VoteClimate: Tim Farron MP: Climate-Related Speeches In Parliament

23 Oct 2024: Water Companies: Regulation and Financial Stability

14:30

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.

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8 Oct 2024: Climate Change: International Work

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?

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8 Oct 2024: Farming and Food Security

17:12

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.

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4 Mar 2024: Farming

19:26

Perhaps the most obvious thing that reducing the number of farmers will do is reduce our ability to feed ourselves. This is an absolute nonsense: we have a range of public goods and none of them seems to include providing food for the people of Britain. At a time when we have war in eastern Europe, trade routes disrupted in the Red sea, and climate change rendering land around the world unfarmable, it is utter madness to be taking land out of active food production and reducing our ability to feed ourselves.

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27 Feb 2024: Use of Agricultural Land for Solar

On land use for food production and achieving net zero, has the Minister done an impact assessment of the rising carbon emissions from the UK Government carrying on with their agricultural policy, which is reducing incentives for farmers to produce food? As a consequence, we will import more food. As things stand, we produce only 60% of the food we eat; importing more and more food will surely increase carbon emissions. Has the Minister looked into that, and done an impact assessment of it?

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24 Jan 2024: Hedgerows: Legal Protection

10:05

There are many things we can say, and I will say, about the transition to the new ELM schemes. For those who have been able to get into them, there is the prospect of local nature recovery. Many farmers and landowners are involved in the project from Kendal to Penrith, which will potentially provide a continuous corridor, much of which is based upon the extension and maintenance of hedgerows. It will bring huge benefit to our biodiversity, by tackling climate change, and by providing an improved home for nature. Let us be honest, they are important boundary structures and really effective for efficient land use.

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16 Jan 2024: Nuclear Energy Sector

I, too, am in favour of new nuclear; it is an important part of a balanced green energy mix. Does the Minister share my concern that much of the investment in new nuclear in the UK is coming from overseas companies, and even the Governments of overseas countries, especially given that the emphasis is not just on reducing carbon emissions, but on energy security? Would he perhaps consider other forms of renewable energy, such as tidal power, for which the entire supply chain is British and which would be great for our economy as well as for tackling climate change?

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19 Dec 2023: Sustainable Farming Initiative

11:00

I am proud of our farmers and of the work they do to feed us, care for our environment, tackle climate change and maintain our breathtaking landscapes. I plead with the Minister to take note and to urgently make changes to SFI and to the whole transition, so that we do not irreparably damage people, businesses and our land, just because we did not listen to our farmers.

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28 Nov 2023: Rural Communities: Government Support

17:01

I want to cover many issues we have already talked about, and I will start with farming. Farming is crucial to feeding our country, protecting and restoring our environment, tackling climate change, promoting biodiversity and underpinning the landscape that our tourism economy depends on, but it has been badly let down. Farmers across my community feel angry with this Government for many reasons—including the trade deals with New Zealand and Australia that threw them under the bus—but specifically, as my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome mentioned, the botched transition from the old scheme to the new scheme.

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19 Sep 2023: Renewable Energy Sector: High-skilled Jobs

Would it not boost skills in renewable energy generation and installation, as well as encouraging more uptake, if all those installing solar energy schemes had to be certified under the microgeneration certification scheme so that the householder, farm or business concerned would be guaranteed payment for surplus energy fed into the grid?

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6 Sep 2023: Access to Broadband Services

14:51

We heard about telegraph poles, which are a significant issue. B4RN is a community-run organisation and it can build a fully underground network. It can do that because it is a voluntary organisation and landowners allow it on to their land to dig the trenches. I have been there myself. In Old Hutton, I was digging the trenches—not laying the cable; they would not allow me to do that. Getting dirty and digging holes is just about within my field of competence. However, those landowners will not allow access to their land for free to a commercial, multibillion-pound organisation. Consequently, there is the Fibrus operation and Project Gigabit, whereby large parts of the procurement would use telegraph poles. As Storm Arwen proved, telegraph poles are vulnerable to extreme weather events, which happen often in Cumbria. We are used to weather in the wild, and sadly, with climate change, we expect it to get worse and more intense.

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3 Jul 2023: Road Fuel Prices

15:42

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero and am delighted to see him, but I am disappointed not to see the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I would have thought that this was something that he cared about.

Given corporation tax, carbon taxes, the windfall tax, fuel duties and VAT, is not the bulk of the price at the pump, and of other fuels, now tax-based? Will my right hon. Friend remind us of how much is tax and urge the Chancellor to reduce some of those taxes to cut the cost of living?

There is no doubt that fuel costs are driving up inflation, especially in rural areas. I think the fuel price checker has had a dampening effect in Northern Ireland because the supermarkets are always aware that that they are being looked on. However, does the Minister accept that his Government also have a responsibility? Net zero policies, with all their associated taxes—whether it is the emissions trading scheme, green levies or fuel duties—drive up prices, too. The Government have a role to play in reducing inflation as well as in transparency on supermarket prices.

As the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, that perhaps stretches slightly beyond my brief, but, as those on Treasury Bench will have heard my hon. Friend’s question, I am sure that he will be able follow up with others who have direct responsibility.

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29 Jun 2023: Oral Answers to Questions

How does it help UK Steel to decarbonise, or help the UK to reclaim its position of global leadership in reducing climate emissions, to support the opening of a sure-to-be-doomed new coalmine in west Cumbria?

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27 Jun 2023: Energy Company Obligation Schemes

15:09

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) on securing the debate and making an excellent and detailed opening speech. I also pay tribute to the other contributors, who have spoken well on a really important subject. I am indebted to Cumbria Action for Sustainability for its work in helping to bring homes up to an adequate standard to ensure energy efficiency and lower heating prices, as well as to tackle the climate emergency.

It is estimated that our homes—the ones that we live in—contribute something like 19% of the greenhouse gases emitted by the United Kingdom. In the last two years especially, there have been crushing increases in fuel poverty. Families who may have considered themselves comfortable a couple of years ago now find themselves in dire straits. Mortgage payments and rents are rising, as is the cost of living in general, but the huge increase in fuel and energy costs in the last couple of years has rendered many in a situation where they cannot see where to turn.

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3 May 2023: Environmental Land Management Scheme: Funding for Upland Areas

11:00

Our uplands are precious beyond measure. They are on the frontline in the fight to restore nature and to tackle climate change. They provide us with water for drinking and with the opportunity to protect population centres from devastating flooding. They underpin our tourism economy and are home to our most stunning historic landscapes. They provide food and they enable the flourishing of communities that are as much a part of our heritage as the landscapes that they care for.

Might I suggest that the Government could make one of two choices? First, they could pause the phase-out of BPS to give farmers breathing space to get into the new ELM schemes—and, indeed, to give the Government the breathing space to fix their mistakes and put them right. Or they could choose to turbocharge the introduction of ELMS and demonstrate a commitment to supporting upland farmers to address the nature and climate crises. Throughout covid, we learned that with political will Departments can, at great pace, introduce new schemes to address crises. I suggest that this is a crisis on multiple levels.

Our upland farmers are at the forefront of the fight against climate change, as they restore peatland and woodland, including imaginatively managed woodland pasture. They are crucial to nature recovery and biodiversity: 53% of England’s sites of special scientific interest are in the uplands. All that is at risk because the Government are not listening to farmers, are failing to understand the impact of their actions, and lack the humility to accept where they have made grave mistakes.

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18 Apr 2023: Farming on Dartmoor

15:12

The conflict that has arisen around the higher-level stewardship schemes on Dartmoor common is deeply concerning for everybody involved and for all of us who care about the future of Britain’s vital uplands and moorlands. Our uplands are crucial to our biodiversity and to tackling climate change; they contribute to food production and flood prevention, to our tourism economy and our landscape heritage; and they are crucial to the communities who live there. Indeed, it is the human destocking of our uplands that troubles me even more than the enforced removal of animals entailed in this deeply upsetting stand-off.

In considering how we work with farmers to achieve public goods, we need to remember that arresting biodiversity decline is essential but that it is not the only public good that we must secure. Environmental schemes must also deliver on our climate goals, food security, landscape quality, cultural heritage, flood prevention and water quality. To achieve those vital gains, we will need partnership, which is distinctly lacking in this case. People who work for Natural England in Cumbria are good people, but there are not enough of them. That is surely the case with Dartmoor too.

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8 Feb 2023: Climate Change and Biodiversity

16:47

In the two minutes I have, I want to talk about the uplands. They are massively important to us as a country and hugely important to our communities in Cumbria. They can be a massive contributor to our fight against climate change. They are where we see water management happen; 70% of our drinking water comes from the uplands. Think of the peatland and soils there, which are vital to carbon sequestration.

I am grateful for the intervention. Peatland is hugely significant. It is more quickly restored than woodland and therefore has greater capacity to tackle climate change as a carbon sink. Our uplands are critical. While I support the principles underlining the environmental land management schemes and the transition payment for farmers, I think the ELMs at the moment have badly let the uplands down.

I mentioned the value that the uplands can provide in the fight against climate change and the need to value biodiversity in such an important part of our country. We must also remember how important they are to the landscape—and the economy—of the lakes and the dales. There are 60,000 people who owe their jobs to the hospitality and tourism industry in Cumbria, and we have a £3.5 billion tourism economy.

Based on what the Lake district and the Yorkshire dales look like, it would seem wrong for the Government to—I hope—accidentally transform in a negative way the landscape of our communities, particularly in the lakes. My major ask is that the Minister reconsider the payment rates for the uplands so that we can value our upland farmers and tackle climate change in our most beautiful places.

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25 Jan 2023: Steel Industry: Contribution to the UK Economy

15:23

I will focus on the role of steel in making Britain a sustainable economy. Steel plays a massively significant role in our ability to extend the railways, to ensure we have the green technology to build zero-carbon homes, and to make best use of the natural resources in this country—wind and particularly hydro power, which I will talk about in a moment. But while it is vital to the greening of our economy, we cannot ignore the fact that steel produced with coal is a major contributor to climate change. The steel industry contributes 5% of the EU’s carbon emissions and 7% of global carbon emissions, equivalent to the entire aviation industry. To cut to the chase, the good news is that the amount of steel produced using coal is now down to 70% and that produced by renewable means, in particular using electric arc furnaces, is up to 30% and rising. Increasingly, customers for steel are demanding that it be produced in green and renewable ways: for example, Volvo is now committed to building 100% of its trucks in a fossil-free environment.

Steel is vital to our green economy. As Britain decarbonises with new infrastructure based on steel, let us make sure that we also decarbonise the processes we use to make that steel.

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17 Jan 2023: Oral Answers to Questions

Although the Government are rightly considering the advantages that can be gained from rural and offshore renewable energy, will the Minister also consider the possibility of using tidal power, and particularly tidal turbines? The United Kingdom has the biggest tidal range on Earth after Canada, and we are using nearly none of it. Is it not time to consider this innovative technology? Will she meet me and those seeking to get tidal energy out of Morecambe bay?

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25 Oct 2022: Marine Energy

The United Kingdom has the highest tidal range on the planet after Canada, yet we use so very little of it, especially when we consider that a massive majority of the supply chain for marine, tidal and hydro is British. There are so many jobs to be made out of all this. Will the Minister look particularly at the potential for tidal energy in Morecambe bay? I know that his hon. Friends on both sides of the bay agree with me on this, so will he meet with me and others who are in favour of getting green energy out of Morecambe bay to see whether we can take this forward?

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19 Oct 2022: Ban on Fracking for Shale Gas Bill

17:57

What fracking will do is add another fossil fuel into the mix at a time when we should be keeping all fossil fuels in the ground. Of all the threats that we face as a country and a community, climate change is undoubtedly the greatest, and fossil fuels should be kept in the ground. Fracking will also create massive seismic risk. The north-west of England, Cumbria and Lancashire, are two of the most geologically active places in the country. Fracking is madness. Opting for fracking is divisive and expensive, whereas renewables are popular and cheap.

I have gone on again and again about green energy and hydrogen creation. Hydrogen is green and clean, and we must get serious about this. Does my hon. Friend agree it is vital that all Governments in the United Kingdom work together fast, and now?

When my leader, the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, he was responsible for the United Kingdom increasing renewables by 20% every year, and that dropped by 3% when he left office. The hon. Member is concerned about leaders changing their mind, yet the Conservative party is led by someone with more flip-flops than Benidorm, so we will not take any lessons from the Conservative side of the House. Renewables are the answer. They are quick and they are popular.

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19 Jul 2022: Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (Sixteenth sitting)

10:15

Although I am more than happy to acknowledge the positive steps taken by the Government on flood prevention and mitigation in recent years, such as the publication of the adaptation communication 18 months ago and the investment allocated to improving flood defences up to 2027, it is clear that there has been an absence of cross-departmental working when it comes to addressing the issue explicitly in the Bill. When the adaptation communication was published in 2020, it promised that climate mitigation would be integrated across Government Departments, including, most importantly in this case, infrastructure and the built environment. It is therefore problematic that the Bill lacks any explicit reference to flood mitigation and, indeed, references the term “flood” only once in relation to what charging authorities may spend the proposed infrastructure levy on. It is laudable that mitigating and responding to climate change has been included in the Bill as a new requirement for development plans and spatial development strategies. However, the Bill as a whole does nowhere near enough to address the specific issue of the susceptibility to flooding experienced by so many of our communities.

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14 Jul 2022: Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (Fifteenth sitting)

15:45

‘mitigation of climate change’ means compliance with the objectives and relevant budgetary provisions of the Climate Change Act 2008;

‘adaptation to climate change’ means the achievement of long-term resilience to climate-related risks, including the mitigation of the risks identified in relation to section 56 of the Climate Change Act 2008, and the achievement of the objectives of the relevant flood and coastal erosion risk management strategy made pursuant to section 7 of the Flood and Coastal Water Management Act 2010.”

This amendment requires references to climate change mitigation and adaptation in the inserted sections on plan making to be interpreted in line with the Climate Change Act 2008.

Of all the challenges we face, the most pressing is that of runaway global heating. Despite the desire of several Conservative party leadership candidates to abandon it, there is broad public support for bold climate action, and a strong cross-party consensus about the importance of the UK’s net zero target. Yet, in its latest annual progress report, the Committee on Climate Change found that the current Government’s policies

“will not deliver Net Zero”,

When it comes to planning, one can point to a few exemplar development schemes across England, but, in general terms, we have failed to ensure that the planning system is playing its full part in tackling the climate emergency. Indeed, one might go so far as to argue that it is actively hindering our ability to mitigate and adapt to climate change in myriad different ways, whether that be planning decisions enabling the building of new homes in places prone to flooding or unplanned development resulting in new communities that are entirely dependent on cars. More must therefore be done to ensure that the planning system effectively contributes to the delivery of our emission reduction targets and that new development produces resilient and climate-proofed places.

The amendment seeks to achieve that aim by ensuring that the process of plan making is fully aligned with the commitments set out in the Climate Change Act 2008 and the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. It would do so by clarifying the meaning of climate change mitigation and adaptation in the Bill in such a way as to tie them directly to those Acts, thereby strengthening the duty placed on plan making via a 2008 amendment to the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 that ensured that all plans contribute to the mitigation and adaptation of climate change.

By ensuring that there is genuine coherence between the country’s planning system and its climate commitments, the amendment would also provide the foundation for more detailed national policy on how planning will contribute to achieving net zero emissions by 2050 and mitigating climate change as fully as possible in the forthcoming NPPF review. I hope that, in his response, the Minister will be able to pick that up and provide us with an update on when we might see that issue addressed in that NPPF review.

To conclude, we all know that the planning system must be aligned with net zero if we are to achieve our legally binding interim targets. I can think of no reason whatsoever that proposed new section 15LH, set out in schedule 7, should not be amended to give effect to that objective in relation to changes made to plan making in the Bill. On that basis, I hope that the Minister will accept the amendment.

I, too, am deeply concerned by the noises from some of those seeking to become leader of the Conservative party, and therefore Prime Minister, on issues to do with climate change and net zero. I think that they are unwise, politically. When all is said and done, the public are convinced of the need to take serious and radical action. They recognise it as the biggest earthly threat that we face. We must face it together, or we will indeed fall together.

This is where local authorities have the opportunity to make a huge difference in the planning process. I am going to pull out two examples to illustrate why it is so important for the planning system to be tied very closely to the need to comply with the terms of the Climate Change Act 2008. The first is, of course, zero-carbon homes. When we are building new buildings, whether they be homes for us to live in or business properties, we should ensure that they are all compliant. We know that planning committees currently want to make new developments zero carbon, to ensure that they are contributing to renewable energy and minimising any wastage of energy whatsoever, and yet in the final analysis they cannot do so, because it is not enforceable. This Committee has the ability to make the law so that they could do that. Why would we not do that? Why would we not give communities the power and agency to actually enforce zero-carbon homes and buildings in our communities?

As I said earlier, at some point in August—after an eight-month delay—we expect the inspector to announce whether the UK will open its first coalmine for 30 years, in west Cumbria. We obviously should not do that. We will wait and see what the inspector says, and then we will wait and see what the Secretary of State says in response. It should be a no-brainer. If we are acting in line with the terms of the Climate Change Act, we are not going to be sanctioning the digging up of more fossil fuels for any purpose at all.

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8 Jun 2022: Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

15:21

This is having an impact across the country. Fifty per cent. fewer rentals are available across the country, but there is a 6% increase in demand. Average rents outside London are going up by more than 10%. In the last generation, buying a home was a pipe dream for most people in rural communities and elsewhere. It now appears that even renting a property is a pipe dream for many. Such properties are not available, and they are certainly not affordable. Meanwhile, planning permission is being given for buildings that do not meet net zero and without a compulsion for them to be sustainable and to meet the climate emergency.

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25 May 2022: Agriculture Sector: Recruitment Support

16:55

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for introducing this debate on the hugely important issue of recruitment in the agricultural sector. If we enjoy the benefits of eating food, if we enjoy the environment, if we think tackling climate change is important, and if we think water management and flood prevention or tourism and hospitality are important, then we should be very grateful to our farmers and those who work in agriculture. We should be determined to protect that industry, not do it harm.

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10 May 2022: Debate on the Address

20:38

We should also care because our farmers are on the frontline of tackling climate change and providing environmental restoration. Some 70% of England’s land mass is farmed, so if we care about tackling climate change and the biodiversity crisis, the reality is that the greenest thing that any Government can do is keep Britain’s farmers farming. They are the only people who will make even the greatest plans come to fruition, because the greatest plans in the world will remain just plans in a drawer without farmers to introduce them.

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20 Apr 2022: Glasgow Climate Pact: Businesses

The only net zero that really matters is the one for planet Earth as a whole, so does the COP26 President agree that there is real potential for shooting ourselves in the foot on energy-intensive industries in this country? I am thinking about James Cropper, the paper manufacturer in my constituency that makes the paper for poppies and Hansard , and paper with medical and military applications. If we tax it too much, or if we allow its bills to be so high that it goes out of business, all we will do is export its carbon emissions to other countries. Will he talk to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy about help for our energy-intensive industries in the long run?

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1 Feb 2022: Environmental Land Management Scheme: Food Production

10:04

However, given where the Government are going over the transition to the new payments system, my fear is that that will make the situation worse—in fact, it will clearly make it worse. If we lose farmers, we lose our capacity to produce food. By the way, those who think that there is some kind of a challenge or contest between farming and the environment do not understand either. The bottom line is that nobody can achieve good environmental policies without farmers. We could come up with the most wonderful environmental schemes through ELMS, but they are bits of paper in a drawer if there are no farmers out there to operate them. Farmers are the frontline warriors in the battle against climate change and the battle to establish biodiversity.

We value our farmers and it is important that we do so. They are often wrongly blamed for climate change. Seventy per cent. of England’s land is agricultural, but only 10% of our climate emissions come from agriculture. Let us remember that our farmers are our friends and allies in tackling the climate catastrophe, and not blame them for it.

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16 Nov 2021: Offshore Wind Energy

I welcome what the Secretary of State says about wind power—we are proud in Cumbria to be at the heart of offshore wind—but does that not contrast negatively with the Government still sitting on the fence about commissioning a new coalmine in west Cumbria? Given the incredibly disappointing outcome on coal from COP26, is this not a moment for the UK Government to take a lead and say that the coalmine will not open?

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