Tim Farron MP: Climate Timeline

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Tim Farron's Climate-related Tweets, Speeches & Votes

We've found the following climate-related tweets, speeches & votes by Tim Farron in the last 90 days

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• 23 Oct 2024: Parliamentary Speech

  Thirdly, the situation is objectively getting worse. Climate change, higher rainfall, inadequate regulation and failure to invest in infrastructure renewal means that 2023 saw a 54% increase in sewage spills compared to the year before.

  Full debate: Water Companies: Regulation and Financial Stability

• 8 Oct 2024: Parliamentary Speech

  International trade deals are a great way of using our leverage to make sure we advance our agenda on things such as tackling climate change. The previous Government let Britain down massively, conducting trade deals that let us down on farming, on food production and especially on climate change. Will the Secretary of State ensure that this Government use the creation of new trade deals to advance our agenda on tackling climate change?

  Full debate: Climate Change: International Work

• 8 Oct 2024: Parliamentary Speech

  I am here primarily not to say how great the Liberal Democrats are—I am sure that is self-evident—but to state how utterly, unspeakably valuable farmers and farming are. They are valuable for producing the food that we all eat; if Members have eaten anything today, they should thank a farmer. They are utterly valuable in our fight against climate change. They are on the frontline tackling that threat, and are our best answer to the nature and biodiversity crisis that we have in our land. They are the people who protect the towns and villages near the countryside from the expensive and heartbreaking horrors of flooding, and who support and protect our heritage and—in my constituency in particular—underpin our remarkable tourism economy. Across the country, tourism and hospitality is our fourth biggest employer, but in Cumbria, that sector is our biggest employer. Some 60,000 people work within the industry; it is a £4.5 billion economy. Undoubtedly, farming is the backbone, the backdrop and the underpinning of that wonderful and important tourism and hospitality economy. Farmers need to hear that, and they need to hear that they are valued by this place and by this country, because they do not feel that. They feel beleaguered. Yes, beleaguered by things that are beyond our control—the weather, or the global shocks that are undoubtedly causing huge pressure on farmers—but also deeply beleaguered by public and Government policy.

  Farmers in Frome and East Somerset, like many farmers, work tirelessly to produce food for our country. However, does my hon. Friend agree that it is vital to acknowledge the role they also play in restoring nature and mitigating the effects of climate change, and that the Government need to support farmers to develop natural climate solutions to restore nature?

  However, this positive idea with all-party support was botched by the last Administration. There was a £2.4 billion budget for England alone—eroded, of course, over five years by inflation and all the shocks we have talked about—yet even that pitiful budget, which was frozen by the last Government, was underspent by £358 million. What does that mean? It reduces our ability to feed ourselves as country, to restore nature and to tackle climate change. We did not spend the money not because farmers did not need it, but because of a surplus of complacency from a Conservative party that thought the countryside would always vote for it, because of a lack of care for farmers, their families and their communities, and from a fundamental absence of competence.

  Let us concentrate for a moment or two, before I shut up, on what we can do to put things right. First, the Liberal Democrats believe wholeheartedly, as in our costed manifesto, that there should be an additional billion pounds in the budget. We recognise that we cannot restore nature, tackle climate change or produce food on the cheap. We want to use at least some of that money to invest in trusted on-farm advice. A Conservative Member earlier made the point about how much of the EU money went to big landowners, but the problem is that the current situation is even worse. Who is not getting in? It is smaller farmers. If someone is working 90 hours a week on their farm, they do not have time to go and get informed and to engage in the process outside. They need someone they trust on their farm to hold their hand through the process of getting into this new world, so that there is a future for them and for their family. That is where some of that money needs to go.

  Full debate: Farming and Food Security

• 13 Sep 2024: Tweet

  What we need to see now from the new Government is to swiftly make up for the Conservatives’ failure and provide immediate significant investment into long-term jobs in renewable energy in West Cumbria such as tidal. (3/3) [Source]