Clive Lewis
MP for Norwich South · Labour · United Kingdom
“I do not know whether I am alone in this, but I am hearing the shadow Secretary of State glibly throw away 80 years of legislation on human rights—human rights that were forged in the aftermath of the Holocaust, of concentration camps, of the horrors of fascism.”
House of Commons13 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the right hon. Member for his speech. Maybe I can answer his question. Perhaps it is because of a nostalgia for an Israel that no longer exists—an Israel that made the desert bloom.”
House of Commons9 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his excellent speech. There are lots of things about AI and its impact that we do not know. But one of the things that history teaches us is that if vast amounts of power and wealth are handed to a handful of individuals, corporations or even the Chinese Communist party—this is not just about corporati…”
House of Commons8 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“coli from raw sewage, and why thousands of our constituents are made sick every year. When public anger saw the Government ban bonuses, water execs raised their salaries and rebranded the payouts “retention payments” and that comes on top of the £78 billion to shareholders and £60 billion borrowed, our bills up 40%, and 30p in every pound…”
House of Commons8 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister both for her response and for putting up with me—I am a bit of a broken record on this issue. We are all well aware that water is essential to life itself—to food, industry, nature, housing, energy, and now even the data centres powering the supposed AI revolution—and yet we have handed a monopoly where no competition…”
House of Commons8 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“South East Water is one of a number of privatised water companies that are responsible for selling off 35 reservoirs since 2017, and those companies have not built a single one since privatisation that is complete.”
House of Commons3 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“I happily acknowledge that that money—£14 billion over three years from 2020—is a significant and welcome change of direction. Finally, we can stop listening to Ministers continually claiming that schools have more funding than ever before. The centrepiece of the announcement was a one-off £2.8 billion cash injection, but I am sorry to say that that does not even come close to reversing the cuts made by the Conservatives over the course of this decade. The Institute for Fiscal Studies believes that to do that, £3.8 billion would need to be shared out among schools across the country every year. This is where things seem to get even more controversial. Sadly, following the analysis in The Sunday Times this weekend, I am forced to question whether any schools in my constituency will receive any increase in funding at all.”
House of Commons3 September 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is no wonder they have had to make cuts: the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that if it were not for the sudden promise of new funding, school funding would have been £1.7 billion lower in real terms in 2020 than in 2015. The newly promised figure is not additional funding; it is to plug a hole that appeared due to the fact that total school spending per pupil fell by 8% in real terms in 2017-18. Even if headteachers trust the Government’s motives, that funding will go only a small way towards repairing the damage caused by years of continued cuts. In the face of such damning statistics, will the Government concede that the past nine years of austerity—a political choice by consecutive Conservative Governments—have crippled our schools? The alleged new money for schools announced this week is something of a confession in itself.”
House of Commons3 September 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will address that in detail shortly, but there is indeed a crisis in special educational needs teaching. Every parent and teacher knows how vital teaching assistants are to aiding our young people’s learning, yet a briefing meant only for Ministers and officials at the Department for Education, which was leaked last week, was clear that the Government still intend to slash the number of teaching assistants. The briefing stated: “We recommend we continue to push No 10 not to include this publicly.” Can the Minister tell us whether that is true? If it is, why do the Government not recognise the value of support staff in helping our children to learn and thrive? Headteachers across the country have not been able to balance the books.”
House of Commons3 September 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yes. As ever, the hon. Gentleman has spotted a small mistake, and I am glad that he rectified it. Maths was never my strong point; I have always been a history man myself. I now see what he was sniggering about earlier— [ Laughter. ]”
House of Commons3 September 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Here is a suggestion: rather than prorogue Parliament to get a no-deal Brexit through, let us ensure that that does not happen, save the £2.1 billion it is said that we will spend in the event of a no-deal Brexit and spend that on education. We can put that hard-earned taxpayer money towards keeping our schools open and our school buildings safe and maintained, and giving our children the education and the childhood that they deserve.”
House of Commons3 September 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Teachers deal every day with the effects of increased child poverty in children’s inattention and distress and know that it is these causes that need to be addressed if pupils are to behave better and achieve more in schools.” The Government need to stop their panicky pre-election promises to increase school finances and give schools the funding they need, when they need it, not because there is a general election looming. A whole generation of young people have already been failed because of cuts to education funding, and simply announcing a specialist academy trust in the north of England does not count as trialling a new approach. We have already been there and done that; it did not work.”
House of Commons3 September 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Prime Minster is in trouble on schools, and he knows it. When, last week, the Government announced that they would be providing £14 billion in one-off funding between now and 2022, headteachers responded by saying it was not enough. As I said earlier, we will continue to need an extra £3.8 billion every year to keep our schools afloat and £12.6 billion to reverse the effects of austerity altogether, not a one-off pre-election bribe. The National Education Union says that headteachers are unlikely to “trust the motives, or the professed support, of ministers who have, time after time, voted through measures that have made families poorer.”
House of Commons3 September 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I might get my figures wrong, but I get my acronyms right. I think we are talking about the private finance initiative. I was with the hon. Gentleman at a fantastic school in Taverham where the PFI contract stated that its vast resources, including the gym and the swimming pool, could not be used by the local community. Once the school gates were locked, that fantastic resource could not be used by the rest of the community. Given that taxpayers’ money from that community is paying for that school, that is a complete outrage and I agree with the hon. Gentleman. In 2017, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith) won her seat as a result of a campaign based on school funding, not Brexit. That was the issue her constituents were up in arms about because it was their children, jobs and livelihoods at stake.”
House of Commons3 September 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is systemic, and far more than £700 million will be needed if it is to be tackled properly. I think the Minister understands how severe this problem is, so I hope that more money can be found for children with SEN, their families and the support that they and their schools need. Finally, no amount of new funding can ever make up for the lost opportunities—the lost childhoods—of those pupils who have been failed by successive Conservative Governments for these past few years, after billions of pounds of cuts have led to underfunding. No new money can ever make up for that. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered school funding in East Anglia.”
House of Commons3 September 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is welcome, but we ask ourselves, “Will our constituencies actually see any of this money, or will it be used disproportionately and cynically in key Tory marginals?” The answer remains to be seen. Labour Members have always claimed that cuts to public services have been a political choice. Having listened to the Minister today, I think it is quite clear—now that this money has been found—that the last four years of cuts to our education system have been a political choice. We are glad that the money has been found, but the past four years have been very difficult for schools and they are still struggling. Regarding pupils with special educational needs, we need to understand that £700 million will simply not be enough. This is a problem that goes far and wide and deep.”
House of Commons3 September 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister for his response, and I thank all those who have contributed to this timely and interesting debate. On the issue of Jane Austen College and the Inspiration Trust, I have always been supportive of the teachers and the pupils in such schools. My issue has never been with them; it has always been with the philosophy behind free schools and academies, and sometimes with their leadership. We should understand the philosophy of free schools, which is—to quote a member of the Department, although I am not sure whether they expected their words to go public—to bring the chaos of the free market to our public state school education system. That has been one of my key concerns about free schools and the academy system. I will make a last couple of points. The question that many of us have now is about this new money.”
House of Commons3 September 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Last month’s ruling by the Court of Appeal that the Government’s continued licensing of the exporting of military equipment to Saudi Arabia is unlawful offers real hope to the people of Yemen—despite the Government’s hypocrisy in calling for peace while selling arms to the Saudis to bomb and to kill, hampering the work of aid agencies on the ground. What representations will the Secretary of State make in Cabinet finally to end that shameful conduct?”
House of Commons17 July 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman has made some interesting points. Earlier in the debate reference was made to a public good. A public good is defined as a service, such as healthcare or education, that we feel is so important to us as a society that we collectively provide it. The BBC is a public good; it has a value for our democracy, for our community cohesion and for society generally. Therefore, we should pay for it collectively and not leave people who are over 75, and who cannot afford to pay for it themselves because they have no means, to pay for it. We should provide it collectively, as a public good.”
House of Commons15 July 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The left has always been a friend to the BBC, and should remain so, but securing a public and democratic media system with the BBC at its heart will require radical change.”
House of Commons15 July 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The privately educated and Oxbridge graduates still dominate—just as they do the press, as a recent Sutton Trust report shows—but the BBC became an elitist organisation more in step with neoliberal Britain. I have no doubt that the Brexiteers want a BBC that is even more right wing, even more vulnerable to Government pressure and even less economically literate in its reporting—or, alternatively, no BBC at all. Meanwhile, some on the left are so disillusioned with the BBC that they have given up on it altogether. That is a mistake. There are serious problems with the BBC that cannot be ignored, but they can be resolved by making it genuinely independent of Governments—of the left and the right—and accountable not to a narrow elite but to its own staff and to the communities it should represent.”
House of Commons15 July 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The organisation has always been a quasi-state broadcaster, orientated toward officialdom and particularly vulnerable to pressure from the Government of the day, as the last charter renewal process showed. The situation got much worse from the 1980s onwards, when the BBC became increasingly marketised and politicised. Independent reporting was curtailed as editorial and managerial authority was consolidated, funding was cut and services and programme making were contracted out. In short, the BBC’s public service ethos, which was always far too elitist anyway, was steadily eroded while the BBC was slowly privatised. None of that opened it up to a wider range of voices.”
House of Commons15 July 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is now a fairly substantive body of work examining the reporting of the 2008 financial crisis, including, for example, Mike Berry’s recent book. Berry shows that the economic debate, at that crucial time for our country, was skewed toward the right, and that even mainstream economic opinion was marginalised in favour of the disinformation emanating from the Conservative party and its allies in the press. I could go on, but the overall picture is clear: not only is BBC News overwhelmingly orientated towards the political and economic establishment but, in so far as it exhibits any political bias, it tends to be towards the right. The story behind that pattern of reporting is detailed in Tom Mills’s 2016 book on the BBC.”
House of Commons15 July 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One of the key functions of the BBC should be to act as a bulwark against misinformation and the abuses of private power, but how can it perform that function if its news agenda is set by an often unscrupulous, partisan press, owned by a handful of billionaires, which has spent decades misinforming people on every important issue of the day? Again, we can look at the research: Cardiff University found that more than half of BBC News policy stories during the 2015 general election originated with the press, with The Daily Telegraph and The Times leading the pack, and the right, once again, dominating overall. Another crucial issue on which this has had an impact, alongside reporting on immigration and the EU, is austerity.”
House of Commons15 July 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“During the EU referendum, that “impartiality as balance” paradigm, which seems always to lean to the right, was scrupulously applied to the two sides of the referendum campaign, but with the right dominating both. Research by Loughborough University found that Conservative and UK Independence party representatives accounted for 74% of all party political appearances on television news. Cardiff University found an even higher level of prominence, with Conservatives and UKIP together accounting for almost 80% of politicians. The striking domination of our political debate by the right is exacerbated by the influence of right-wing newspapers.”
House of Commons15 July 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Similarly, when it comes to debates about the BBC, there are the allegations of bias advanced by many of those same right-wing interests, and then there are the findings of independent academic research. What does the social scientific evidence tell us about BBC impartiality? One consistent finding is that the BBC allows the press and senior politicians to set the agenda for its reporting. In the BBC’s Bridcut report of 2007, it acknowledged that impartiality should mean representing a range of views in society, not just the perceived political centre ground or the balance of opinion in Westminster. However, research by Cardiff University found that, five years later, BBC News was still dominated by elite sources with—and this is key—an over-representation of Conservative and Eurosceptic views.”
House of Commons15 July 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is partly because the BBC produces a vast amount of content, featuring a range of people and opinions, meaning that everyone will at some point see something to complain about. Unfortunately, at times that has led representatives and defenders of the BBC to dismiss all criticism of its reporting. “If we are attacked from both sides,” the argument goes, “then we must be doing something right.” However, when faced with conflicting claims, we cannot just dismiss them all and assume that everything is fine; we must assess which are accurate—or which are more accurate. When it comes to climate change, there is a weight of evidence among the scientific community, and then there are the ideas put about by right-wing think tanks, newspapers and politicians.”
House of Commons15 July 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Cheryl. As has already been mentioned, I need to declare an interest; unlike the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell), I rejected the advice of my father, who said I had a great face for radio, and decided to become a BBC TV reporter. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) on securing this crucial debate. What could be more crucial in this period of political instability than the question of BBC bias, which is what I will address in my speech? I think hon. Members will be pleased to hear that I will not mention “Panorama”. I do not need to. This is a target-rich environment. When it comes to BBC bias, or impartiality and the BBC, we often find, as in this debate, that there are a lot of contradictory claims and counter-claims.”
House of Commons15 July 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Lady is giving a fantastic speech. She has mentioned the views of four different people on the limits of using GDP, what it is, what good it does in our economy, and what good growth does. Some 51 years ago, Robert F. Kennedy—hardly an economic radical; he was a Democrat—gave a speech on the limits of GDP. I add that because he is someone that I and many people across the political divide can respect. He was well ahead of the curve on this issue.”
House of Commons10 July 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister spoke about the Green Book, which is still—despite the changes—essentially a neoclassical economic model based on equilibrium economics. Most scientists and economists on the fringes of economic thinking would tell us that we are moving into a disequilibrium position in our economic model. The two are completely incompatible and the Green Book is not fit for purpose as we enter a climate crisis in which many of its assumptions are no longer credible.”
House of Commons10 July 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“With all due respect, only this Government could dress up a 94% collapse in domestic solar installations as a success. They now plan to slap 20% VAT on solar and storage and to replace the certainty of the feed-in tariff export payments with a lick-and-a-promise scheme with no certain payment rates and no guaranteed periods. Why does the Minister not just admit that, as ever, the Tories always side with big and dirty rather than with clean and local?”
House of Commons11 June 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Who determines what is a fair price—our collective democracies, which enable these companies to exist, or a handful of corporate executives whose primary motivation is to maximise profit? Who determines that price? At the moment, I do not think that the balance is correct. Finally, has the Minister considered the use of compulsory licensing, allowing a UK company or other company to make cheap generic copies? That is allowed under World Trade Organisation rules; the definition of an emergency is up to the host country that needs to use it, and from initial research it is something that could be used and has been used before. I know that is not something she would want to do initially, but ultimately, would she consider it if Vertex refuses to move? I will leave hon. Members with a quote from Ethan, who had his 11th birthday on 5 June.”
House of Commons10 June 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The reality is that we have a socialised—dare I say socialist—healthcare system, which treats people’s health on a collective basis, based not on their ability to pay, but on their need. That is quite revolutionary. However, that healthcare system operates in an international pharmaceutical industry based on rapacious profiteering. How do we square that circle? I suggest the answer lies at the European level, not the US level. Ultimately, the EU’s being one of the biggest healthcare markets in the world gives the European Union immense clout in imposing its will on international pharmaceutical companies; that is one of the reasons I want to stay in it. My other question is a philosophical one: what is a fair price for years of investment and research?”
House of Commons10 June 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The unforgivable actions of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, which admittedly does important work in research and development relating to the treatment of cystic fibrosis, mean that it continues to put patients’ lives at risk as it seeks to extract the highest possible price from our NHS. When Alexander Fleming created penicillin, he had it publicly patented so that it was accessible to all, and it became a revolution in modern medicine. Should we not be legislating for pharmaceutical companies to do something similar and put patients, not profits, at the centre of their development? I have a number of questions for the Minister. How do we approach this matter systematically, so that we are not back here time and time again, as we have heard?”
House of Commons10 June 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In 2017, half of all people who died with cystic fibrosis were under the age of 31, as has already been stated. It is a statistic that his mum Rachael is only too aware of as she spends the majority of her time caring for her son. We know that Vertex drugs could change the lives of cystic fibrosis sufferers and their families, since they fix the underlying genetic mutations that cause the condition, but, as we have heard today, Vertex is more interested in 45% investor returns than in 20%. That seems to be its priority. Although the chronic underfunding of the NHS is a contributing factor in this story, it is by no means the only reason why a deal has not been reached.”
House of Commons10 June 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To put this in context, because his lung function has declined to just 54%, in the past four weeks alone Ethan has coped with two separate full-day hospital admissions, 14 days of intravenous antibiotics, which are administered by his mum twice a day at home and take 45 minutes each time, and two sessions with a psychologist to help him to overcome needle phobia brought about by years of blood tests. All that is on top of his regular daily cocktail of medication and a physio session of a minimum of 22 minutes every day. Yet none of those treatments are designed to cure Ethan. They are simply designed to treat his symptoms—symptoms that are expected to get worse the older he gets. They attempt to slow down the irreversible lung damage that will slowly cause him to suffocate. He knows that.”
House of Commons10 June 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I add my thanks to the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) for securing this debate. I will focus on two key things: asking the Minister a series of questions on potential remedies for this situation, but also using my time to speak about Rachael and Ethan, a mother and child in my constituency who are forced to live with the realities of cystic fibrosis every day, and the adverse impact that the actions of the company Vertex are having on their lives. Ethan is 11 years old. He has a big smile and loves pizza, trampolining and spending time with his friends, but sadly that is where the similarity to other 11-year-olds ends, since every day his life and that of his mum Rachael are dominated by the strain of dealing with cystic fibrosis.”
House of Commons10 June 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister for giving way. I raised the issue of compulsory licensing, which the Government have within their armoury. Of course it would be a measure of last resort, but given that we are dealing with people’s lives, the quality of their lives and a company that is quite simply being intransigent, and greedy, surely that option should be considered. That would send a message to those pharmaceutical companies—that global pharma industry—that if they are going to be greedy and put people’s lives at risk, despite being made fair offers, this option could be used by our Government.”
House of Commons10 June 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is really good to hear hon. Members talk about climate change and greenhouse gases, but there are in fact nine planetary boundaries, of which greenhouse gases are one. I wonder whether people understand that it is entirely possible that we save the planet from climate change yet kill ourselves through eight of the other planetary boundaries, two of which we are in the red for. Is it not the case that financial markets, pension schemes and so on actually need to see their remit as wider than just greenhouse gases, also covering a range of other areas, including biodiversity and carbon?”
House of Commons22 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Navigating global society through the perils of the 21st century will require two key things: global co-operation, and human ingenuity and passion on a scale hitherto unseen in our entire history. President Kennedy summed it up in his moon-shot speech of 1962. He did not ask what it would cost; he asked instead what it would take to succeed. He said: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win”.”
House of Commons1 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They arrived at the climate crisis debate like gatecrashers at a premature funeral, smashing through the window in a shower of glass to announce to a hushed congregation that the patient was still alive. Their message to this place is simple: “The time for incrementalism has passed. Act now, change now, or be swept away by those who will.” This motion offers us a chance to fundamentally restructure our economy to deliver good, secure, well-paid jobs as we mobilise to decarbonise our economy on a grand scale. It offers us a chance to reinvigorate and strengthen our democracy, to massively reduce social and economic inequalities, and to protect and restore vital threatened habitats and carbon sinks. We must onshore the global financial system, bringing it back under democratic control. That brings me to my final point.”
House of Commons1 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Global civilisation as we know it will be gone by the end of the century unless we act. What has been the response from the Conservatives? I will try not to be too partisan. We have seen the green light for fracking, fossil fuel subsidies boosted by billions, onshore wind scrapped, solar support axed, the green homes scheme eviscerated, zero-carbon homes abandoned, the green bank sold off, the Swansea tidal lagoon stuffed, and Heathrow approved. If Tory environmental policy in 2010 could be summed-up as “hug a husky”, the 2019 policy looks more like “Shoot it, skin it, and boil it down to its bones.” It was against that background—with the science of the climate crisis over here and Government policy over there—that Greta Thunberg, the youth strikers and Extinction Rebellion appeared.”
House of Commons1 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“So often as politicians we talk about what is politically possible, but with the climate crisis we need to move from the art of the politically possible to the science of what is necessary. When you are drowning, you do not ask yourself, “Ooh, what is politically possible?”; you do whatever it takes to survive. When the banks crashed in 2008, the political consensus in this place was to save them by any means necessary. According to the National Audit Office, the cost was £1.2 trillion, which meant 10 years of austerity, public service cuts and vast human suffering. But now, instead of a banking collapse, we face a climate and ecological collapse. We face catastrophes of biblical proportions: droughts, pestilence, famine, floods, wildfires, mass migration, political instability, war and terrorism.”
House of Commons1 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome the Minister’s comments about listening to and acting on the science. If that is the case, the Committee on Climate Change has questioned whether support for oil and gas may become incompatible with the Government’s long-term climate change objectives. In the spirit of not disappearing down a rabbit hole of conflict, perhaps we can agree, on both sides of the House, on whether there is a sustainable way to reduce fossil fuel extraction to move from maximum economic recovery to sustainable economic recovery.”
House of Commons23 April 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to one of this country’s most successful publicly funded renewable energy programmes ever? I am of course talking about the last Labour Government’s export tariff, the feed-in tariff scheme, the biggest single democratisation of energy that the UK has ever seen, cutting 700,000 tonnes of carbon. This month, however, in an act of supreme national and international self-harm, the Government killed it off—kaput, finito, game over. In the real world, how can anyone, anywhere believe that this Government take their climate change obligations seriously?”
House of Commons9 April 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“At a recent lobby of Parliament by Save the Children and Oxfam, my constituents were quite clear that the arms sales to Saudi Arabia need to end if the famine in Yemen is to end. Does the Minister share their sentiments?”
House of Commons26 March 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I praise my hon. Friend to the rafters for securing this debate, because it is quite clear to many people that it would be entirely possible for this country and this planet to save ourselves from climate change, yet destroy ourselves in myriad other ways that breach the other eight planetary boundaries. Picking up on that, does he agree that it is the world’s poorest—both internationally and domestically—who will be disproportionately impacted by the systemic climate shocks that these breakdowns in biodiversity will have on our economies?”
House of Commons20 March 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“14. What steps he plans to take to support small and medium-sized renewable power generators after the scheduled closure of the feed-in tariffs scheme.”
House of Commons19 March 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“From listening to the Government’s rhetoric on climate change, we could be forgiven for thinking that the school strikers are coming out in support of them; they are coming out against them, and if we cut through the greenwash we see the feed-in tariff axed, the solar energy sector decimated, and now the exports payments framework about to be ended and no replacement put in place. So let me ask this: will the Government ever announce a cut to the lavish support they dole out to their friends in the fossil fuel industry?”
House of Commons19 March 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am sorry, but when it comes to funding the new technologies that really matter, this Government, and especially the Treasury, have been abysmal. The climate crisis is upon us now, but this Government’s reaction has been to axe carbon capture and storage funding; to cancel the Swansea lagoon, despite the fact that we were poised to be a world leader in tidal technology; and to slap innovative emerging storage technologies with business rates. At the same time, they are throwing billions into new tax breaks for oil and gas. Does the Chancellor agree that this Government are not facing the climate emergency but creating it?”
House of Commons5 March 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the IPCC report on a 1.5°C target said that we need to make the necessary reductions to our greenhouse emissions by 2030? Unfortunately, the Government are telling the Committee on Climate Change that they cannot look at that reduction until 2050. That seems to me to be a little bit late in the day.”
House of Commons28 February 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They have slashed solar subsidies, blocked onshore wind and prevented a closed-loop reuse and recycling sector. They have supported fracking, privatised the Green Investment Bank and supported Heathrow expansion. They have blocked mandatory climate risk-related reporting for the finance sector, they have never issued a green bond, and they have axed their own flagship energy efficiency policy. Those young people were not just calling for incremental change. They were calling not for climate change, but for system change.”
House of Commons28 February 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There does not need to be a trade-off between the environment and jobs, or between economic and social justice and the environment. How did we respond to climate change and the sustainability issues facing us in the UK? We decided to expand Heathrow—fantastic! I think the Heathrow issue is probably one of the most decisive splits we will see in politics in the coming years. It is the biggest single source of emissions in the UK, and the expansion has now given the green light to 300 million tonnes more of carbon being poured into our atmosphere. No Government who aspire to tackle the climate crisis and to keep temperature rises below 1.5°C would ever allow Heathrow to happen. Let us quickly run through some of the failings of this Government.”
House of Commons28 February 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If we look at the gilets jaunes movement in France, we see that it happened because of the technocratic centrist fixes the Macron Government were trying to make. There were €40 billion of carbon taxes, yet only a small fraction of that was invested in public transport or for the poorest, and it fell disproportionately on those least able to pay, who are actually those consuming the least carbon. As a result, there was not one single tax on French aviation fuel. That is what caused the frustration and anger in France—inequality and a lack of justice at the heart of that economic policy. This is why the green new deal mentioned by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) is capturing the public imagination.”
House of Commons28 February 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We know that the wealthiest 10% are responsible for more than half of all greenhouse gas emissions on our planet and in our country, and yet we also know that the poorest 50% are responsible for just 10% of greenhouse gas emissions. This is not about a false choice between consumption for the poorest and the environment. The poor cannot cut what they are not consuming. We need to see a contraction and a convergence. The poorest in the world and in this country will need to consume more, and the wealthiest—not just individuals, but corporations—will need to do more of their fair share. That is a challenge to the economic orthodoxy that those on the Conservative Benches champion. That is the challenge before us, and we can see what happens when we do not ensure that social justice is at the heart of the changes we make.”
House of Commons28 February 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Labour understands the scale of the challenge before us and the national and international purpose that we must set ourselves. It can be nothing less than a radical transformation of the way our economy works. That is a problem for people who are tied to an economic system, as the Conservative party is—it is a conservative party, so it wants to keep the economic model we have. Some Labour Members understand that if we want to make these radical changes in the timeframe we are talking about, we need to radically change how the economy works and who it works for. That will be a challenge to some Conservative Members, and I will tell the House why.”
House of Commons28 February 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗