09:51 Anna McMorrin (Labour)

Legislation that supports positive social and economic transformation has never been more necessary. I firmly believe that my Bill, the green share Bill, as it is known, has so much to offer. It feels like a lifetime ago that, in January, as a Back Bencher, I was lucky enough to have been selected in the ballot for a private Member’s Bill. It was a significant moment: the opportunity to put forward legislation that has the possibility of going the distance, becoming law and effecting change. The turmoil over the past few months has been difficult, and we know that these difficulties will continue as we navigate our way through the covid crisis. There has never been a more important time for this Bill, which supports positive social, environmental and economic change and helps to tackle the climate emergency from the ground up. It is a Bill that delivers that necessary transformation.

We are living through a climate emergency. Innovative green projects within our local communities must be at the heart of our rebuild and the fight against runaway climate change. Yesterday’s report by Climate Assembly UK that was presented to the House highlighted the fact that the public want greater choice and competition for green energy and sustainable services. As we look to rebuild communities post covid, innovative and sustainable projects that create green jobs and apprenticeships, and generate cheaper and cleaner energy and more sustainable living environments, must be a priority for all.

The Bill empowers our communities and investors to do their part in tackling the climate emergency from the bottom up. If we are to help to tackle climate change, we must legislate to enable our communities to rise to that challenge. Top-down approaches from the UK Government alone are not enough, even if they did not fall woefully short of the radical action required. Too often, we have heard the Government make big announcements, but we do not see the delivery of those promises on the ground. Instead of action, we have seen empty rhetoric and missed targets. Instead of climate action, we have seen abject failure and staggering hypocrisy.

Covid-19 presents a significant fork in that road for the UK Government. Do we continue on a path of limited decarbonisation, missed targets and missed opportunities to future-proof environmental legislation, or do we use this opportunity to take a bold approach to rebuilding a more sustainable, resilient world that transitions away from a fossil-fuel driven economy and embraces serious measures to tackling the climate crisis at all levels? We must step up and begin to put the mechanics in place that are needed to deliver on our binding targets, including the Paris climate agreement, our commitment to keep global warming to a maximum of 1.5°C and the UN sustainable development goals that were adopted by the UK in 2015. Action must start now, and the Bill provides an opportunity to transform our communities fundamentally and do just that.

In Wales, the feeling of co-operation and belonging has endured. The values of co-operation, fairness and social responsibility are still with us in our communities, and we need to harness and protect those values and strengths. A lesson that we can all learn from co-operatives, as the current health and climate crisis demonstrates, is the potential for renewal and transformation—for keeping up, adapting and tackling the challenging conditions that lie before us.

This green share Bill is an acknowledgement of the crucial work that co-operatives do and a recognition of the unlimited possibilities that would be available to people and communities from Cardiff to Canterbury, from Manchester to Middlesbrough, if they were unleashed from these archaic restrictions. Co-operatives can be part of the revival again, whether that is coming out of this covid crisis or addressing the catastrophic climate crisis before us, both of which continue to rage in tandem.

“This Bill will really help in terms of unlocking other sources of finance, supporting and strengthening the co-op model. We’ve been amazed at the interest people have shown in renewable energy and co-ops, but any ways of expanding on that and strengthening the model can only be a good thing.”

We face the mammoth task of tackling climate change and transitioning our economy to net zero. It will be particularly challenging to effect climate action at local level, but it is my belief that if we allow co-operatives to expand and bring the community with them, they can help us rise to that challenge.

As the hon. Lady knows, I am a co-sponsor of the Bill. I am very supportive of the principle of co-operatives. On climate change, she said a few minutes ago that Wales had done better than the rest of the UK, citing how it has trebled its renewable electricity production since 2010. That is exactly what the whole of the UK has done as well—it has gone from 6.5% to 20%—so it would be good to recognise some of the achievements of the entire UK as well as those of the Welsh Government.

My Bill is not just warm words on the environment. It would provide a genuine route towards greening our local communities for the benefit of all, creating green jobs, creating green skills, raising capital for the vital retrofitting of housing association stock, and strengthening sustainable and secure sources of good-quality British food and produce from British farms. The list is endless. My Bill is a bid to match co-operative values to the mission of climate action, with communities pooling resources collectively to install and generate energy; taking small steps with huge benefits, such as creating cheap renewable energy, so that no one in the community is left behind by rising energy costs and fuel poverty or priced out of green evolution.

The Bill is about not just the co-operatives of today, but the ones of tomorrow that could be born out of its successes—the co-operative bus and rail companies creating genuinely affordable and environmentally sustainable modes of transport as we decarbonise our roads, or seed capital for communities to take over local utilities. In Wales, we have Dwr Cymru, which is a prime example of a semi-mutual water company run on a not-for-profit basis, with profits invested and recycled solely for customer benefit. I am thinking of co-operative-run social care, childcare and other communal services, as proposed by the Welsh Co-operative Centre in its “better, fairer, more co-operative Wales” report, or even co-operative agriculture, food production, or community zero-waste cafés and restaurants, such as SHRUB Coop in Edinburgh. Action is needed—not empty words and greenwash—and that is what my Bill aims to deliver.

Back in 1844, the co-operative pioneers envisioned a community business model where shared values of sustainability, equality and fairness took priority. Co-operatives can play a major role in helping to rebuild our communities, end fuel poverty, create jobs and foster a sense of community pride in helping to tackle climate change.

Each one of us must play our part in the fight against climate change, but for so many people, the feeling of being able to physically effect change feels remote or expensive. Pundits, legislators and policy makers talk of climate change, quite rightly, as the greatest threat facing us, but many workers are focused only on making it to the end of the month. Climate action often feels distant, but it is our job to find ways of not only solving the crisis, but rooting the solution in the lives of workers and families. It must be viewed as a benefit to their health, wealth and happiness.

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10:21 Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)

It is important to point out that from day one the Government have had a major focus on climate change and encouraged support for many green industries and green initiatives. In fact, as many colleagues regularly mention, the UK was the first major economy to enshrine in law a commitment to hit net zero by 2050 and to introduce a landmark Environment Bill, which places environmental ambition and accountability at the heart of all Government policy and holds subsequent Governments to account if they fail to uphold their environmental duties. Just last year, the Government published a green finance strategy detailing how they intend to support green financial services, accelerate investments in the UK’s clean growth, and encourage a clean global finance market.

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10:36 John Lamont (Conservative)

The Committee on Climate Change emphasised the importance of an environmentally sustainable economy in its 2019 report, “Net Zero: the UK’s contribution to stopping global warming”. The report highlighted the importance of the UK’s providing an attractive green investment environment, noting that Government success in providing clear and stable mechanisms that attract sufficient volumes of low capital will be key to the overall success in reaching a net zero greenhouse gas target. The Committee concluded that the UK is well placed to lead globally on the development of products to finance low-carbon investment. Again, co-operatives and community benefit societies provide one mechanism to achieve that.

It is undeniable that the climate change agenda is critical to the investment landscape. Does my hon. Friend therefore agree that it is a little confusing that green shares will be limited to external investors, and that they should also be available to members?

It is argued that these redeemable shares are important on two levels. The first is the important benefits of environmentally sustainable investment—for example, in the retrofitting of existing housing association homes or the expansion of renewable energy co-operatives. The second is the benefits to co-operatives themselves. Co-operatives UK is just one advocate of such redeemable shares, noting that they could be

Since 2012, sustainable investments have grown by 107% annually as an investment strategy. There is significant growth of individuals who invest sustainably in companies, organisations and funds with the purpose of generating measurable, social and environmental impact alongside financial return. Impacts are spread across various sectors, from renewable energy and climate change to health, safety and community development. The Bill arguably fulfils some of those desires and pivots towards a more sustainable future, unlocking new finance sources through the green shares, which must be invested in an environmentally sustainable way.

As investment trends change, policy such as this drives that change in our culture to adopting socially responsible practices in businesses and industry, and encourages adaptation towards a sustainable investment environment. I hope that this is a step towards changing the sustainability outlooks of other companies and business models. Although, of course, protecting lives and suppressing the coronavirus has been the priority for the Government over the past few months as the virus has devastated many of our communities, that is not to say that we should put the climate crisis on the back burner; it must remain our priority.

As we heard earlier from my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer), the UK has played a world-leading role in tackling climate change. I must challenge some of the opening remarks of the hon. Member for Cardiff North. The transition to clean growth for the UK has demonstrated that we are one of the pioneers in this area. We are the first country to legislate to eliminate our contribution to climate change by 2050, and the fastest in the G20 to cut emissions.

At the same time, the Environment Bill is being introduced to protect and improve the environment for future generations, enshrining in law environmental principles and legally binding targets. The first progress report of the Government’s ambitious 25-year environment plan found that 90% of the priority actions have been delivered or are on track to be delivered. Coal power stations will be completely shut down by 2025, if not 2024. Glasgow will host COP26, coronavirus allowing, putting Britain at the heart of the world’s efforts to combat climate change. We are currently on track to protect 4 million sq km of ocean across our overseas territories before the end of 2020. These are huge achievements in themselves, and I hope the hon. Lady will acknowledge that we are making significant progress, notwithstanding her comments earlier.

However, I am all too aware that there is a need to accelerate work to protect the environment. Innovative ideas to make it more affordable and more accessible to finance environmentally friendly investments are to be welcomed and studied closely, and this Bill gives us that opportunity. Through green shares, we can begin to allow local communities to rise to the climate change challenge and see more level playing fields between co-operatives, community benefit societies and their private competitors.

Just last week, in my own constituency, plans for 50 new jobs were approved in the coastal town of Eyemouth. These jobs will come from the new maintenance base for an offshore wind farm off the Fife coast. Providing skilled jobs or improving towns and villages in other ways, such as in Eyemouth, must be how we tackle climate change. Not only does that ensure that no one is left behind, but it helps to persuade those who are less convinced of the merits of such projects that that is the way forward. Co-ops have a huge opportunity here to play a big part in providing jobs and community benefits.

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10:55 Sarah Jones (Labour)

The green shares Bill would bring about key legislative changes, which I believe would enhance the contribution of co-operative and community benefit societies, to using investment to generate sustainable and inclusive economic development. We must all do our bit to tackle climate change. Every Member in this place will have visited schools, where our young people push us every day to do more and to be more ambitious on tackling climate change. To achieve that change, there must be provision for green investment and finance, as my hon. Friend says, from the bottom up in our communities.

“The government’s warm words on climate change desperately need to be matched by deeds worthy of the scale of the challenge we’re facing. We urgently need to transform how we power our homes, move around, and use our land. We also need to ensure that it is a just transition, in which no community is left behind, and we all enjoy the benefits of changing our economy and society for the better.”

The Committee on Climate Change has underlined the importance of creating the conditions for an attractive environment for green investment to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions. Its 2019 report stated:

“Government success in providing clear and stable mechanisms that attract sufficient volumes of low-cost capital will be key to the overall success in reaching a net-zero”

greenhouse gas target. The committee found that the UK was “well-placed to lead” internationally

Such businesses are the cornerstones of the UK’s social economy and have huge potential to deliver sustainable and inclusive economic development. Across south London, organisations such as South East London Community Energy and Repowering are playing a key role. We can go further and look to other parts of the country. For example, Plymouth has more than 30 energy co-ops, which are providing sustainable energy and local employment and using their surplus to generate community good.

It is vital that we unlock green finance for our co-ops to invest in long-term sustainable projects, and this Bill would be an important step to help communities and investors to create a more sustainable living environment. Primary legislation is much needed to provide societies with the legal tools that would enable co-operatives to thrive. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North said in her excellent speech, covid is a significant fork in the road when it comes to tackling climate change. I urge Members across the House to support the Bill, so that it can be discussed further and amended in Committee, and to empower our local communities to take action and save our climate.

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11:21 Gareth Davies (Conservative)

I also welcome the spirit of the Bill as it relates to climate change, which is close to my heart and something that the Conservative party takes very seriously. As hon. Members know, we have reduced emissions faster than any other country in the G7; we have announced the £2 billion green homes grant scheme; we were the first major economy to legislate to achieve net zero by 2050; and we have generated more electricity from offshore wind than any other country in the world. I strongly support the green focus of the Bill, and I acknowledge that the hon. Member for Cardiff North had a long career in the service of this cause before her election to the House. We need more people with her expertise in the House.

As I said, I support the spirit very much of what the hon. Lady is seeking to achieve. However, I do not believe that the Bill is the right tool to help co-operatives, and to help us move them forward and address climate change.

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11:36 Christopher Chope (Conservative)

The hon. Member is making some important points that we have discussed throughout the development of the Bill. Environmentally sustainable projects are just that—it needs that definition—but can he point to any projects within the co-operative movement that do not meet a sustainable objective? That is in the very values of the co-operative movement. Also, does he not see that we are facing a climate emergency and that unless we take drastic action now, on the ground, and radically transform our economies, we will not succeed?

I will not engage with the hon. Lady on the climate crisis, because I think there is far too much scaremongering going on in relation to that and a lack of realism about the ability of our country, individually, to change the course of the global climate. That is apparent now. We have heard this week that despite the substantial reduction in the global economy, global CO 2 emissions continue to increase and climate change is not being remedied as a result.

That is where I am very much with the hon. Member for Cardiff North, because I think we should be concentrating our resources in this country on adapting to climate change, rather than trying to put our heads in the sand and say, “We’re going to make it go away.”

“to create an innovative, productive and low carbon society which recognises the limits of the global environment and therefore uses resources efficiently and proportionately (including acting on climate change)”.

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11:58 Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)

The Bill outlines that the capital gained from green bonds is to be invested in a way that can maintain and enhance a biodiverse natural environment with healthy functioning ecosystems that support social, economic and ecological resilience. This entails the invested capital being centred around the green economy and climate action, including in new and emerging technologies, renewable energy, transport, housing and waste management. I remind the House that those are areas of considerable Government attention and investment in recent spending rounds, contrary to some of the opinions that we have heard today from those on the Opposition Benches. There are too many achievements to list today, but I am going to name a few relevant examples.

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12:13 Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)

There is a significant focus in the Bill on dealing with the global warming and climate change agenda, which is incredibly important. We only have to see the protests outside to realise how many people are engaged in that, both here in London and across the country. This is therefore an important area that we need to look at, to see how we can support funding and investment in the sector, as well as supporting societies and co-operatives.

(a) to create an innovative, productive and low carbon society which recognises the limits of the global environment and therefore uses resources efficiently and proportionately (including acting on climate change); and

“Our purpose is reimagining energy for people and our planet. We want to help the world reach net zero and improve people’s lives.

Let me touch on a second aspect. As we see climate change and the activism that goes with it reach the peak of our political agenda—it has been there for a long time and we have no expectation that it will leave the agenda in the near future—we must be concerned to some degree about how political activism can impact on mutual societies, co-ops and other membership organisations. I was alerted by what my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) said. In fact, he was highlighting a point about the protection of these organisations, because he would not want an outside player to invest a significant sum and have a proportionate voice according to how much they are investing in the organisation.

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12:31 Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)

I am confident that the Government have already provided a firm, pragmatic approach to tackling climate change while protecting businesses, jobs and communities, as outlined in the Government’s green finance strategy 2019. In my short time in Parliament, I have had the privilege to support this Government as they have taken steps to support sustainable, community-led green economic growth, including by granting greater power to local authorities in this matter.

The Conservative manifesto on which I and my right hon. and hon. Friends stood made ambitious commitments on the environment, many of which placed the emphasis on community-driven initiatives. It is right for this Government, and any future Government, to be held to account over their environmental duties. These will include meeting the net-zero target by 2050 and the long-term, legally binding targets on biodiversity, air quality, water resources, and waste and efficiency that will be established under the Environment Bill.

In the 2020 Budget, the Government’s record of supporting green business was made clear. I am grateful to the Chancellor for outlining a £552 million fund for consumer incentives for ultra-low emission vehicles and a reduction in taxes on zero-emission vehicles. In the Tees Valley, our excellent Conservative Mayor, Ben Houchen, has led on hydrogen-powered vehicles—from cars, buses, trains and lorries to e-scooters—and sustainable, community-driven economic growth. It is clear that, over the coming years, the Tees Valley will become a shining beacon for how businesses can sustainably grow, with the right legislative backing, to pursue local policy for local people. Teesside is also leading the way in carbon capture and storage through Net Zero Teesside, a huge intervention, with global companies coming together to address the green agenda.

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13:02 John Glen (Conservative)

I wish to put it on record that I fully agree with the ambitions of the hon. Lady’s Bill to support the growth and development of the co-operative and mutual sector and to tackle climate change; I have enjoyed our dialogue during the preparation of the Bill to get to this point. Those are two key drivers of my tenure as Economic Secretary. I also wish to put it on record that the Government have taken significant steps to support the co-operative and mutual sector to reach its potential, and I will continue to champion mutuals of all kinds. Just last week, I was pleased to attend a roundtable on the topic of regional mutual banks chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) who has also made contributions today. I will be taking some of the thoughts from that discussion forward.

I am conscious that the interest of the hon. Member for Cardiff North is not just in the development of the co-operative sector. In our discussions, her passion for taking action to address climate change and her considerable experience in Wales prior to coming to this place have been abundantly clear to me. The Government share that ambition. As the House will be aware, we legislated to reduce emissions to net zero by 2050, becoming the first major economy to do so. In the Budget earlier this year, the Chancellor also announced a series of real, tangible measures to support green growth and tackle climate change. They were wide-ranging, and included committing to the carbon capture and storage infrastructure fund; fulfilling the manifesto commitment to tree planting and peatland restoration through a £640 million Nature for Climate fund; delivering on our commitment to increase the proportion of green gas in the grid by consulting on introducing a Great Britain-wide green gas levy to support biomethane production, alongside other measures to decarbonise heat; and doubling the size of our energy innovation programme. In the summer economic update in July, the Government announced a further ambitious £3.05 billion package for housing decarbonisation designed to cut carbon, save people money and create jobs.

In my own area of responsibility at the Treasury, green finance is a priority. We published our green finance strategy in July last year. It sets out very clear objectives to align private sector financial flows with clean, environmentally sustainable and resilient growth, and to strengthen the competitiveness of the UK financial sector. The tone of the debate and the content of colleagues’ speeches today have shown that there has to be an almost limitless ambition in terms of the dimensions of interventions. A number of contributions focused on the issue of green bonds and mobilising green finance. That means accelerating investments to support clean growth and our environmental ambitions. I think I would want to say that the issuance of green bonds will be an important part of the pathway to delivering the transition to net zero by 2050. It is something that the Treasury keeps under active and ongoing review as we approach fiscal events in the future.

To conclude, let me reiterate my sincere gratitude to the hon. Member for Cardiff North for bringing forward this Bill. There has been a constructive discussion today, and it is important to highlight the value of the co-operative and mutual sector, both to the House and the public. I thank her for the way that she has engaged with me and my officials in recent months. Her passion to support the sector and tackle climate change has been clear throughout. As I have indicated to her previously, I will be happy to continue to work with her and representatives from the sector, of which there are a number across the House, to understand what more can be done. I will continue to champion the work of the co-operative sector more generally and address some of the themes of today’s debate, which have been very valid and worth while.

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13:24 Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)

That is polarising the debate just at the time when we need our country to come together around this issue. I think we are winning the argument on this. I think more people than ever before in our country recognise the importance of fighting climate change and protecting our environment. However, when we polarise it and fall into the trap of making it an extreme issue, we put people off.

We need to recognise that we have all been on a journey on this matter. The whole country has been on a journey. Different people are on different parts of that journey at this moment in time, but I believe that generally, as a nation, we are all moving in the same direction: towards being world leaders, perhaps even more than we are today, in fighting climate change.

The hon. Member is right to say that climate change is a great threat to us, and we must focus on tackling it right now in our communities and our economies. What he fails to say, though, is that this Government are set to miss every single international target on climate change. We need to make sure that the action is urgent. The action is needed now.

I understand and in some ways agree with the hon. Member’s point of view, but the point I am making is that when we make this an extreme argument, we put off more people than we win over. That is what I am genuinely concerned about. I have been on this journey too, and I am more passionate now than I have ever been in my life about the need to protect our environment and fight the consequences of climate change.

My plea is simply this. Yes, we want more investment in green technologies; yes, we want more sustainable investment, under whatever model we choose for our economy; but let us do it in a way that is collaborative, seeking the same outcome, and stop polarising the debate and giving in to the extremists. There are many things in the Bill that I wholeheartedly support, but I share many of the concerns that the Minister outlined about the unanswered questions. If we are really going to fight climate change in this country, let us do it together and stop attacking each other over it.

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13:31 Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative)

It is great to follow my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double); he always speaks with great passion, insight and common sense. I am delighted to be called in this heavily subscribed debate—though it is perhaps slightly less so than it was a few minutes ago. As the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) knows, I support the principle behind the Bill and co-operatives and agree that we need to do more on climate change, though I would echo my hon. Friend’s words: we need more consensus. Everyone across the House wants to tackle climate change.

I do not accept the premise that this country is doing badly compared with other countries. It is not true. We are the leading nation among the G20. We can trade facts, of course—Opposition Members can throw facts at me about the performance of the Welsh Government; Conservative Members could talk about the UK Government—but the best thing to look at is the international comparison. A research document produced every year by an organisation called Germanwatch—hon. Members can google it—is the climate change performance index. It indexes every single country around the world. It does not award the first three places, because it says none of us is doing a good enough job, which I think is absolutely right, but it does list every nation, and the UK is fourth. It is updated every year—the hon. Lady should definitely read it—and the only countries ahead of us are Sweden, Denmark and Morocco. Every other country we can name is doing worse than the UK. We should be proud of that.

Of course, we need to go further faster, but we should not belittle the UK’s efforts. In the past year, the UK became one of the first countries to set that net-zero commitment by 2050, and brought forward the date for banning the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles. There is some very significant work going on. We should have a cross-party conversation. Of course, we should all be pushing the Government to go further and faster, but there have been many achievements.

It took us longer to recover from the economic crisis in the UK because of that issue, and the failure of those businesses due to the withdrawal of finance cost us around £40 billion. As I said, during that five-year period, between 2008 and 2013, Japanese mutuals did not reduce finance at all to those SMEs, the German mutuals actually increased the amount of lending to SMEs by 20% and Switzerland’s did so by 30%, whereas in the UK we saw a 25% reduction in lending to SMEs. I can make no more powerful case to the Minister than that for putting the measures in place through this kind of legislation. We should work with the hon. Member for Cardiff North to try to find a way forward for this kind of legislation, which could enable the investments that she and I want to see, whereby the community is investing in renewable energy projects and we are potentially helping to capitalise some of these banks to get them going. I know the Minister has concerns about the regulatory framework and making sure these banks do not cause a systemic risk or endanger investments for deposit holders and the like. Of course we need to work those things through, but there is a powerful case for supporting these regional mutual banks, particularly in terms of SMEs.

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13:45 Mike Wood (Conservative)

As businesses that are owned and run by members, the decision-making process in co-operatives is important, and I am instinctively sympathetic to many principles that the hon. Member for Cardiff North seeks to advance in the Bill. The global challenge of climate change, and changes to our environment at global and local level, are some of the most pressing challenges of our time, and they must be addressed at all levels. As has been said, there is a clear need for action at Government level to support investment in environmentally sustainable and green schemes. Five years ago, the London Stock Exchange became the first stock exchange in the world to launch a green bond segment, which it followed last autumn with its green economy mark and sustainable bond market. That was to find channels, generally at larger company level, to support investment in businesses that are pursuing many of the environmentally sustainable goals that the hon. Lady sets out in proposed new section 29A.

Many years ago, while I was working for a sustainable energy membership organisation, I was involved in helping to conduct a very large piece of work on behalf of the then Government on green investment, particularly on household-generated energy, looking at incentives, attitudes to energy, and what might make the difference in consumer behaviour. While even then, more than a decade ago, there was clearly a lot of appetite among consumers to support the green agenda, it did come down to an expectation of a financial return in quite a short timeframe. I think that the majority of people who may be interested in investing through vehicles such as those the hon. Member for Cardiff North seeks to facilitate will have a similar expectation of a decent return on a relatively short-to-medium timescale. We would have to ensure that such vehicles were financially sound as well as pursuing a clear environmentally and socially beneficial agenda.

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13:55 Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)

I am privileged to be able to take part, even by making a short contribution, in this excellent debate, which has informed us about all the aspects of the Bill. I commend the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) for her strong advocacy for the environment and climate change, which we share across the House. I also note her determination to support British farmers. We all celebrated Back British Farming Day on Wednesday. Stoke-on-Trent Central does not have a large farming community, but food security is a major issue that has come to the forefront in the pandemic.

I have personal experience of this area: the hon. Member for Cardiff North may know Myddfai in the Brecon Beacons, where I helped set up the new community hall using sustainable geothermal heating, photovoltaic tiles and those sustainable things. That was done with a limited company that was a social business, with the help of the Welsh Government. I think we need to broaden the discussion on delivery because, as has been said, we do not want only certain sections of society or the community or certain types of businesses to be mainly responsible for delivering sustainability on the climate change and environmental agenda. It is such an important agenda for all of us that we need to work together on it.

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13:59 Anna McMorrin (Labour)

It was really heartening to hear the overall support for the values and aims of the Bill, with one notable exception: the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), made clear, in his condescending tone and remarks, what he thought. I suppose that that should not come as a surprise from someone who labels climate change as “scaremongering”, but that was the exception, so I thank hon. Members.

I do not attest that my Bill provides all the solutions that we need, but it does provide a legislative blueprint for how communities can work together towards creating a more sustainable green society. While the world’s attention is rightly focused on the coronavirus crisis, the climate crisis rages on and it is my sincere hope that, from this current crisis, we will build a more secure, equal and sustainable future that has transformational change and environmental needs at its heart. That has been highlighted by the scale of the awful covid health crisis that we are currently going through.

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