that

  “the real monsters facing the ocean are climate change—and plastic. Sadly, we saw plastic bottles at the bottom of the hole, which is a real scourge of the ocean. We’ve all got to get rid of single-use plastic.”

  It is quite depressing to look back at past efforts to address these issues. In 1994, the first meeting of the small island developing states on sustainable development was held in Barbados, and it resulted in a 14-point programme of action. The first listed priority area was climate change and sea level rise, followed by natural and environmental disasters, management of waste, coastal and marine resources, freshwater resources and more, but that was 25 years ago, and it does not feel as though much progress has been made since then—certainly not enough.

  It was 10 years ago, before the Copenhagen climate summit, that the then President of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, held an underwater Cabinet meeting to highlight the impact of rising sea levels. He warned that with a 2° rise in temperatures, his country would be “on death row”, yet it is only in the past year or so that it is becoming accepted that limiting temperature rises to 2° would not be sufficient to address the climate emergency, and that 1.5° should be the target.

  I hope that the discussions at CHOGM 2018 will represent a much greater step forward. It was acknowledged at CHOGM that temperature and sea level rises, and other aspects of climate change, posed a significant risk to many of the Commonwealth’s most vulnerable member countries, and that climate change could push an additional 100 million people into poverty by 2030. There was renewed support for a target well below 2°, along with support for innovative financing solutions including disaster risk insurance, which is important for farmers affected by climate change. It was agreed to establish action groups on ocean issues led by Commonwealth member countries, and for the secretariat to take forward the Commonwealth blue charter. The UK is the chair of CHOGM until Rwanda takes over in two years’ time, and I really hope that we will be in the forefront of pushing this forward.

  [Source]

• 7 Feb 2019: British Businesses Investing Overseas

  The Environmental Audit Committee has just started an inquiry into the role of UK Export Finance. We pledge to meet climate change targets at home, so why is it that nearly every penny of support for energy projects overseas goes on fossil fuels?

  [Source]

• 30 Oct 2018: Agriculture Bill (Fifth sitting)

  10:45

  “limiting greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture or horticulture or encouraging activities that reduce such emissions or remove greenhouse gas from the atmosphere, or”.

  This amendment would add to the purposes for which financial assistance can be given that of limiting greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture or horticulture or encouraging activities that reduce such emissions or remove greenhouse gas from the atmosphere .

  I shall endeavour to speed up a little, but again this is an important part of the legislation because it refers to climate change. To be fair to the Minister, climate change appears in subsection (1)(d), which refers to

  “mitigating or adapting to climate change”.

  Again, this is important. If we are serious about a new Agriculture Act, we ought to be serious about how it impinges on climate change. Those are not my words but the words of Lord Deben, that well-known socialist former MP, now in the Lords, John Gummer. Some in the Committee heard, as I did, what he said in the Attlee Room when he introduced the report of the Committee on Climate Change. He was rather scathing about the way in which agriculture has failed to meet its targets for reducing emissions. He was overall pretty sceptical about the Government’s performance—as he can afford to be, given how deep-seated he is in this place—and was particularly critical of agricultural emissions having flatlined, which is not good enough.

  The Opposition make no apology for tabling the amendment. We have done so to give some bite to the Bill and make climate change the fulcrum of how agriculture performs so that we see those improvements. Not only have agricultural emissions in general flatlined, but net carbon sequestration from forestry has flatlined. The United Nations has produced a report through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, saying, “Forget 2 degrees. We should be worried about even approaching 1.5 degrees.” We can play our part by being serious about this issue and passing this simple amendment to ensure that we can do what clause 1(1)(d) says:

  “mitigating or adapting to climate change”.

  I hope the Minister will take note of what we are saying. The amendment is a minor change in wording but makes the important statement that agriculture has to play its part in dealing with climate change. As Gilles Deprez said when giving evidence to this Committee, he strongly believes that farmers are already paying the price for climate change, and dealing with it is not just something that they should do for the wider community. They are already suffering the effects of climate change, as we have seen this year with the drought. I am not saying that droughts are anything other than climatic occurrences that have happened through the ages, but those climatic events—whether floods, drought, or very cold winters that mean that farmers are unable to plant when they want to, let alone harvest when it is very wet—come around far too regularly for them to be anything other than an aspect of climate change.

  I hope we can reach some agreement on this issue. Given who sits in the House of Lords, those Lords will spend an awful lot of time talking about this aspect of agriculture, so the Minister might as well be prepared. He cannot influence proceedings in the Lords, but whoever takes this through—presumably Lord Gardiner—will be spending a lot of time trying to deal with various people, whom we could name, who will be saying, “Come on—sort this out. We need to have some words in the Bill that show how agriculture is prepared to play its part in dealing with climate change.”

  We know that farmers do not necessarily have the resources, expertise or access to investment that they need, so again, let us hope that that is where the money will go. It is crucial to deliver the budget in a way that allows farmers to make those changes. We heard in a previous debate about agro-ecology that this issue is linked to soil quality, water management and the way in which farming systems need to change to take account of emissions. Not including this amendment in the Bill would be a missed opportunity, and again I make no apology for introducing it. Climate change has to be taken seriously, including in the Bill.

  “mitigating or adapting to climate change”.

  “limiting greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture or horticulture or encouraging activities that reduce such emissions or remove greenhouse gas from the atmosphere”—

  can be summarised as “mitigating climate change”, and we already have that term in subsection (1)(d).

  [Source]

• 10 Oct 2018: Agriculture Bill

  15:22

  It is also time that we looked far more seriously at reducing farming’s carbon footprint. This has already been mentioned, and all I will say at this point is that I would like to see a goal in the Bill for agricultural emissions to reach net zero by 2050, in line with the Paris agreement. That is absolutely necessary following Monday’s report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

  [Source]

• 17 May 2018: Plastic Bottles and Coffee Cups

  13:52

  I wish to highlight several key recommendations from the Environmental Audit Committee that we would like to see in the waste strategy later this year. The first is a post-2020 target recycling rate of 65%. Even the UK’s own estimates have found that that would save almost £10 billion over a decade in waste sector, greenhouse gas and social costs. Last year, I asked the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), why the UK’s recycling rate had stagnated and whether the Government were opposing an EU target to recycle 65% of municipal waste by 2035. She would not confirm or deny that, and she blamed everyone but the Government for the UK’s poor performance, particularly local authorities, which we know simply do not have the resources to do this, and consumers.

  [Source]

• 16 Jan 2018: European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

  12:45

  We will also lose obligations on the Government to report and send information to the European Commission, which is then able to aggregate it and use it for considering the appropriateness of laws and their implementation. On day 6 in Committee, I gave an example of how losing reporting requirements under article 10 of the birds directive could, for example, present a barrier to future investment in, and the roll-out of, marine renewable energy and other developments. The Government still have not said whether they intend these reporting requirements to disappear.

  [Source]

• 9 Jan 2018: Trade Bill

  16:57

  There are a few general points of concern that I want to raise about our future trading relationships and the way in which trade deals and rules can affect people involved in the sectors in which I am interested. In 2014, I visited El Salvador to look at the impact of climate change on its farmers. I was told how its Government’s efforts to promote native seeds and more traditional, organic forms of farming had been thwarted because following the central America free trade agreement, they were unable to stop Monsanto peddling its wares. That raises concerns in my mind about what will happen when products come on the market that we do not have the power to reject post deal, even if we manage to carve out concessions when we negotiate trade agreements now.

  [Source]

• 19 Dec 2017: Environmental and Food System Education

  11:00

  Young people should also learn about climate change, the impact our behaviour is having on the planet and how we can address that. They should learn about where our food comes from and why what we grow and eat matters. It is not just about acquiring knowledge for the sake of it; it is about children’s mental and physical wellbeing and equipping them for life as adults, enjoying nature and living sustainably. The fact is that they love learning about these things, and I will come on to that later.

  The national curriculum references the environment and climate change only in science and geography, and even then mostly in relation to the technical causes and processes, rather than the impact of climate change on individuals and communities. Key stage 3 science only includes reference to

  Key stage 4 science only mentions the effects of increased greenhouse gases on the Earth’s climate system and supposed “uncertainties” in the evidence for climate change. The geography syllabus has only passing reference to the changing climate from the ice age to the present day and how human and physical processes can change the environment. The parliamentary digital engagement service put something out on Facebook and Instagram over the weekend, and people came back to say that although there is the option to study climate change in geography, it is not always taken up. Geography GCSE is optional, so young people will not necessarily learn about that aspect of the curriculum unless they are studying that GCSE and the teacher decides to focus on climate change.

  The situation is piecemeal and insufficient. We are failing to teach young people about the real-world impacts of climate change or the action that can be taken to mitigate it. The previous syllabus covered environmental issues much more comprehensively, but the then Education Secretary, now the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, tried to remove those things from geography altogether and have them in science only and not talk about the human role. I appreciate that he would dispute that that was his role in events. The former Energy and Climate Change Secretary, the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey), who recently returned to the House, takes credit for forcing a U-turn on the then Education Secretary. I appreciate that there is some controversy, but there was a huge pushback against what were perceived to be the Education Secretary’s plans at the time, and there was a partial U-turn.

  Academies and free schools are not obliged to follow the national curriculum, so they are not required to teach environmental or climate change issues at all. The London School of Economics aptly summarised this in its response to the Government’s consultation in 2013. It said that

  “there can be no justification for omitting climate change from the National Curriculum, and the education of pupils would be deficient if they did not receive teaching about it…If core climate change teaching is not included as compulsory learning…there is a risk that some students would not acquire essential basic knowledge about climate change. As the UK Youth Climate Coalition points out, ‘climate change is too important to be left to individual teacher choice’.”

  I am aware of the time, so I will skim over this quickly. The skills, knowledge and enjoyment benefit children when they become adults, too. In 2014, Lantra estimated that there were 230,000 businesses and 1.3 million employees working in the land and environmental industries, and that many more would be required by 2020. The horticultural and agricultural sectors are currently experiencing a skills shortage. The food sector is a huge part of the economy, and innovative, value-added products are the future of that industry. Innovation is going on at Harper Adams University. We need to engage young people and get them interested in careers in that field. There is the waste sector, energy sector, many high-tech engineering jobs, and renewable energy and eco-housing sectors. There are so many things that young people could be inspired to do.

  I want to flag up a few countries that have gone further than the UK. I hope we can look at them as examples. The Dominican Republic, which is at great risk of climate change, established mandatory climate change education in schools in 1998. Australia introduced its national environmental education plan in 2000. Brazil’s educational guidelines required climate change to be taught in all subjects from 1998. The Philippines introduced climate change into the curriculum in 2009. Vietnam did it in 2008. Costa Rica has been doing it since the 1980s. If those countries can do it, we ought to do it in the UK, too.

  [Source]

• 23 Nov 2017: UK Export Finance

  Some 99% of UK Export Finance spending on energy goes on the most polluting fuels. Does the Minister consider that his Department is exempt from the Government’s commitments under the Paris climate change treaty?

  [Source]

• 14 Nov 2017: Marine Environment

  15:00

  We have heard how the health of our oceans is under threat, and degenerating faster than anyone had predicted because of the cumulative effect of a number of individual stresses: climate change; sea water acidification; widespread chemical pollution; plastic pollution; the effect of drilling for oil; and gross overfishing. The world’s oceans are facing an unprecedented loss of species, from large fish to tiny coral, comparable to the great mass extinctions of prehistory. If we are serious about helping oceans to recover and rebuild, helping fish stocks to replenish, and giving marine ecosystems and coastal communities some breathing space, we need to get serious about creating marine protected areas.

  The ocean around Antarctica is also the lungs of the deep, with its waters among the most oxygen-rich on our planet. Much of the life-giving oxygen in deep waters across the world begins its journey there in Antarctica, but the pristine marine environment is threatened by climate change and expanding commercial fishing interests. Marine life there, for example, is totally dependent on krill, but Russia, Norway and China are all said to have krill-fishing interests in the region. That is not something that the people of Russia, Norway and China need, but it is something that the marine ecosystem in that area absolutely needs for its survival. Greenpeace and others are currently pressing for an Antarctic ocean sanctuary. The UK Government can play a vital role in creating this, as part of the Antarctic ocean commission, but as I understand it, the UK has yet to throw its full weight behind negotiations. I hope the Minister can reassure us today that the UK will put real diplomatic effort into that.

  The “Keep it in the ground” campaign asserts that 80% of the fossil fuels that we currently know of ought to be kept in the ground if we are to meet our climate change commitments. That means that we should not be drilling for oil in the tar sands, or in the Arctic. We should not look down, at deep-sea mining and the hydrothermal vents. I want to pay tribute to what my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield said. I am entirely with him on this: the world is not ours to exploit; it is ours to protect.

  [Source]

• 16 Mar 2017: Energy Prices

  14:04

  Other MPs will have in their localities the new breed of municipal energy providers, which provide a very different offer from that of the big six, with fairer rates and cleaner energy. Bristol Energy was set up fairly recently by Bristol City Council. Bristol Energy is a national company, so anyone can switch to it, but there is a special tariff for people with a Bristol postcode. It was set up to help local people, as well as people from outside the city who want to join in, to pay less for their energy and to provide a new way to raise funds for the city, as all the profits will be reinvested back into Bristol. Its standard variable tariff is significantly cheaper than that of the big six—on average, £105 cheaper—and it keeps its fixed deals fair, too. It is currently trialling a warm homes plus tariff, to bring households in Bristol out of fuel poverty. This non-profit-making tariff is only available by referral, and Bristol Energy is working with the citizens advice bureau, the council and Bristol’s Centre for Sustainable Energy on those referrals. It is looking for 1,000 people to put on this tariff to start with, limited to a year, to help lift them out of fuel poverty. As I have said, the profits will be invested back into the city. In the longer term, we want to be really ambitious in tying energy in with the waste sector. I was told on one visit to a waste plant on the outskirts of the city that it is reckoned that Bristol’s waste alone could generate enough energy to heat 250,000 homes. That has absolutely to be the way forward: a local solution to a local problem.

  Much greater transparency—as a first step, the inclusion of a breakdown of costs behind each of the tariffs, as well as the wholesale energy and transmission costs, and add-ons, including green energy—with an improved annual renewal notice along the lines of motor insurance, would encourage more switching, but I believe we need to go further still. We also need some kind of price controls for those on standard variable tariffs, and I urge the Government to pick up my right hon. Friend’s proposals for capping these tariffs.

  [Source]

• 11 Jan 2017: Oral Answers to Questions

  Tajikistan is very much at risk from climate change, which could threaten all the good work that is being done to improve livelihoods and economic development. Is dealing with that an element of DFID’s programme?

  [Source]

• 17 Nov 2016: Soil Health

  14:11

  Some of our most productive agricultural land could become unprofitable within a generation because of soil erosion and loss of organic carbon. Soil degradation in England and Wales costs an estimated £1.2 billion per year in lost productivity, flood damage, reduced water quality and other costs. Our approach to managing our soil has to change to address those risks and as part of our strategy for tackling climate change and flooding. Any Members who visited flood-hit areas in the north of the country over Christmas will have heard from people there about the impact of soil erosion on flooding—I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) will have something to say on that point. It is one important reason why we need to address the quality of soil and to protect our soil.

  Thirdly, I would like to focus on the report’s recommendation that the Government set out their plan of action for increasing soil carbon levels. In their response to the Committee, the Government detailed existing guidance and good practice for protecting peatlands, but the damaging practice of burning on upland peat persists. The Committee on Climate Change found that

  The Government’s response was also notably weak on action to address loss of carbon from lowland, drained peat, which, as the Soil Association says, is equivalent to the emissions from all buses in the UK. I hope the Minister will reassure us that she considers lowland peat used for agriculture to be as much of a priority as upland peat. Will she ensure that measures to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions targeted at lowland peat areas will be included in the 25-year plans?

  The protection of agricultural soils should also, of course, be in the other 25-year plan—the food and farming plan. In fact, this illustrates the absurdity of the Government’s decision to have two completely separate plans. It is not possible to separate farming from the natural environment on which it depends and the rural communities that sustain it. It is unwise to look at food and farming purely from an economic, money-making viewpoint and nothing more, particularly if the focus in the food and farming plan on growing more, buying more and selling more British food ends up promoting further intensification, which would lead to more pressure on soils, not to mention more pressure on water and biodiversity, and increased greenhouse gas emissions. We will all end up paying the costs. The Minister will probably say that efforts are being made to cross-reference the two 25-year plans, but I stick by my original views that the issues ought to be incorporated into one report.

  The Committee on Climate Change has said that, for the UK to meet the targets in the Climate Change Act 2008, a 15% reduction in agricultural emissions is needed by 2032. That will be achieved in part by action to prevent the degradation of our carbon-rich soils, about which we have already heard from other Members. Will the Minister say whether emissions from agriculture will be included in the Government’s emissions reduction plans? Will the food and farming plan set out how agriculture will deliver its sectoral share of responsibility for reducing carbon emissions?

  [Source]

• 1 Nov 2016: Global Biodiversity

  15:11

  Today’s debate is timely, given the publication of the excellent “Living Planet” report by the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Zoological Society of London. I urge everyone to read it. Biodiversity has intrinsic value, but our survival also depends on it. It is a key indicator of the health of the planet, and we should treat it as seriously as climate change. It was frustrating for me, both during the Brexit campaign and the Paris talks, that the focus was always just on climate change and energy policy. There was not the discussion of the natural environment that there should have been, particularly given that so many of our protections stem from the EU.

  Less visibly, as the global population has risen, our use of fertilisers, pesticides and transport, greenhouse gas emissions, our reliance on medicines and our water use have all increased. They all have a negative impact on biodiversity. It is the human population that has caused so much habitat loss for other species, whether through pollution, intensive agriculture, climate change, building or resource use that exploits natural resources.

  [Source]

• 31 Oct 2016: Driven Grouse Shooting

  17:29

  The weight of scientific evidence is that driven grouse shooting damages habitats, pollutes our water, increases greenhouse gas emissions, increases flood risk and, all too often, involves the illegal persecution of birds of prey. As we have heard, shooting estates commonly burn heather and peat on the moors to increase the red grouse population. Reference has been made to the work by the University of Leeds on the effects of moorland burning on the eco-hydrology of river basins—the EMBER study—which concluded that burning reduces organic matter in the upper peat layers and depletes it of nutrients. Heather burning is intensifying as grouse shooting is intensifying.

  Water tables were significantly deeper in burned catchments, indicating greater peat degradation and more carbon released into the atmosphere and water. This contributes to both climate change and to our water bills, as the water companies incur additional costs in removing the dissolved carbon. Treating a single drinking water catchment for the effect of peat burning may cost a six-figure sum each year.

  The Energy and Climate Change Committee identified the climate threat in its report to Parliament last year and warned that the

  [Source]

• 12 Jul 2016: EU Referendum: Energy and Environment

  15:00

  I am concerned that if some in the Government have their way, we will have a bonfire of protections. Some of the most prominent leave campaigners are also climate change deniers, and there has also been much anti-EU rhetoric over the years, casting environmental protections as an over-bureaucratic burden rather than a benefit. The Chancellor, before he became an EU enthusiast, tried to claim that those protections placed

  [Source]

• 4 Jul 2016: EBacc: Expressive Arts Subjects

  17:57

  There have been some excellent speeches so far, and I agree with everyone who has made the case for the importance of arts education and for the need for us to continue to value that education. The narrowing of focus about what constitutes a valid qualification concerns me across the board. Obviously, we are here today to discuss arts education, but we have also seen, for example, life and environmental sciences being scrapped at GCSE and A-level. That seems nonsensical to me, because the best way of getting children interested in science is to link it to their natural environment, to issues such as climate change, and to what they see all around them.

  [Source]

• 29 Jun 2016: Oral Answers to Questions

  I am pleased to hear the Minister acknowledge that climate change is having a huge impact on food security in the region. What efforts is his Department making to look at the impact on fish stocks, which very many people in that region depend on?

  [Source]

• 6 Jan 2016: Flooding

  16:16

  The Committee on Climate Change gave flood adaptation a double-red warning and urged the Government to develop a strategy to protect the increasing number of homes that are at risk of flooding—sound advice that the Government inexplicably rejected. People who have been forced out of their homes need to know why.

  I was talking about the warnings that the Government have ignored, such as the warning from the Committee on Climate Change.

  In urban and developed areas, sustainable drainage systems could make a positive difference, but progress has been slow and the scope for local authorities to make progress on flood risk management strategies seems limited. As the Climate Change Committee reported, many are yet to finalise their strategies, despite that having been a legal requirement for the past five years.

  Just as the Government cannot neglect English regions, we need to work across the UK on climate change mitigation and adaptation. The Welsh Government have this week provided £2.3 million for flood-hit communities in Wales, and we know that flooding has caused havoc across Scotland, yet there are fears about significant cuts to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.

  [Source]

• 5 Jan 2016: Flooding

  18:03

  Each time this happens, we are assured that the Government will learn the lessons, so I have a few questions for the Secretary of State. Why did the Government choose to ignore warnings from the Committee on Climate Change that they needed a strategy for the increasing number of homes at flood risk, and the warning from the Association of Drainage Authorities that the cuts had put homes and businesses at risk? What action did the Secretary of State take in October after Professor Colin Mellors warned that the authorities in Yorkshire would have to look at where to discontinue maintenance because of cuts? Flood-hit communities will also want to know why the national flood resilience review was not instigated earlier.

  The Secretary of State has told us repeatedly about the £2.3 billion capital budget over six years. Is she satisfied that it takes into account the impact of previous capital cuts and cancelled schemes and that it is enough, given that the Government have underestimated the climate change risk? Will she finally address the revenue budget? We still have no firm commitment on maintenance spending beyond protecting an inadequate budget.

  The largest river system in the UK is in my constituency, and the biggest flow of water experienced by any community goes through the heart of the city of Perth. Today, large swathes of my constituency are under water, and there was a real fear last night that the flood defences in Perth might fail, which would have been utterly disastrous for my constituents, given the flow of water that comes down the Tay. Even if we had the most robust flood defences in the world it would do nothing if we do not tackle climate change. I know that flood defences are a devolved matter, but the Secretary of State could do something for us today if she stopped the disastrous decision to withdraw subsidy and support for onshore wind. That would enable us to invest in the technologies of the future, which might protect us in the future.

  The hon. Gentleman will be well aware that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change helped to secure an historic deal in Paris in December precisely to address that issue.

  [Source]

• 17 Dec 2015: Oral Answers to Questions

  This week the Paris talks and the devastating floods in the north reminded us of the importance of DEFRA’s climate change adaptation work. Also this week, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee raised serious concerns about the impact of further departmental budget cuts. Will the Secretary of State tell us her top three policies for making our country safer and more resilient to climate change?

  [Source]

  I thank the Secretary of State for that response, but I did ask for three policies, and it is a shame that she could only talk about one. It is little wonder, though, when her Department’s climate change unit has been slashed from 38 to six and expert advice is routinely ignored. The Select Committee warned this week:

  [Source]

• 15 Dec 2015: Climate Change and Flooding

  12:43

  That this House applauds the courage and tirelessness of the UK’s emergency services, Armed Forces and volunteers who are working day and night to protect people from the damaging floods; condemns the reckless cuts to flood defence funding made by the Government, which have left communities more vulnerable to extreme weather; notes that 600 people were evacuated from their homes in Hawick due to flooding, and hopes the Scottish Government will urgently invest additional funds to enhance flood protection schemes in Scotland; further notes the increasing frequency and intensity of storms in recent years and their consistency with the warnings of Britain’s leading climate scientists regarding the impact of climate change; supports the outcome of the UN COP21 conference in Paris, but recognises that international cooperation and ambition to reduce greenhouse gases and invest in clean energy technologies must be increased if global temperature rises are to be limited and the goal of climate safety kept within reach; expresses concern at the Government’s decisions to cut investment in carbon capture and storage technology, privatise the Green Investment Bank without protecting its green mandate, reduce funding for energy efficiency and solar energy and block the growth of wind energy, which all jeopardise the future of Britain’s important low-carbon industries; and calls on the Government to institute a thorough climate risk assessment that considers the implications of the Paris Summit for future flood risk.

  Although the climate deal reached in Paris at the weekend gives cause for optimism that the world is facing up to the global threat of climate change, the recent floods have brought home to us the urgency of the situation here in the UK. Climate change is already happening here, and people need not just warm words from the Government, but action.

  Flooding is already rated as the greatest climate change risk to the UK, and the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change has warned that the frequency and magnitude of severe flooding across the UK is only going to increase. Periods of intense rainfall are projected to increase in frequency by a factor of five in this century. Indeed, the most recent Met Office analysis suggests that global warming of 2°—bear in mind that Paris does not limit us to 2°—would increase the risks of extreme flood events in the UK by a factor of seven. It is not enough to respond to the flood risk simply by focusing on building more flood defences. We need to look at how we can reduce the risk through improved land and river management, and we need to minimise the future risk of floods and other extreme weather events by tackling climate change.

  We welcome the Paris accord. Nearly every country around the globe has committed to: reducing carbon emissions, building a carbon-neutral global economy, trying to limit temperature rises to 1.5°, and to reviewing our ambitions every five years. Richer nations are recognising their responsibilities to developing countries with the climate finance provisions. That is all very welcome and will make a positive difference to climate safety, but it would be complacent to suggest that the Paris accord on its own is enough.

  The hon. Lady is making a strong case. As she will have heard from Paris, from civil society and from the countries that are most vulnerable to climate impacts, about 80% of known fossil fuel reserves need to stay in the ground if we are to have a hope of avoiding dangerous climate change. We need a global transition to 100% renewables by 2050. I wonder if she could say whether she agrees with that.

  Does my hon. Friend agree that cuts to renewable energy threaten both our environment and the economy? In my constituency, Energy Gain UK is a successful local renewables business, which has grown from nothing in four years to having 10 staff and apprenticeships. The drastic cuts to feed-in tariffs mean it may be forced to close, which makes no sense either to the environment or to the economy.

  We must acknowledge that the individual pledges made at Paris do not add up to a commitment to keep temperature rises below 2°. We must keep asking what more we can do by way of mitigation and consider what further adaptation to climate change is needed. Domestically, it is clear that the UK is not doing enough. Contributing to the global climate fund does not mean the UK can absolve itself of all responsibility, or pass the buck to developing nations.

  While the international community is moving forward, the UK has gone backwards. The Government have axed the carbon capture and storage fund, worth billions of pounds. They have blocked new wind farms and cut energy efficiency programmes drastically by 80% and they propose cutting support for solar power by 90%. They are also selling off the UK Green Investment Bank without protecting its green mandate. They are increasing taxes on our more efficient cars and they are scrapping the zero-carbon standard for new homes. Their preoccupation with fossil fuels and fracking, as I mentioned, means they have threatened the future of our renewable energy industry and we have lost thousands of green jobs.

  As the hon. Gentleman says, the UK has a proud record on tackling climate change, not least due to the leadership shown by my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) with the groundbreaking Climate Change Act 2008. However, we are now coasting on that historical record and we need to do much more. We are not on course to meet our targets, so we need to do more.

  The chairman of the Committee on Climate Change had no alternative but to conclude last month that the Government’s existing energy policy was clearly failing, and the CBI has said that British businesses need clarity. Businesses need to know that the Government are serious about climate change and will not make superficial claims about being green, only to U-turn on key environmental policies.

  I accept that nuclear is part of the mix—that is our policy—but it is not the only solution to green energy in this country, which seems to be the Government’s point of view.

  Whatever the solutions, one of the key conclusions from COP 21 is that, in order to drive down from 3.5° to 2.7°, 2° or 1.5°, the UK will have to reset its rest—as it has been phrased. We need to do more faster and with greater urgency, and that is exactly what Lord Deben and the CCC have said. Does she agree that, whatever the solutions, one of the most important things is for the Government to accept the fifth carbon budget and narrow the gap with the fourth carbon budget?

  Does the hon. Lady agree that it would be incorrect to try to link these tragic instances of flooding to global warming because, as the Inter- governmental Panel on Climate Change says in its fourth assessment report 2007, it is impossible to link individual examples of bad weather with climate change?

  I am not convinced that it is enough. In June, the Committee on Climate Change gave flood adaptation a double-red warning, and the Environmental Audit Committee gave the Government a red card for climate adaptation. The Prime Minister did not have to wait for the floods to ask, “Are we doing enough?” The experts had already provided the evidence that we were not.

  Last week, the Environment Secretary agreed with me about the extreme weather patterns and the link with climate change. The Government have conceded that the risks might have been underestimated, yet it has now emerged that they are not even using the most up-to-date information. I hope that the Environment Secretary will be able to tell us why the Environment Agency’s flood risk guidance, published in 2013, is based on forecasts from 2006—despite new research in 2011 indicating that river flows could be much greater due to climate change. Flood defence plans are modelled on the medium climate scenarios rather than the high climate change pathway.

  Perhaps the Government want to ignore the high emission scenarios because that would mean spending £300 million more, but the costs associated with ignoring the evidence are potentially so much greater. The national security risk assessment cites flood risk to the UK as a tier 1 priority risk, alongside terrorism and cyberattacks. By focusing on the more optimistic projections, the Government are wilfully neglecting their responsibilities on climate change mitigation and adaptation.

  As the rest of the work acknowledged this weekend, simply ignoring climate change will not make it go away, yet for two years the UK was hampered by having a climate change denier as Environment Secretary. It is even rumoured that he sought to replace the words “climate change” with the word “weather” in every single DEFRA document, and that he had to have it explained to him that they were not quite the same thing. What is certainly true is that under his stewardship spending on climate change adaptation halved, even after DEFRA’s climate change staffing had dropped from 38 to six people.

  In urban and developed areas, sustainable drainage systems could make a positive difference, but progress has been slow and the scope for local authorities to make progress on flood risk management strategies seems limited, especially given the additional budget cuts. As the Climate Change Committee reported, many authorities are yet to finalise their strategies, despite its having been a legal requirement for the past five years. I hope that the Environment Secretary is co-ordinating cross-departmental work to manage the flood risk and ensure that it is factored into plans, including plans for new house building in areas of high flood risk, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) mentioned.

  In light of the agreements reached in Paris, I would urge the Environment Secretary to bring forward the climate change risk assessment and consider whether the national adaptation programme is fit for purpose. As the Committee on Climate Change has said, the next programme needs a “clearer sense of priorities” and “measurable objectives”. Even if commitments are met, the Paris agreement means that the Government must prepare for temperature rises of nearly 3°. Will the Secretary of State ensure that the announced national resilience review is only the first step in tackling the problem? It must lead to a realistic resilience plan—and, most importantly, action.

  As yet, we do not know what DEFRA needs to adapt to, because we do not know what the Energy and Climate Change Secretary is proposing in order to implement the Paris agreement in the UK. In her statement on Paris yesterday, there was little sense that the Government had any strategy—let alone a coherent, fully-funded one—to meet the UK’s climate change commitments and help the global community to keep temperature rises below 2°.

  The UN’s chief environment scientist has even had to intervene to challenge this Government’s policies on renewable energy. While the rest of the world is investing in renewables, she said:

  “What’s disappointing is when we see countries such as the United Kingdom that have really been in the lead in terms of getting their renewable energy up and going”

  Under the last Labour Administration, the UK had a proud record on climate change—from Lord Prescott’s role with the Kyoto protocol and Gordon Brown’s work in establishing the Global Climate Fund to the role of my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), and indeed that of his brother before him, in the Climate Change Act 2008, which has now been emulated by about 100 other countries. It was ground-breaking at the time; we were the first.

  That legacy is slipping away and future generations will pay the price. Given that the right hon. Lady failed to answer the questions of my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) yesterday, I hope the Energy and Climate Change Secretary will, when winding up the debate this afternoon, be able to confirm the Government will review the recently abandoned green policies and that the UK will continue to support raising European targets on reducing carbon pollution by 2030.

  Expert after expert is warning that the Government are failing on climate change, and failing to protect people from flooding. They are letting down communities who are dreading the next heavy rainfall, and they are letting down future generations who will bear the brunt of climate change. I hope that both Secretaries of State will agree that the Government have run out of excuses, and that now is the time to act.

  [Source]

• 7 Dec 2015: Flooding

  15:42

  It was just six years ago that Cumbria was hit by “unprecedented” flooding, described then as a once in a lifetime or a once in a century event, but it has already happened again. This time, as the Environment Secretary said, it is even worse. Her predecessor was, as we know, not someone who was prepared to acknowledge the risks posed by climate change. Does this Secretary of State agree that extreme weather events are unfortunately increasingly a feature of British weather and that Government policy has to adapt accordingly? World leaders in Paris are negotiating what, we hope, is an historic agreement on climate change right now, yet domestically the Government have repeatedly abandoned measures to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions, and climate adaptation appears to be a worryingly low priority for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. When the Secretary of State travels to the north-west later today I hope that she will see that that cannot continue.

  Until the 2013-14 winter floods in the south-west, DEFRA had downgraded flood defence as a priority, despite the fact that the Committee on Climate Change warned that flooding represented the greatest climate change risk to the UK. Flood defence maintenance was cut by 20% in 2010. In one year alone, the coalition slashed flood spending by more than £100 million. Does the Secretary of State accept that that left the UK unprepared for extreme weather events? I know that capital expenditure has been announced and is protected, but DEFRA has said that it cannot tell us about the resource funding for flood defence maintenance from 2016-17 to 2019-20 until next summer. I should be grateful if she elaborated on that and gave us a bit more information.

  The hon. Lady is absolutely right about the extreme weather patterns that we are seeing. As we say, that is consistent with climate change trends. Climate change is factored into all the modelling work that the Environmental Agency does, but in the light of this extreme weather we must look at that modelling and ensure that it is fit for purpose for future decisions. We constantly review investment in flood defences. It is important that we remain fair to people across the country, and that the people of Cumbria understand why decisions have been made and get the proper protection they deserve.

  On flood defence spending, over the last Parliament we spent £1.7 billion in capital spending—a real-terms increase on the £1.5 billion spent between 2005 and 2010. Our next six-year programme is £2.3 billion, which again represents a real-terms increase. It is the first time a Government have laid out a six-year programme so that we do not have lumpy bits of flood spending, but commit to a long-term programme that helps to protect the country better. Including the impact of climate change, that is forecast to reduce flood risk by 5% over the next six years.

  “Scientists always shy away from blaming any particular weather event on climate change. But they also point to a basic physical property of the atmosphere: that warmer air can hold more moisture. That means that rising temperatures are likely to lead to storms that may drop more rain—and in more intense bursts.”

  In 2009 the Scottish Parliament unanimously passed world-leading climate change legislation. Using 1990 as a baseline, it committed itself to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 42% by 2020 and at least 80% by 2050. In Scotland, we are doing what we can to foster renewable energy. It is a pity that this Government are removing support for onshore wind. Will the Secretary of State liaise with the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to revisit this? We need to do more to protect our environment.

  There is potential for extreme weather systems to continue to plague the UK. We are lucky in the UK that we have the resources to help as much as we can in preparing for them and helping communities in the aftermath, and I am grateful for the Secretary of State’s comments on that. However, across the world, smaller and poorer countries are going to be far worse hit by the effects of climate change. Today the Scottish Government announced that they will double their climate justice fund by pledging a further £12 million for developing countries to lessen the impact of climate change. What are the UK Government doing to help in poorer countries?

  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change is currently in Paris working to secure a good international deal so that we can deal with climate change on an international level. Of course, we have a very clear carbon budget system in place in the UK.

  [Source]

• 10 Sep 2015: Oral Answers to Questions

  1. What steps the Church Commissioners are taking to support the Church of England’s international efforts to tackle climate change. ( 901256 )

  [Source]

• 9 Sep 2015: Food Waste (Reduction)

  12:41

  It is estimated that about a third of the food produced globally is wasted. That puts pressure on scarce land and resources, contributes to deforestation, and needlessly adds to global greenhouse gas emissions. If food waste were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind the US and China. The sheer waste of our planet’s scarce resources is bad enough, but it is truly shocking that so much good food is going to waste when so many people on our planet are dying from hunger and malnutrition, and so many are living in food poverty here in the UK.

  [Source]

• 18 Jun 2015: Tibet

  14:11

  Tibet was described earlier as an environmental barometer and is sometime called the third pole. Its susceptibility to climate change makes it all the more important that China demonstrates responsible environmental stewardship as part of its welcome international commitments to tackling climate change. With the Paris talks taking place in December, this year is incredibly important for international climate dialogue. China has made some welcome moves towards taking a stronger position in Paris this year, but has Tibet, given its particular environmental sensitivities, formed part of the discussions?

  [Source]

• 17 Jun 2015: Bangladesh

  15:32

  The hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Ms Ahmed-Sheikh) mentioned the important issues of child marriage and tackling climate change. Many of us will today have been lobbied by constituents on the Climate Coalition’s summer rally. It is important that we highlight the impact of climate change on countries such as Bangladesh when urging the Government to make progress in the talks that will happen later this year.

  As the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire said, Bangladesh is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change. It produces just 0.3% of global emissions, but is especially susceptible to cyclones and rising sea levels, which threaten the lives, homes, food and livelihoods of its 160 million people. My hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde and I were at a meeting with climate scientists this morning, and some of the facts and statistics they put in front of us were absolutely frightening. If the world does not act, rising sea levels and global warming will impact on not just such countries as Bangladesh, but every country. That is why we need a strong global deal on the table at the Paris talks later this year. It is also why we need action on climate change when the conference on the sustainable development goals meets in the autumn.

  Bangladesh warned last year that it would need £3 billion over five years to adapt to current climate challenges, including help to build 700 km of coastal defences. If that is not done by 2050, rising sea levels could cover 17% of Bangladesh, displacing millions and potentially forcing 50 million people to flee. If any more incentive were needed—again, the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire touched on this—we need only look at the wider impact of climate change. According to Human Rights Watch, 29% of girls in Bangladesh marry before the age of 15, despite that being illegal. That percentage is higher than in any other country. By the age of 18, 65% of girls are married, in part because of poverty and lack of access to education. Climate change is another driver of that, with parents marrying off their young daughters after losing their home or crops to floods or soil erosion.

  [Source]

• 11 Jun 2015: Food Waste

  15:00

  All that is very welcome, and it is the reason why I wanted to secure today’s debate. However, I want to go back to why reducing food waste is so important. We know that somewhere between 30% and 50% of all food globally is wasted. That surplus has an environmental footprint. It puts pressure on scarce land and resources, contributes to deforestation and needlessly adds to global greenhouse gas emissions. If food waste were a country, it would be the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases behind the US and China. It is also unsustainable if we are to meet the global challenge of feeding a growing population from an increasingly scarce agricultural resource base. It is, of course, indefensible that good food is thrown away when so many are turning to food banks, because they cannot afford to feed themselves or their families.

  [Source]

• 10 Jun 2015: Climate Change

  18:31

  At the weekend I met Action/2015 campaigners in Bristol, with my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), to discuss inequality, poverty and climate change. Tomorrow night I will be meeting members of UK Youth Climate Coalition to talk to them about how they can lobby MPs, and next Wednesday we will be lobbied by those taking part in the Big Climate Summer rally. I hope that this means we are seeing climate change back firmly on the political agenda.

  The Labour Government led the way with the Climate Change Act 2008. The Act has now, in one form or other, been adopted by 99 countries around the world. Since then, however, the UK has stepped off the international stage. We failed to push for a stand-alone climate change goal in the sustainable development goals, we have not secured the ambitious EU targets we need, and at home the Government failed to include a 2030 target to decarbonise the power sector in its Energy Bill.

  Any deal reached in Paris should include a goal to phase out fossil fuel emissions and a transition to a low carbon global economy by 2050. It is very good news that the G7 has decided that the decarbonisation of the global economy should be completed by the end of this century. As a step towards this, will the Energy Secretary commit to phasing out coal without carbon capture technology by 2023?

  May I ask the Minister to comment on last week’s report by a UN panel of experts released to coincide with UN environment day, which ranked products, resources, economic activities and transport according to their environmental impacts? The experts concluded that both energy and agriculture needed to be decoupled from economic growth if we are to meet our climate goals. Agriculture is on a par with fossil fuel consumption because both rise rapidly with increased economic growth. Environmental impacts rise roughly 80% with a doubling of income. That is simply unsustainable. By 2050, global consumption of meat and dairy is expected to have risen by 76% and 65% against a 2005-07 baseline. That is simply incompatible with the objective of limiting warming to 2°.

  [Source]

• 19 Mar 2015: Oral Answers to Questions

  My hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) is claiming the credit for most of the Secretary of State’s answer. I share my hon. Friend’s enthusiasm for the prospects for tidal power in the Severn estuary. When does the Minister expect the strike price to be agreed, which will help to spur the full commercialisation of the sector? Does he share the concern of organisations such as Citizens Advice that the current strike price for tidal lagoon power is higher than that for any major green energy project to date?

  [Source]

• 4 Mar 2015: Urban Food Growing (Planning)

  16:28

  As recent reports by the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have highlighted, the issue is also one of food security, food sovereignty and the UK’s declining self-sufficiency in food. Achieving food security is about building environmental and economic resilience in the face of climate change, using resources more sustainably in the production and supply of food, reducing food waste, lowering high emissions from the food supply chain and promoting healthy and sustainable diets. I am pleased and proud that Bristol is in the vanguard of that movement.

  [Source]

• 5 Feb 2015: Oral Answers to Questions

  The global calculator published by the Department last week found that reducing our meat consumption is essential if we are to reduce our contribution towards greenhouse gases. Everyone from the United Nations downwards has for many years been talking about the contribution of the livestock sector to global emissions. His Department has always ignored this issue, so I urge him now to take action and to tell us what he is doing to encourage people to reduce their consumption.

  [Source]

• 28 Jan 2015: Sustainable Development Goals

  18:33

  I am very pleased that Labour has called this debate to highlight a particularly momentous year for international development, with the launch of the sustainable development goals and the climate change talks in Paris in December. Much was achieved under the previous development framework of the millennium development goals, but much more of course needs to be done. In the time available, I want to concentrate on a few of the goals.

  The food that is wasted, according to Tristram Stuart’s excellent book of 2009, “Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal”, is enough to feed 3 billion people. That would still leave enough surplus for countries to provide their populations with 130% of their nutritional requirements. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that every year the production of food that is wasted generates 3.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases and uses up to 1.4 billion hectares of land, which is 28% of the world’s agricultural area. Globally, the blue water footprint for the agricultural production of food waste is about 250 km 3 , which is more than 38 times the blue water footprint of USA households.

  “The world is on track to avoid dangerous climate change and is less vulnerable to its impacts”.

  Goal 10 is about linking human development with the future of the planet. As has been said, we cannot eradicate poverty unless we tackle climate change. It has an impact in many ways. It affects whether a country can produce enough food to feed its people and whether people can move beyond subsistence farming to being able to make a living from farming. It affects the water supply. For example, we can look at the impact that climate change and glacial melt are having on the mountainous areas of Nepal and Tibet, which are sometimes described as the third pole because they make up the third biggest ice mass after the Arctic and Antarctic. It causes natural disasters that range from droughts to floods and that include typhoons, tropical storms and landslides due to soil degradation.

  Yesterday, I met seven of the eight ambassadors and chargés d’affaires from central American countries and last week I met the high commissioner from the Maldives. Those countries see the impact of climate change on their lives on a daily basis. The Maldives might no longer exist if we do not meet the 2° target. That is why what happens in Paris at the end of the year is so important.

  I have asked the Secretary of State at International Development questions about the Government’s commitment to a stand-alone climate change goal. I admit that I am still slightly confused. I have heard from other people that we will probably accept all 17 goals. However, in her response to me, the Secretary of State suggested that she would prefer to see sustainability mainstreamed across the post-2015 framework. I agree that it is important that the issue is mainstreamed, as it ought to be across all Departments in the UK, but that does not mean that there is no need for a lead Department on climate change in the UK. In the same way, I believe that a stand-alone sustainable development goal on climate change would help to focus minds, keep the issue firmly on the agenda and ensure that we do not drop the ball on what is a very important issue.

  [Source]

• 18 Dec 2014: Oral Answers to Questions

  The Prime Minister said at the Liaison Committee this week that his party would scrap subsidies for onshore wind after 2015 and he did not expect any more to be erected without subsidy, but onshore wind is one of the cheapest forms of green energy. Does the Minister not agree that an essential part of trying to reduce energy bills is having onshore wind as part of the mix?

  [Source]

  Analysis by climate change scientists of pledges made by Governments at Lima shows that the world is currently at risk of experiencing about 3° C of global warming. What can be done to reduce the global ambition gap on emissions by the time of the Paris summit, so that we do not cross the 2° C threshold?

  [Source]

• 10 Dec 2014: Tibet

  10:38

  I want to touch briefly on environmental considerations, which have not been mentioned. Tibet is often referred to as the third pole, as it is home to the largest concentration of ice and glaciers outside of the Arctic and the Antarctic, providing an invaluable water source but also making Tibet especially vulnerable to the impact of climate change, and meaning that Tibetans face the threat of forced migration. China’s new commitment to action on climate change and its agreement with the US provide welcome leadership on the international stage. Talks are going on in Lima, leading up to Paris 2015, but it is important that China demonstrate responsible stewardship in Tibet and look after the environment there. I would be grateful if the Minister updated us—he can do this in writing, because he has a lot of questions to reply to—on any talks the Government have had with the Chinese authorities about the Tibetan environment and Greenpeace’s report earlier this year exposing illegal mining on the Tibetan plateau. Greenpeace says that that operation covers 14 times the area of the City of London, and it believes that the mining violates water protection laws.

  [Source]

• 5 Nov 2014: Oral Answers to Questions

  I thank the Secretary of State for that response. Does it mean she supports the inclusion of climate change or a climate-related sustainable development goal as a stand-alone goal, or is this just something that she sees factored into other elements that will be in the goals?

  [Source]

• 22 Oct 2014: Hong Kong

  15:35

  I am sure that the Minister will agree with me that the UK Government should not seek to interfere in China’s affairs, but we do have a role to play in safeguarding the principle of one country, two systems, which has worked so well since 1997. Building a constructive, multi-faceted relationship with China that allows our two countries to work together in pursuit of common objectives—so yes, to support our trading ties, our economic and cultural links, and to work with them particularly closely on issues such as climate change—is very important, but it is also important that we have a relationship with China that allows us to engage on areas of disagreement too, including raising human rights concerns.

  [Source]

• 12 Sep 2014: International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

  11:52

  Today I will focus on an issue that was touched on briefly by the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk—that of climate change and the need for overseas development assistance to be directed towards the countries that are most at risk to help with adaptation and mitigation. As the shadow Secretary of State for International Development said on another occasion:

  I have just returned from three days in El Salvador with my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker), the shadow Minister for International Development, and Christian Aid. That country is the fourth most at risk from climate change. El Salvador is not currently in receipt of DFID funding, but much of what I have to say is relevant to countries that are.

  As I said, El Salvador is not in receipt of DFID funding, but some countries that do receive it are also at risk from climate change. In Kashmir, 460 people have died in monsoon floods and 1 million people have been displaced from their homes. Countries such as Bangladesh, the Philippines, Malawi, Kenya and many small island states are also extremely vulnerable. Of the £12 billion the UK spends on ODA each year, about £500 million is officially classified as climate finance. I will make the case for continuing to fund those projects and, indeed, for strengthening them.

  The region’s climate vulnerability is worsening. The UN report on climate change identified three challenges for central America: to resolve high levels of socio-economic and environmental vulnerability; to promote climate change adaptation; and to move towards sustainable, low carbon economics based on renewable sources.

  Now is a critical time in addressing this problem. The world is looking to secure a new climate deal in Paris in December 2015. A new framework of post-2015 sustainable development goals will be agreed next year by the UN to replace the millennium development goals. It is important that climate resilience and disaster risk reduction are included in those goals. Thirdly, the Hyogo framework for action, which is the globally agreed approach to managing disaster risk reduction, will be replaced after 2015 with a new resilience framework which needs to address the challenges posed by disasters, climate change, natural resources management, conflict and poverty in an integrated way. It is not just about mitigation and adaptation—introducing climate-resilient crops, early warning systems, protection from flooding and the other things I have mentioned—but about developing a rights-based approach and about climate justice.

  The countries most at risk from man-made climate change are not those responsible for causing it. They have much smaller carbon footprints than developed industrialised countries—countries in which multinational companies, particularly in the extractive and farming industries, exacerbate the problem by displacing people from their land, replacing sustainable agriculture with monocrops, deforestation on a massive scale, and the use of pesticides that infect the water supply and much more.

  Much more is to be done across the world to protect, strengthen and enforce climate rights. We heard disturbing accounts of how the central America free trade agreement has made it difficult for El Salvador to promote native seeds, which is part of the effort to reinstate organic farming, and to ban the import of pesticides. That is surely wrong. As part of the fight against climate change, we must also consider broader issues such as how we can encourage a different, more sustainable model of development in countries benefiting from ODA.

  The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech about the way the world’s poorest people are those most likely to be affected by climate change. I am sure she is aware that 75% of the population of Bangladesh is at risk from rising sea levels. Does she agree that one way we can help a country such as Bangladesh become more sustainable is through development assistance to build resilience in those communities, with early flood warning systems and adaptations to the way people live, so that lives can be saved?

  The right hon. Lady is entirely correct and I am pleased she is speaking in this debate. Bangladesh is the country most vulnerable to climate change in the world, and adaptation is an important part of the issue, particularly with things such as early flood warning systems. We saw those in practice in El Salvador—perhaps we need to look more at that for certain parts of the UK as well. Adaptation with, for example, drought resilient crops and changing agricultural methods so that people can cope with extreme weather conditions—whether that be drought or huge rainfalls—is important, and DFID has a major role to play in supporting that through some of our agricultural expertise.

  To conclude, the fight to tackle climate change, increase climate resilience and protect vulnerable communities from climate risk must be a central part of DFID’s work, and the importance of that work is one reason why I speak today in support of enshrining the 0.7% target in law. As a first step, we need to make progress on climate finance, on the commitments made by Heads of State at Copenhagen and the creation of the Green Climate Fund, and on mobilising $100 billion a year of climate finance by 2020. UK NGOs, led by Oxfam, are asking that the UK Government pledge $1 billion as a “fair” contribution to the Green Climate Fund, spread over three years. That should be possible because the UK has about £1.8 billion left to play with in the international climate fund, which is where the contribution would come from.

  [Source]

• 19 Jun 2014: Oral Answers to Questions

  I welcome the Secretary of State to Bristol tomorrow for Big Green week. I think we will be having dinner together. [Hon. Members: “Ooh!”] The shadow climate change Minister will be there, too!

  [Source]

  At Copenhagen, world leaders made commitments to the creation of a green climate fund and to mobilising $100 billion a year of climate finance by 2020. However, it is not clear how much progress has been made in securing this funding, and developing countries have said that they cannot set their emission targets until they know. Will the Minister please tell us what is going on?

  [Source]

• 17 Jun 2014: Oral Answers to Questions

  Despite the concerns of some about Prime Minister Modi’s nationalist past, his record of delivering economic growth in Gujarat is undeniable—and is, indeed, in no small part the reason why he was elected in the hope that he could replicate that across India—but such rapid development must be sustainable. The Foreign Secretary did not mention climate change in his list of things he intended to discuss with the Indian Government. What can the UK do to encourage India to play a full and constructive role in forthcoming international climate talks?

  [Source]

• 13 Mar 2014: Commonwealth Day

  15:23

  The final issue that I want to flag up is the need for collective action on climate change. The Commonwealth is an appropriate forum for that, although we should be doing it on a wider scale, too. Bangladesh tops the climate risk index as the country most affected by climate change. India is in the top 10 as well. In the Maldives in 2009, as people might remember, then President Nasheed held his Cabinet meeting underwater with scuba gear to try to focus the world’s attention on the grim reality of climate change. Countries such as the Maldives could be entirely submerged underwater within just a few generations with just a 1 metre rise in sea levels. The Maldives are the lowest lying country in the world, with an average height of less than 1.3 metres above sea level.

  The challenge of climate change is not something that any state can overcome alone. The Commonwealth must renew efforts to press for multilateral co-operation and concerted collective action to reduce carbon emissions, to limit rises in sea levels and to safeguard habitats. At CHOGM, Australia and Canada disappointingly declined to support a green capital fund. Last month, GLOBE International published a report on 66 countries’ climate change laws and highlighted that only the Australian Government sought to repeal national legislation in the past year. Australia and Canada are the only nations to have reversed significant climate laws since GLOBE International began its monitoring four years ago. Will the Minister tell us whether he agrees with Lord Deben, the former Conservative Secretary of State for the Environment, who said that Australia’s move was

  By contrast, the report noted Kenya’s new climate change plan. Kenya, along with Mozambique and Nigeria, was included among the eight countries to have passed flagship legislation. Tanzania passed a national strategy and Rwanda was noted for including climate change and the environment as a cross-cutting issue in its economic development and poverty reduction strategy. The report concluded that the momentum for climate change legislation is moving from the wealthier, industrialised nations to emerging economies. I hope that the Minister agrees that all Commonwealth nations need to work together, as set out in the Commonwealth charter, to protect the environment through

  “multilateral cooperation, sustained commitment and collective action…and facilitating the development, diffusion and deployment of affordable environmentally friendly technologies and renewable energy”.

  Will the Minister update us on how the Government are pushing for more action from the Commonwealth on climate change? To what extent is there is a consensus on the scientific facts of climate change and concerted action? I am particularly worried by reports that Prime Minister Tony Abbott is seeking to abolish Australia’s independent Climate Change Authority. Its chairman has reportedly said that the “bad guys” are winning the climate change debate with “brazen falsehoods”, “untruths” and “misinformation”. It is essential that the UK plays a global role in challenging the misinformation and efforts to dismiss climate change science, not least within our own country.

  [Source]

• 11 Mar 2014: Energy Company Obligation

  15:50

  About 5,500 jobs were lost in the insulation industry nationally as a result of the poor transition from CERT and CESP to the green deal and the ECO, and a number of firms went to the wall. The constant chopping and changing causes considerable uncertainty in the sector. The Department of Energy and Climate Change has acknowledged that the recent proposed changes are creating uncertainty, which is affecting delivery on the ground and has resulted in a contraction in demand. That particularly affects areas outside London and the south-east, such as Bristol, where the market comprising small and medium-sized enterprises and sole traders is important for job creation and economic growth.

  The Government’s two flagship energy efficiency policies, the green deal and the ECO, are simply not strong enough devices for improving the energy efficiency of Britain’s housing stock and tackling fuel poverty. In the UK, we have some of the most draughty, poorly insulated housing stock in Europe. Statistics from the shadow DECC team show that a home in Dudley uses four to five times more energy than a typical house in Malmo, Sweden, where the temperature is 7° C colder on average. Figures from the Bristol-based Centre for Sustainable Energy show that there are 5,857 households living in fuel poverty in Bristol East alone.

  [Source]

• 19 Nov 2013: UK Relations with China

  15:12

  Given China’s rising global standing, the importance of a strong bilateral relationship cannot be overstated. That is why the Labour Government published a UK-China strategy on a framework for engagement in 2009, covering China’s growth, including boosting our business, educational and scientific links; the need to foster China’s emergence as a responsible global player, including action on climate change; and promoting sustainable development, modernisation and internal reform in China. Human rights was very much part of that third element, and I will come to that later.

  The Foreign Office should seek to engage better with China on a range of issues, including climate change, technology and international issues such as the middle east and Africa. We must recognise that our EU allies are also working to strengthen their ties with China. Germany’s exports to China far exceed the UK’s and so, to a lesser extent, do France’s.

  Although China has ratified the Kyoto protocol, it is not required to limit emissions, as a non-annexe 1 country. We cannot ignore the environmental implications of China’s sheer size and rapid economic development. It currently has the highest carbon dioxide emissions in the world—more than the USA and India combined. Although its cumulative footprint is obviously not as great as that of countries that developed much longer ago, evidence suggests that China’s greenhouse gas emissions are rising by 10% each year. To its credit, China has taken some positive action in recent years, with greater use of environmental regulations and advances in mitigation techniques as a result of the development of its technical expertise. There has been considerable investment, for example, in alternative energy, but despite that, the country is still heavily reliant on coal.

  China is particularly vulnerable to the impact of climate change, with increasing temperatures and rising sea levels a threat to its long coast line. Glacier melt in Tibet is also a serious concern. Furthermore, the World Bank has estimated that China is home to 16 of the 20 most polluted cities. Interestingly, there have been dramatic increases in environmental protests in China, and surveys indicate considerable support for more robust environmental regulation.

  Encouragingly, there are signs that the Chinese Government are responding. Chinese Ministers have confirmed to GLOBE International—I believe they are meeting at the moment—that they will introduce comprehensive legislation on climate change over the next two years. It is imperative that the UK and the wider international community engage with China to secure its involvement in global efforts on this front.

  As I have said, climate change must also be on the agenda. In preparation for the visit, I hope that the Prime Minister will not only liaise with UK businesses, but consider the opportunities provided by our place in the EU and by our close ties with the US, looking beyond commercial factors to see the wider contribution that China can make to the global community.

  [Source]

• 23 Oct 2013: Greenpeace Activists in the Russian Federation

  10:38

  Oil drilling in the Arctic is deeply contentious and it is right that we discuss not just the plight of the people held in jail in Murmansk but why the Greenpeace activists felt compelled to take the personal risk of protesting at the Prirazlomnaya oil rig in the harsh Arctic climate. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as anywhere else on the planet. Last September, the extent of the ice cap was at a record low and the Environmental Audit Committee advised in its excellent report that we need to re-examine the risk of a summer collapse. It also warned that a number of tipping points are approaching “with potentially disastrous consequences”. The tragic irony is that melting of the ice caps provides greater opportunities for oil and gas exploration, which will then further accelerate climate change.

  [Source]

• 18 Jul 2013: UK Shale Gas

  15:29

  The written ministerial statement issued by the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change on 13 December 2012 acknowledged instances of water contamination outlined in reports by US regulators and review bodies, which he said confirmed

  The hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys), who is Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), said that planning applications for shale gas

  [Source]

• 1 Jul 2013: Finance Bill

  21:15

  My hon. Friend is, as ever, making a powerful case. We see the mismatch between the rhetoric and the action of the Government on other issues such as climate change; they claim to be the greenest Government ever, yet they do not implement measures such as the decarbonisation targets. Is he aware that, after the Prime Minister spoke at the G8 saying that he would tackle the tax issue, the Finance Bill Committee refused to consider amendments on the issue? Enough Food IF said:

  [Source]

• 26 Jun 2013: Beef Cattle and Sheep (Carbon Footprint)

  15:17

  In 2009, a report was produced called “How Low Can We Go?”. It was co-authored by the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Food Climate Research Network set up by Dr Tara Garnett, who is now at the university of Oxford. It gave scenarios in which cuts in food system emissions would mean we could reduce the total UK carbon footprint by 20%—that is, make a 70% cut in the UK food carbon footprint, which is currently about 30% of the UK total. It concluded:

  to cut greenhouse gas emissions

  Another relevant paper was called “Public health benefits of strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions: food and agriculture” and was published in The Lancet in December 2009. It was a collaboration between the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University, Canberra, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Food Climate Research Network and the London International Development Centre. I am sure that hon. Members do not need me to tell them that work published in The Lancet is peer-reviewed. I would say that that is a considerably more rigorous process than the all-party group inquiry that we have heard about. The paper concluded:

  “Agricultural food production and agriculturally-related change in land use substantially contribute to greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide. Four-fifths of agricultural emissions arise from the livestock sector. Although livestock products are a source of some essential nutrients, they provide large amounts of saturated fat, which is a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease. We considered potential strategies for the agricultural sector to meet the target recommended by the UK Committee on Climate Change to reduce UK emissions from the concentrations recorded in 1990 by 80% by 2050, which would require a 50% reduction by 2030. With use of the UK as a case study, we identified that a combination of agricultural technological improvements and a 30% reduction in livestock production would be needed to meet this target”.

  [Source]

• 4 Jun 2013: Energy Bill

  12:45

  The element of perceived political risk is leading investors to seek higher returns from their investments in the UK energy market. Higher returns to investors mean higher prices for consumers. Amendment 11 directly addresses these issues. By itself, it would not immediately alter the low-carbon pathway on which the Government have already embarked, most notably in its acceptance of the fourth carbon budget. However, the prospect of the fourth carbon budget being watered down in next year’s review is simply another unwelcome uncertainty. The amendment would remove that uncertainty by requiring the Secretary of State to set, no later than 1 April 2014, a decarbonisation target for 2030 for electricity generation.

  As currently drafted, the Energy Bill gives the Secretary of State a power to set a decarbonisation target for 2030, but it does not compel him to do so. It also prevents him from exercising that power before 2016. Suggestions that the amendment would force him to set the target at 50 grams per kWh in 2030 are mistaken. It would merely require him to set it in accordance with advice received from the Committee on Climate Change. There is nothing in the amendment that would require him to set a particular figure. If the Committee were to recommend a figure higher than 50 grams per kWh, the Secretary of State would have to heed that advice. If he did not do so, he would have to explain why.

  The Committee on Climate Change itself would not have a completely free hand in determining its advice to the Government. It would still have to take account of all the matters referred to in clause 2(2). I remind the House of five of those key points. The Committee would have to take account of

  “scientific knowledge about climate change…technology relevant to the generation and storage of electricity…economic circumstances, and in particular the likely impact on the economy and the competitiveness of particular sectors of the economy…fiscal circumstances, and in particular the likely impact on…public borrowing”

  I am not sure that I completely follow my right hon. Friend’s concerns. Those points in the Bill will simply ensure that, in the event of an unexpected substantial change in economic circumstances or the emergence of a new technology, the Committee on Climate Change would have an opportunity to review its advice. Indeed, I would hope that it would want to do so in normal circumstances anyway. Moreover, investors are accustomed to having to adjust their decisions and expectations in the light of changing events.

  I am seeking, through the amendment, to remove another element of uncertainty. I want to ensure that the Government’s current commitment to moving down a pathway of slowly decarbonising the British economy and reducing its dependence on fossil fuels, which is particularly relevant to the electricity generating industry, is reinforced by accepting an obligation to set the target in secondary legislation during the next 10 months. I believe that that would be wholly helpful to investors. It would give them a more secure and predictable framework in which to make their decisions, as well as having an effect on the returns that they might expect.

  The amendment is not so revolutionary as some people seem to think. It seeks to bring forward by a couple of years something that the Government are contemplating doing anyway. If it is true, as the Secretary of State said yesterday, that we are heading for a substantial decarbonisation of electricity anyway—I am sure that, if he said it, it must be true—what possible objection could there be to the amendment? There is now widespread support for such a measure. Only two weeks ago, the Committee on Climate Change published a report recommending that a target for reducing carbon emissions from electricity generation by 50 grams per kWh to 2030 should be set in legislation, with the flexibility to adjust it in the light of new information. The amendment provides for precisely that.

  I am listening closely to what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Does he agree that the purpose of setting a decarbonisation target now is surely related to the supply chain? Companies are looking at bringing developments on stream around 2020, as many of them have a long lead-in time, and they want to know now that there will be a market for them after that date.

  “target range of 50-100g of CO 2 per kWh for the decarbonisation of power sector in addition to existing carbon reductions.”

  [Source]

• 10 May 2013: Jobs and Business

  13:44

  On the question of carry-over Bills, the Government have confirmed that they will carry over the Energy Bill. However, that Bill needs extensive changes to address not only the reality of rocketing fuel bills, which I have mentioned, but the issue of climate change. Again, anything on that issue is lacking in the Queen’s Speech. There is nothing to suggest that the Government want to be the greenest Government ever. There is little that will do anything to promote green investment and green jobs. That is a real missed opportunity.

  The thing most notably missing from the Energy Bill is a target for decarbonising electricity by 2030. By putting off the decision about decarbonisation until 2016, after the next general election, the Government are locking our economy into increasingly expensive gas, which is bad for carbon emissions and for energy bills. The Committee on Climate Change has said that the gas strategy set out by the Chancellor in December is “completely incompatible” with the UK’s legally binding carbon emissions targets, and should be “plan Z”. I wonder whether the Government have any intention of decarbonising our power sector by 2030. I also increasingly doubt their commitment to meet our legally binding carbon target of reducing our carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. Again, there was nothing in the Queen’s Speech to help us move towards that.

  As I mentioned, the one thing that the renewable energy sector needs to enable it to create more jobs and encourage investment is confidence that the Government are committed to renewable energy and will support it over the long term. The lack of a target also puts the sector in a difficult position in that regard. It is deeply disappointing that the Government do not capitalise on a golden opportunity to drive economic growth and create jobs. A CBI report published in July showed that the UK could become a global front-runner in low carbon, adding £20 billion to annual GDP by 2015, and that a third of the UK’s economic growth from 2012 to 2013 came from green businesses. As the former Energy Minister, the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), has said, extending uncertainty about that until 2016 will lead to higher capital costs and higher energy bills. That is backed by the Committee on Climate Change, which has said that

  [Source]

• 14 Mar 2013: Commonwealth Day

  15:54

  The charter highlights levels of poverty in many Commonwealth countries and the threat of climate change, emphasising the need for sustainable development and the duty to protect the environment. It includes access to health, education, food and shelter, essentials that some Commonwealth citizens can now take for granted but that remain unobtainable for far too many. In many ways, the charter illustrates the diversity, and indeed inequality, within the Commonwealth. It could provide a basis for reducing the inequality while continuing to respect and celebrate the diversity. I agree entirely with the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden that we should not enforce exactly the same criteria across the Commonwealth; we should tolerate diversity within the Commonwealth and accept people’s right to their own way of doing things. However, in some areas, we must try to unify the Commonwealth around a certain set of values.

  [Source]

• 7 Feb 2013: Protecting the Arctic

  14:00

  Many of us have seen—I always have to get in a plug for the BBC’s natural history unit, which is based in Bristol—on the “Frozen Planet” series some of the wonders of the Arctic. Some years ago, I was fortunate enough to visit Svalbard as a guest of the Norwegian Government, which was incredibly eye-opening not only in understanding the geopolitics of the region and the way in which the Arctic states work together but in seeing first hand some of the effects of climate change.

  Climate change is having more of an impact on the Arctic than anywhere else; the report highlights that the Arctic is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet and fast approaching several tipping points, which would have worldwide ramifications. As has already been mentioned, it is deeply ironic that the climate change that is damaging the Arctic is also opening up the area for the north-west shipping routes and greater exploitation of the Arctic’s oil and gas resources, fisheries and minerals, because global warming is causing the ice cap to melt. The consequence of allowing that opening up is to accelerate the climate change that caused the ice cap to melt in the first place. This is a difficult issue to resolve, but how do we balance the need to protect the Arctic environment with the desire of the Arctic states, the oil and gas companies and others to exploit the region’s natural resources—the fossil fuels, other minerals and fisheries—and to open up new shipping routes?

  In his response, I hope that the Minister will also outline what he sees as the UK’s role in the Arctic and what contribution we should make. We are not a member of the Arctic Council, but we have observer status—one of only six states to have permanent observer status—and we are a close neighbour, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) mentioned. We have a long history and strong environmental, political, economic and scientific interests in the region, so what does the Minister see as our role in future? It is worth noting as a general point that climate change poses the biggest threat to the Arctic environment, yet we are the ones causing it. We have a responsibility to deal with the issues, because the consequences will be felt globally. Climate change is caused by global factors, it is not a matter for the Arctic states alone to resolve.

  I want to say a little more about the impact of climate change. The Environmental Audit Committee heard evidence that the current situation met the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s definition of “dangerous change”, and an expert witness said:

  The report notes evidence that climate change is

  The report details some key tipping points, which are points at which rapid changes take place out of all proportion to the climate change driving them. When those points are reached, the climate change effects on the Arctic might be massively accelerated. The tipping points include the Arctic becoming ice-free in the summer within a decade or even sooner. The retreat of the ice cap, in both extent and density, is accelerating. The Arctic Methane Emergency Group reported to the Committee that

  A particularly alarming potential tipping point identified by the Committee—I admit that I was not that familiar with it previously, and I found this section of the report quite shocking—is the thawing of permafrost, which would cause the release of methane, a greenhouse gas that does not get the attention that carbon dioxide emissions do, but has a warming effect 72 times more than CO 2 has over 20 years. The report acknowledges the lack of consensus on how close we are to those tipping points, but the direction of travel is not in doubt. As was noted by the Committee, geo-engineering for the Arctic does not currently offer a credible long-term solution for tackling climate change. A more realistic and lower risk intervention would be to tackle black carbon, and I hope that the Minister will say something about that in his response.

  Will the Minister respond to those projections in the latest “World Energy Outlook” report? Will he also set out in more detail how the Government’s position is consistent with their decarbonisation targets and what the chances are of keeping global temperature rises below 2°C?

  [Source]

• 1 Nov 2012: Common Agricultural Policy

  14:36

  If the concerns raised by environmental organisations are not addressed, there is a danger that the CAP, which has demonstrably made some progress over the past 20 years—albeit painfully and slowly at times—could, as part of a process intended to improve its environmental performance, perversely be taken backwards. I am glad to say that there is general agreement on the need to green the CAP, which I regard as absolutely necessary if we are to achieve three objectives: first, to support more long-term sustainable food production; secondly, to address the ever-increasing challenge of global food security; and, thirdly, to meet our environmental goals, which range from halting and reversing biodiversity declines by 2020, to meeting our climate change targets.

  [Source]

• 11 Jul 2012: Oceans and Marine Ecosystems

  11:00

  The health of the oceans, however, is under threat. Organisations such as Greenpeace, with its “Defending our Oceans” campaign, the World Wildlife Fund—WWF—and many others have been campaigning to raise awareness of the findings of marine scientists, which I hope to give expression to in this Chamber. The findings in the IPSO report published last June are particularly shocking. It said that the seas are degenerating faster than anyone had predicted because of the cumulative effect of a number of severe individual stresses—from climate change and sea water acidification to widespread chemical pollution and gross overfishing. In particular, it said that the world’s oceans are facing an unprecedented loss of species, from large fish to tiny coral, comparable to the great mass extinctions of prehistory. Approximately 90% of the big predatory fish in our oceans, such as sharks and tuna, have been fished out since the 1950s. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that 85% of global marine fish stocks are fully exploited, overexploited or depleted, a subject to which I shall return.

  Marine protected areas, which have been mentioned, are underwater national parks that help areas to recover and rebuild, and help fish stocks to be replenished and marine ecosystems and coastal communities to have breathing space and better protection from the effects of climate change. Just before Rio, Australia announced its plan to create the world’s largest network of marine reserves, an area encompassing one third of its territorial waters, where fishing will be restricted and oil and gas exploration banned in the most sensitive areas.

  I was just about to come on to the subject of the UK’s marine conservation zones. If we are to try to encourage other countries to sign up to marine protected areas, we need to get our own house in order. The Government have delayed designating any new marine conservation zones until 2013, failing to fulfil the promise they made at the 2002 Earth summit to do so by 2012. They are now shifting the goalposts by raising the evidence bar for designation. There is real concern that the Government may be preparing the ground for designating between just 27 to 40 sites out of the 127 sites that were originally recommended. However, we are already committed to 127 sites, which have had buy-in from all marine industry stakeholders following the regional project consultation, and were recommended where they had the least socio-economic impact.

  [Source]

• 25 Apr 2012: Anglo-Vietnamese Relations

  09:56

  Of course, neither this Government nor the previous Labour Administration have focused solely on aid. The right way forward is to strengthen political and economic links, particularly trade links, between our two countries. That began in 2004, with the first official visit of a Vietnamese Head of State to the UK, followed by the first visit by a Vietnamese Prime Minister in 2008, on which occasion the then Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), signed a joint declaration on partnership for progress. Five priority areas were included in that partnership agreement: trade and investment; development, including good governance, accountability and the rule of law; international issues, including Security Council co-operation and climate change; education; and tackling illegal migration and organised crime.

  As the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire mentioned, economic growth can come at a high cost to the environment. Vietnam, as she said, is particularly vulnerable to climate change; it is among the top five countries most likely to be affected by rising sea levels. Will the UK continue to provide climate change assistance for adaptation and mitigation measures?

  [Source]

• 14 Mar 2012: Food Waste

  12:38

  The Bill is not just about tackling food poverty. By creating unnecessary demand, waste drives up food prices and the surplus puts pressure on scarce land and resources, contributes to deforestation and needlessly adds to global greenhouse emissions. In fact, 10% of rich countries’ greenhouse gas emissions come from growing food that is never eaten. The water used globally to irrigate wasted food would be enough to meet the domestic needs of 9 billion people—the number expected on the planet by 2050.

  [Source]

• 1 Nov 2011: World Vegan Day

  22:27

  I deal now with the environmental case for switching to a vegan diet. The 2006 report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, “Livestock’s Long Shadow”, stated that the livestock industry was responsible for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That is more than the transport sector, including aviation, which produces 13.5%, yet there is a huge public debate about aviation and virtually no debate about livestock. I secured a debate on this issue in Westminster Hall in 2009, and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) subsequently made a valiant attempt to put the Sustainable Livestock Bill through the House, only for it to be blocked by the Government. I hope that the Minister will have time tonight to update the House on the progress of some of the promises that he made when he responded to a speech by my hon. Friend almost a year ago today.

  I conclude with some questions for the Minister. It was disappointing that at the climate change talks in Copenhagen, the environmental impact of the livestock sector was given little prominence. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that this issue has a higher priority on the agenda at Rio next year? Will it also be on the agenda at the climate change talks in Durban next month?

  [Source]

• 26 Oct 2011: Environmental Protection and Green Growth

  18:37

  I want to start by taking issue with a couple of Members who said that we should not get political about this issue. First, I would say, “Try telling that to the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate change and the Chancellor of the Exchequer”, who seem to be in open warfare in today’s newspapers. Furthermore, this is one of the most crucial political topics we face, and if we wrap it all up in warm words and a coat of greenwash without questioning or challenging some of the progress, we will be in danger of letting the whole agenda slide.

  The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) expressed concern about the lack of certainty in relation to feed-in tariffs. Support has already been scrapped for large-scale projects, and it is rumoured that the Government will announce a halving of tariff rates tomorrow. Let me give an example. The Royal Bath and West of England Society was due to develop a solar photovoltaic park, for which it had already received planning permission and which it wanted to use to kick-start a rural regeneration project that it expected to create about 1,500 jobs. It had structured the project on the basis of the expected revenue from profit on the feed-in tariffs. Critically, it was interested in a loophole provided by the Department for Energy and Climate Change that would have allowed the project to proceed if it plugged in 10% of its electricity generation by 1 August 2012. Thankfully, it had not made a decision before the deadline was moved to 18 October 2010. The chief executive, Dr Jane Guise, told us today that “shifting goalposts” were making it impossible to invest in and plan for the future. She also wondered why the Treasury was involved at all.

  [Source]

• 13 Sep 2011: Road Fuel Duties

  12:01

  Before the Budget in March, we called on the Chancellor to review the duty increase, and we welcomed his decision following the example of previous Labour Governments, who had cancelled or postponed rises in duty when circumstances suggested that would be a good idea because fuel prices were putting too harsh a burden on people. We welcomed the 1p cut in duty, but the savings lasted only a short time, and prices at the pump remained high. According to figures published by the Department of Energy and Climate Change this morning, the price of one litre of petrol has increased over the past seven days by 0.38p to 135p and diesel by 0.44p to 139.4p. That makes prices 20p and 22p respectively more expensive than in the equivalent week last year. I am sure that some hon. Members in rural constituencies will say that those average prices do not reflect the real prices in areas that are ill-served by petrol stations.

  [Source]

• 19 May 2011: Oral Answers to Questions

  The Committee on Climate Change has said that the Government should reduce by several gigawatts their target of a 13 GW capacity for offshore wind electricity generation by 2020, precisely because of that expense. Will the Minister assure the House that if that target is abandoned, he will do all he can to ensure that onshore wind farms are not blocked by nimbyism in Tory and Lib Dem-controlled councils?

  [Source]

• 11 Nov 2010: Topical Questions

  As Ministers are no doubt aware, the Sustainable Livestock Bill will be before the House tomorrow. I appreciate that it is led by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs at the domestic level, but what is the Minister doing to ensure that the issue is on the agenda at the international climate change talks?

  [Source]

See all Parliamentary Speeches Mentioning Climate