Unfortunately I was unable to make this speech in the Commons. Please note I have submitted this.
Thank you Mr. Speaker / Madam Deputy Speaker for inviting me to contribute early in this
important debate today given my other commitments away from this House this afternoon,
and I refer members to my register of interests given my professional background in the
energy industry.
I’d like to thank the Honourable Member for South Cotswolds for bringing this important Bill
to the House today, and to thank her on behalf of Dale Road in Keyworth in my constituency Britain’s Biggest Hedgehog Street – for mentioning the wonderful hedgehog in this chamber
this morning.
This Bill has, of course, had a previous life in a previous parliament, so I’d also like to thank
my Right Honourable Friend, the Member for Leeds Central & Headingley, who continues to
be a brilliant advocate and campaigner in this Place on these vitally important issues.
I also note the role of Caroline Lucas, the former Green Party MP, who drafted the very first
Climate and Nature Bill. One Green Party MP. One Labour Party MP. And now one Liberal
Democrat MP, showing that on many issues in this Place and often contrary to public opinion,
there is and can be common ground between our different political parties.
Sophie from Tollerton
Mr. Speaker / Madam Deputy Speaker, I’d like to start this contribution by referring to my
new friend Sophie. Sophie is eight years old and lives in Tollerton in my constituency of
Rushcliffe.
She wrote to me a couple of months ago about her concerns about the planet, and I’m going
to share the key sections with you now. Sophie wrote: “As you might be aware, the earth is getting hotter and hotter every day. In fact, many of the
hottest years on record have happened in the last few years. The glaciers are melting which is
causing the sea to get higher and there to be more and more floods.”
She continued: “This is a problem for all of us – humans, animals and plant life – as people could drown,
plants wouldn’t grow, so animals wouldn’t have anything to eat.
“If you could reply back to me, I would be very grateful and could then take this letter into
school to explain it to my friends and teacher.”
Mr. Speaker / Madam Deputy Speaker, following dialogue with Sophie’s parents, my office
went one better than sending her a letter and sent me, in person, last Monday, to Sophie’s
primary school to meet her – which, my office has subsequently told me, she described to
her parents as “like being in a dream”. I can assure this House that no one, even my wife, has
ever described me in such terms before!
Sophie was taken out of her class and we spoke for 15 minutes or so about why she wrote to
me and why she cares so much about the environment. She was articulate and passionate
about this issue, and I was pleased to be able to tell her that today, parliament would be
spending several hours talking about the issues that matter most to her.
My experience at Northern powergrid
Mr. Speaker / Madam Deputy Speaker, action on climate and nature is also something that
matters to me and for nine months in 2020 and early 2021, I led the stakeholder engagement
programme for Northern PowerGrid, one of the six Distribution Network Operator groups in
the UK, helping to develop its business plan for 2023-2028.
This meant that for several months, and as a very welcome distraction from the Covid-19
pandemic, I spent many evenings in lengthy Zoom calls, speaking to ordinary residents and
businesses from all over Yorkshire and the North East, chatting about a whole range of topics
from the safety, reliability and availability of the electricity network, to support for vulnerable
customers during power outages, to climate resilience, decarbonisation and digitisation.
Together with my team, I oversaw 65 panel discussions, 420 events and 63,000 stakeholder
interactions over nine months. And time and time again Mr. Speaker / Madam Deputy
Speaker, people told us that decarbonisation was their top priority. In fact, the more
discussions we had, the more ambitious stakeholders became for upfront investment to
decarbonise the electricity network.
There was, of course, also an acknowledgement that not everybody could afford to pay
higher bills and there needed to be a balance between ambition and affordability – which I
believe reflects where we are today – but the message to Northern Powergrid from
thousands of ordinary stakeholders was simple: to go as far as it possibly could.
And that’s why today, Mr. Speaker / Madam Deputy Speaker, I welcome today’s debate about this Bill which, in its simplest form, calls on the government to go as far as it possibly can when it comes to climate and nature – legally, collectively, practically and, ultimately, economically. It promotes the need to think and act decisively given that globally, neither the climate nor nature is going the way that we would like. On this, I am sure we can all agree.
