Kerry McCarthy
MP for Bristol East · Labour · United Kingdom
“We see that in four main ways: physical risks, including floods, wildfires, droughts and storms; transition risks as economies move away from high-carbon industries; nature-related risks affecting food production and natural resources; and systemic risks, where shocks spread rapidly across sectors and markets.”
“The glaciers of the third pole function as Asia’s water tower, feeding major river systems that support nearly 2 billion people. When rising temperatures accelerate glacial melt, the consequences extend far beyond the mountains.”
“Following the heatwaves and wildfires across Europe this summer and the destruction caused by the glacier collapse and catastrophic flooding in Nepal and Tibet, the message is becoming impossible to ignore: the consequences of climate change and environmental degradation are real, not some distant future threat.”
“Personally, I cannot see that Rosebank is compatible with meeting our climate objectives, but I recognise that the process should be followed. Green Alliance has reported that the gas being wasted in the North sea would be enough to heat 570,000 homes.”
“I too worked in the financial markets, although I think I have done a better job of hiding it in my 21 years in Parliament. I was more on the debt market side. In fact, I am so old that I was part of the salvage operation for Barings bank when it went under. That brings me to the right hon. Gentleman’s point about regulation.”
“My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that I very much agree with the point that he just made. We have some excellent, innovative businesses in Bristol that came up through the Science Creates innovation hubs and attracted private capital.”
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“When we talk about reducing 0.7% to 0.5%, it may sound like small numbers, but the reality is that £5 billion has been cut from our aid spending since 2019. The Government have tried to mask the impact of the cuts by combining previous DFID budget subheadings into a single line in the estimates, strategic priorities and other programme spending, but they cannot hide what the headline numbers say: both capital and resource spending under that subheading have been drastically slashed. Although we have not had transparency from the Government, we have heard today and in the debate earlier this month about the impact the cuts will have on our overseas aid programmes in respect of health, education, livelihoods, gender equality, water sanitation and much more.”
“It has been evident for some years that many on the Government Benches have been trying to undermine the case for aid spending for a long time, either because they do not believe that helping those in extreme poverty around the world should be a priority or because they believe that voters do not believe that. Until now, that agenda has been a matter of some subterfuge, but with the spending review of 2020 it burst out into the open. Of course, not all Government Members think in the way I have described, and I am pleased that by virtue of this estimates debate we have had the second opportunity this month for them—including the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May)—to make that very clear.”
“As this is the second time I have spoken on this topic recently, I do not want to repeat everything I said first time around, other than that I still believe it is morally reprehensible that the Government have reneged on their commitment to spend 0.7% on aid and are prepared to override by backdoor means the will of the House, which voted in 2015 for that commitment to be enshrined in law. The global pandemic has been used as an excuse for these cuts, but we are the only G7 country that has resorted to such measures. We know that there is an underlying agenda and it is not just because of the pandemic.”
“As a fellow electric car driver, I cannot wait for those regulations to come forward. 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?”
“I thought it was surprising that we did not hear more from Secretary of State, as a former EFRA Secretary, about farming standards. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the concerns that she has so eloquently expressed make it all the more important that we have proper scrutiny of the deal and not something that just rubber-stamps it at the last minute?”
“I accept that she is a Foreign Office Minister, but there is a link with DEFRA and the Department for International Trade, and I hope that ahead of COP and the convention on biological diversity she talks to all her colleagues and tries to secure firm action on this.”
“Member for Epsom and Ewell that what is happening in Brazil is tragic and cannot be accepted. I agree with his argument that it has been officially sanctioned by Bolsonaro and that our Government need to act. I thank organisations such as WWF, CAFOD and Global Witness for their tireless efforts to raise awareness of the issue and to try to ensure that the Environment Bill includes measures to address it. I very much hope that now the Bill is in the other place we can take stronger action. I hope the Minister can shed some light on how the Government plan to rectify the glaring holes in their proposals on deforestation.”
“Even if the political will was there, which I do not think there is, they do not have the mechanisms to identify what is legally and illegally produced. Clearly, a distinction between legal and illegal deforestation is not good enough. As has been said by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton, UK financial support for firms linked to deforestation goes far deeper than many of us would expect. Analysis from Feedback shows that even the parliamentary pension fund has investments in big meat firms such as JBS, which have been repeatedly linked to deforestation. I hope that that is something we can take up after this debate, because we should set an example in this place by severing all our financial links to forest risk commodities. I agree with the right hon.”
“As has been said, and as I have tried to raise in Parliament with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the issue should not just be about illegal deforestation, because we know that so many of the activities that contribute to deforestation are legal, and Bolsonaro has been relaxing legal protections. We also know that there is very little enforcement and that companies can act with impunity. The Environment Secretary replied by saying that many countries have laws on deforestation in place, and that there was evidence that the failure to enforce was the problem, but I do not accept that. We have heard what is happening in Brazil. As has been said, it is not just that some states are pushing ahead with measures to weaken legal protections. There are also serious concerns that they lack the mechanisms.”
“For all our efforts, we are just giving with one hand while Bolsonaro is destroying all that work with the other. The Government had an opportunity to address this issue in the Environment Bill. I lose track with the Environment Bill because it took so long to go through Parliament. At one point, I tabled some amendments but they are lost in the mists of time. I was pleased that the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) tabled his amendments at the final stage. I was pleased that the Government went halfway by including measures in the Bill to impose a due diligence obligation on the supply chains of UK firms, forcing them to tackle illegal deforestation.”
“In reply to my question, the Minister said that “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.] He mentioned the early movers programme, which rewards pioneers in forest conservation, and a programme led by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that has prevented the clearance of around 430,000 acres in Brazil. DEFRA stopping the clearance of 430,000 acres sounds really good, but under the Bolsonaro Administration deforestation is at a 12-year high. As The Guardian has reported, at least 11,000 sq kms were razed between August 2019 and July 2020. That is roughly 2,740,000 acres in the space of less than a year.”
“The Brazilians took issue with something I said, and we entered into a chain of correspondence, which was basically the Brazilians saying that deforestation was not a problem. I mentioned this correspondence at International Trade questions and raised with the Trade Minister recent, very worrying reports in the press about Brazilian beef farms, where working conditions were said to be akin to modern slavery. I asked if the Government would make any future bilateral trade deal conditional on Brazil taking action to protect workers and prevent deforestation. I note that the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell said that there should be no trade deal agreed with Brazil until these issues are resolved.”
“How can we ensure that there is greater transparency in our supply chains so that we are not unwittingly, through exports from Brazil, contributing to such environmental degradation?” —[ Official Report , 18 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 939.] I got a vague answer that they were working on “supply chain” issues. In January this year, I asked about this issue again at International Trade questions. I mentioned my recent correspondence with the Brazilian ambassador that started after I had mentioned the problems with biofuel when I was leading for Labour on a statutory instrument about the renewable transport fuels obligation, which I am sure the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell knows about.”
“I have had these run-ins with a former agriculture Minister in previous Parliaments. He is not in Parliament any more, but on quite a few occasions he stood up and said, “It’s all the vegans and their veggie burgers that’s causing this problem.” It really is not, although with the move to plant-based diets, the best thing people can eat is plants and not processed food anyway. Many of us have been raising this subject for some time. A year ago I asked a question of the International Trade Secretary: “Between 2013 and 2019, British financial institutions provided over $2 billion in financial backing to Brazilian beef companies linked to Amazon deforestation.”
“Supermarkets, such as Tesco, have well-documented links to meat firms tied to deforestation. I know some supermarkets have spoken about trying to stamp out those connections in their supply chains, and I welcome that move. It is very rare that I take issue with anything my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North says, but I have to correct him about what he said earlier. The main driver by far in the expansion of soy production, which has almost doubled in recent years, is increased meat consumption. The main use of soy is livestock feed. Soybean oil is also used in cooking, cosmetics and soap and soy is used in industrial processes. According to WWF, 80% of the world soybean crop is fed to livestock and according to Oilseed & Grain News , which I am sure we all read avidly every night, it is 85%, but that is where the bulk of it goes.”
“It is driven by a variety of economic drivers, including infrastructure construction, logging, extractive industries and land conversion for livestock and feed crops such as soy. The Amazon is a huge global resource in terms of its environmental contribution and is home to around 10% of known species. It stores around 76 billion tonnes of carbon. Clearly, we have a responsibility to do all that we can to protect it, but there was a devastating 13% increase in Amazonian deforestation in 2020, with over 11,000 sq kms of deforestation. Unfortunately, as has been said, the UK is driving this deforestation with our domestic consumption. As was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), in 2017 only 27% of soy consumed in the UK was certified as deforestation free, meaning that the rest was not.”
“It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr McCabe. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) on securing this debate. I hope he is not too offended if I say that I find myself agreeing with him an awful lot more these days, now that he is on the Back Benches, than I did when he was in Government. Yesterday was World Rainforest Day, and it would be wonderful if we were here to celebrate all the wonders of the rainforest—the huge range of biodiversity and the fact that it is a habitat that is home to many rare and exotic species, as the right hon. Gentleman said. Instead, this is a very depressing day because, as has been said, the rainforests are under threat and are disappearing at a very worrying rate. Deforestation continues to devastate many havens of biodiversity around the world.”
“Our uplands have 75% of the world’s remaining moorland and about 13% of the world’s blanket bog.” People do not actually realise how unusual the UK is in having that as a natural resource, and we should be managing this precious habitat not for the dubious benefits of grouse shooting, but in the interests of biodiversity and ecosystem services—as valuable carbon sinks, offering flood protection and so on.”
“I asked him what he thought of the Government response—when the petition gets to 10,000 signatures, there is a brief written Government response—and he said he would be polite, but then he described it as “pathetic and derisory” and said it “showed a depth of ignorance and wilful blindness that we didn’t want or expect.” If that is him being polite, I would love to see what he really thinks. In the written response, he said, “At least the Government acknowledges the importance of the peatlands and moorlands habitat.”
“It does get quite nasty, and Chris has been on the receiving end of a lot of that, which I think is very unfortunate. He has done brilliant work with young naturalists, particularly those from neurodivergent backgrounds, and I pay tribute to him for that. In the interview—as I said, the transcript is available—Chris started by talking about the fact that we are now facing dual climate and ecological emergencies. People are increasingly worried about what he describes as catastrophic biodiversity loss, and driven grouse shooting produces a very unhealthy landscape. That is the background context to the concerns.”
“It was a good move by the Chair of the Petitions Committee to ask me to interview Chris Packham instead, and there is a transcript of my putting questions to him that we perhaps could have debated back then, which people can read on the House of Commons Petitions Committee website. I will refer to quite a bit of what Chris says in that interview during the course of my speech. Chris has had a huge amount of abuse for speaking out on these issues—from dead animals tied to the door of his house, to death threats and so on. Whenever I speak about shooting issues, I get abuse on social media. There was a guy who sent me pictures of bacon sandwiches and spare ribs every day for 11 days—he got bored because I was not paying any attention to him.”
“He slightly spoilt it at the end with the argument about posh people, because that is something that was wrongly levelled at opponents of foxhunting. I do not think that is the case, and certainly the people involved in Wild Justice are absolutely passionate about conservation and are genuine in their concerns about the impact of driven grouse shooting. The petition was interrupted by the 2019 general election. Just after that election, I joined the Petitions Committee for a few months. We were trying to get the petition debated—I think we even had a date in the diary—but covid put paid to any possibility of that.”
“It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms McDonagh. I took part in the 2016 debate, which I think it is fair to say was not the best-natured debate that we have had in this place—it is an issue that arouses strong feelings. I thank the hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) for at least trying to do justice to both sides of the argument. I wrote to both Mr Speaker and the then Chair of the Petitions Committee after the last debate, because I felt that the person supposedly speaking on behalf of the petitioners sneered at them and spent the whole time rubbishing their arguments. To be respectful to the petitioners, a Member who takes on the role of speaking ought to do a neutral job in outlining what a petition is about. The hon. Member for Ipswich did that.”
“I might go on to say why it is problematic in the way they are managed. One of the problems that the campaigners supporting the petition have had is that they have got to the point where they are saying that the only answer is a ban on driven grouse shooting, because the people who manage the moorlands have not been prepared to meet them halfway and to address some of the issues—for example, the hen harrier persecution, the burning of the heather and so on.”
“There is work going on, but the hen harrier population declined across the UK and the Isle of Man by 24% between 2004 and 2016, with just 575 pairs remaining. Estimates suggest that there is sufficient habitat and food availability to support a population of over 2,650 pairs. We know that in England there is available habitat for more than 300 pairs, yet we are down to a very small number.”
“Chris Packham says that in Scotland a bit more information has been released. Nevertheless, if Scotland was thought to be the size of Ben Nevis, the economic benefit from grouse shooting there would be the size of a small banjo. That seems to be the official interpretation. I do not know why banjos have been brought into it; I do not know the difference between a small banjo and a large banjo. He is saying that, given that the area of land given over to grouse shooting in Scotland is between 12% and 18% of the total land, something far more worthwhile than the equivalent of a small banjo, in terms of economic benefits from that area, could be produced.”
“Chris Packham also spoke about weasels and stoats being caught up in spring traps, crows caught in cage traps, foxes caught in snares and endangered protected species also accidentally being caught up, and about the use of medicated grit and the leeching of toxins from lead shot into the groundwater. The bottom line is that all these measures to protect the grouse are not in the interests of conservation; it is just so that the grouse can then be shot. Just as I do not accept the conservation argument, I do not accept the economic argument either. As Chris Packham says, the Government have never quantified this matter. The lack of data and the lack of transparency mean that we cannot say with any degree of accuracy how much money is going where, who is benefiting and who is not benefiting.”
“When I went to those areas after the floods of 2015-16, and when I have spoken to people after the more recent floods in those areas, I found real concern about the impact that the management of the moorlands is having. As Chris Packham says, a healthy upland habitat should be covered with trees, blanket bog and deep layers of sphagnum moss that act like a great sponge, with deep peat storing all the water. However, the management of grouse moors directly militates against this, with the burning of the heather, the illegal raptor persecution that I have mentioned and the extermination of mountain hares.”
“The hon. Member says that the numbers are going up, but they are going up from a very small base. As I say, the figures are nowhere near where they should be. However, the fact is that raptor persecution is illegal and should not be happening, but it is happening on the grouse moors. Regardless of what the numbers are, the death of even one hen harrier is illegal and it should not be part of grouse moor management. That is the point that we should not lose sight of. It is not just a conservation measure to protect these birds; it is illegal to kill them. Protecting this habitat could allow it to act as a valuable carbon sinks, offer flood protection and so on. I suspect that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) might have something more to say about its role in flood protection.”
“As I have said, the way that is managed is related to that intensity and the sheer number of birds that people want to produce, rather than it being about any concern for conserving the natural habitat. As I said, we just do not have the numbers. I do not know whether the Minister will come up with numbers to tell us who is benefiting from this and what contribution it makes.”
“I do not accept that. If we look at the way the moors are managed, we see that it is to create the largest possible number of grouse, it is to avoid anything that might be a threat to the grouse, including natural predators, and it is destroying a lot of other wildlife at the same time. All that is not so that people can stalk through the undergrowth with their gun, in the way that we might think of the country sport of shooting. It is so that busloads of people can come in, stand there and just shoot, shoot, shoot—it is very much a numbers game. I would not say that has anything to do with conservation. The birds would not be there in those numbers if they were not being artificially managed, in the same way that we get the imported pheasants and partridges when it comes to that form of shooting; they are there to be shot.”
“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.”
“I suspect they are not benefiting to anything like the same extent as the people who own the land, many of whom are extremely wealthy. They are raking in money from this: I have seen the amount charged for some of the packages for people to come to these areas and take part in shooting days, and I suspect that not an awful lot of that trickles down to the local economy. 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 thank the hon. Member for his engagement with me on this issue—and his tolerance, in some cases. I am pleased to see that the commissioners will be carrying out a natural capital audit of their 105,000 acres of land. Can he say whether that is likely to result in recommendations on conservation and rewilding? If so, will he consider looking at the National Trust’s model tenancy agreements to see whether that is something that could be put in future tenancy agreements on the commissioners’ land?”
“We have had a couple of tranches but I understand that there will be no more money until the next spending review, so we have missed the crucial window to embed the positive behavioural change that we saw during the lockdowns, when people were wary of using public transport but were quite keen to take advantage of the reduced traffic on our roads to take up cycling. 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 also need to deal with grid connection costs, because the private sector has told me that there is an expense to putting in public charging points, and it could take quite a long while to recoup the costs before ownership reaches critical mass. In rural areas or tourist destinations in particular, it would take a while to recoup those costs. The actual cost of connecting to the grid is the thing that really deters companies from doing so. On funding for local councils, the £2 billion for active travel that was announced last year—in fact, it was announced several times last year—is being released far too slowly.”
“When I have asked the Government which local authorities have not had any public funding at all, I have not had an answer; what I have had is a list of councils that have had money, and I have tried to extrapolate from that how many have not. It is a very significant number. That might be because of a lack of political will on councils’ part: maybe they do not feel the need for public charging infrastructure, and assume that people can charge at home, or that it can be left to the market. It might be because they have not been successful in putting together bids, but there are really significant gaps, and that needs to be addressed. We need a strategy to ensure consistent coverage throughout the country.”
“Subsidies for EV plug-in grants have been slashed yet again, and although the Government have tried to say that that is because they want more people to benefit—that was the answer I got when I challenged the most recent cut—based on the figures we have seen from the Government, the overall pot for plug-in grants has reduced too. Leaving it to the market, as has been said by the hon. Member for Kensington and others, will not get us to where we need to be by 2030. Funding for public charging infrastructure has so far been piecemeal, to put it mildly. There are at least four different pots that councils can apply for, but lots of local councils have not had anything from the Government.”
“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. Unfortunately, what we have seen from the Government recently does not inspire confidence.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I cannot charge at home, so I rely on public charging points and have learnt to make trips in the wee small hours because I know I can get to the charging point then. Also interesting was what the SNP spokesperson said about how this needs to be part of the planning system. Another speaker talked about new housing developments and how important it was to have charging points built in. This cannot be left to the market; it cannot be left to chance. It is something that we have to plan for. 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 the Environment Bill goes through Parliament, there is a real concern that with a 25-year plan, how do we make sure that we do ambitious things in the next five years and not just put things off? It was really interesting to hear the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), and also the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), talk about the progress that Scotland is making. There is a lot we can learn from that. The point was made about how many more EV charging points we need to get to where we need to be. I speak as an EV driver, and what the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said resonated with me. I have learnt not to travel on a bank holiday because of queues at the service station.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in your place, Ms Nokes. I congratulate the hon. Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) on securing this important debate. She made an excellent speech and I agreed with almost everything that she said. I say “almost everything” in case there was something in it that I did not spot and will come to regret. Certainly on the key points, she was very much on the same page as the Labour Front Bench. One of the most important things that she said was that too often there are very ambitious end goals, but they are far into the future, and unless we have clear interim targets and ways of monitoring and scrutinising progress towards those targets, and a plan as to how we will get there, there is a danger that everything will get pushed into the long grass, as we have seen with the 25-year environment plan.”
“What we really want to hear from the Minister is a real strategy to get us there.”
“Will we see ambition on that sort of thing in the plan? 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? There is huge potential for jobs, and for the UK to lead the way in technological development.”
“We need a bold vision, linked to planning, housing and economic policy, on what role transport will play in the future, with post-pandemic adjustments to the way we live, move around, buy goods and access services—for example, the idea of the 15-minute city, which has been championed in Paris, and the role of the logistics sector. Many more people have resorted to online deliveries during the pandemic. I believe that pattern of behaviour will continue, so what is the strategy to keep heavy polluting vehicles out of urban centres wherever possible and rely on more sustainable forms of transport, whether electric vans, e-cargo bikes or other alternatives? The other day I visited Magway, a company that is looking at an underground delivery system, which it will be trialling in west London soon; that is really quite exciting stuff.”
“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.”