YouSaid · the spoken record
Carla Denyer
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On the record 2024–2026
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“I have a few follow-up questions for the Minister based on what he just said. First, does he recognise that 20% of double the amount still leaves a significant increase for the local authority? He was talking about the local authority receiving a reduced amount, but losing 20% of double the amount still means a larger amount than previously.”
House of Commons31 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My next point relates, so the Minister can probably address them together. Secondly, the Minister said there were good reasons why he had selected £7,000 specifically and not a few thousand above or below that. Will he expand on why £7,000 is the magic number? Thirdly, I would like to understand the Minister’s view on how tenants will be incentivised to have the prolonged engagement with a local authority that would be necessary to see the process through to conclusion—with only a public information campaign?”
House of Commons31 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have not myself done the calculations and consultations on what that might take a local authority. However, the amendment is based on evidence provided by experts in the evidence gathering part of the Committee’s work. I am trying to get the written evidence up on my parliamentary laptop, which is not co-operating. Off the top of my head, I believe it was from Shelter—I will try to look in a moment, when I have sat down. I am sure Shelter has done the work, so I would be pleased to get back to the Minister on the details when I can lay my hands on them. Apologies, but I have forgotten the second thing the Minister said.”
House of Commons31 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yes, I remember now that the Minister asked whether I expected the tenants to investigate. I do not expect the tenants themselves to investigate, but I expect that a level of ongoing engagement will be required, which would be onerous if they are trying to flat or house-hunt and move house at the same time. My experience as a councillor for nine years, and as an active citizen, is that it often requires several successive engagements with a local authority to get the desired outcome.”
House of Commons31 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move amendment 44, in clause 57, page 79, line 31, after “section 1” insert— “— in subsection (4)(a), omit ‘the prescribed sum’ and insert ‘£60,000’; (b)”. This amendment increases the maximum fine for illegal evictions under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 to £60,000.”
House of Commons31 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“These cases are particularly complicated and expensive for councils to pursue, and that brings us back to the point about the cost to councils that we discussed earlier, especially where landlords refer a case to the first-tier tribunal. If local authorities are bound to lose money even when they win the case, they will be hesitant to begin proceedings. Increasing the maximum fine will help them to have more confidence that they will not lose a substantial amount of money. That is particularly important in the context of 14 years of council funding cuts, as we all know, which mean that if councils stand to lose a lot, they are disincentivised to act.”
House of Commons31 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Even where illegal eviction is not violent, it is still a horrific crime, so it is appropriate that fines reflect that. I therefore propose a maximum fine of £60,000, to give space for appropriate fines to reflect the criminality and harm caused within that range. The change would help to ensure that, for rogue landlords, illegal eviction is not the path of least resistance, as I fear it could otherwise be. Increasing the maximum will also give a strong indication to the courts that this is not just a technical breach, and that will hopefully therefore have a knock-on effect on sentences issued upon conviction.”
House of Commons31 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In 2019, there were just 30 prosecutions of offences under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 in the whole of England and Wales. Such a low prosecution rate allows criminal landlords to act with impunity. When sentencing, magistrates are also very lenient; fines of less than £1,000, community service and conditional discharge are common penalties for such behaviour. If the maximum fine is £40,000—as it currently is in the Bill—because of the nature of civil penalty notices, it is unlikely that the fine will ever reach that maximum unless the offence is particularly violent. So—and here is the rub—landlords may still take a calculated risk that they can save money by unlawfully evicting tenants, given the abolition of section 21.”
House of Commons31 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am sure we are all aware of the risk that the abolition of section 21 may lead to a rise in illegal evictions. The Renters’ Rights Bill needs measures to protect against that, and that is the purpose of amendment 44. Across the country, a segment of private landlords evade the courts and attempt to evict tenants themselves by taking actions that include changing locks, disposing of belongings, and even cutting off electricity and water supply and harassing tenants. Many illegal evictions take place in the shadow market, where landlords and letting agents deliberately breach the law to maximise rental profits. Many renters in the shadow market are on lower incomes in marginal employment, and they are unfamiliar with their rights.”
House of Commons31 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 57 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 58 Abandoned premises under assured shorthold tenancies Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.”
House of Commons31 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The ICJ has mandated that Israel must ensure access to lifesaving aid in Gaza under article 2 of the genocide convention, yet the Israeli Government have voted to effectively block its delivery. As a human rights lawyer, does the Prime Minister agree that banning UNRWA is a breach of international law? How much more evidence does he need before he calls out what is happening as genocide and acts in line with the UK’s responsibilities as a signatory to the genocide convention?”
House of Commons30 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I would like to speak in favour of the amendment and to bring the Minister’s attention to the evidence we received from experts, which highlighted the fact that discretionary grounds do not make it impossible for the court to award possession. In fact, in many cases, especially ones involving antisocial behaviour, it is reasonable to assume that the courts would apply a high threshold for where to exercise discretion. Nevertheless, that does not negate the principle that there may be extremely exceptional circumstances in which discretion is needed. The Government completely tying the hands of the courts so that they are unable to consider those extenuating circumstances is counterproductive.”
House of Commons29 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move amendment 42, in schedule 1, page 155, line 9, leave out “1 year” and insert “2 years”. This amendment would increase the minimum period before a landlord can use certain grounds for possession from 12 months to 2 years.”
House of Commons29 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To conclude, the change to a two-year protected period would be one of the most important things the Government could implement in the Bill to more fully deliver on their ambition to decisively rebalance renting in favour of renters. The amendment seeks to understand the reasoning behind the proposal for a protected period of one year rather than two years, as was the Minister’s position previously. While 12 months is obviously an improvement on six, we can do better to improve the security of private renting, which has such a big impact on tenants’ health, wellbeing and life choices.”
House of Commons29 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In the Renters (Reform) Bill Committee, when speaking to his amendment to create a two-year protected period, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich rightly said: “We believe that any landlord likely to use ground 1 or 1A in good faith will have some prior awareness that they or a family member may need the property for use at some point in the coming years, or that they may wish to sell it in the near future.” –– [ Official Report, Renters (Reform) Public Bill Committee, 21 November 2023; c. 173.] Buy-to-let mortgages are often made available at fixed rates for two years or longer and, currently, the average tenancy in the private rented sector is longer than two years. This should not be overly disruptive, and it can provide much-needed stability for those in most need of it.”
House of Commons29 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As ever, good landlords have nothing to fear from this provision. A two-year measure of security at the beginning of a tenancy is needed to create a disincentive for any abuse of the exemptions to no-fault eviction, and it would be a triple win: better for renters, for the local communities they move into, and for homelessness reduction. The Renters’ Rights Bill is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to set out clear principles for the roles of both landlord and tenant and to develop a regulatory regime that reflects and incentivises that vision. While some landlords will have to make changes to their business plans, a two-year protected period should not amount to a significant change for many landlords or interfere with their business model.”
House of Commons29 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We should reflect that the two-year protected period I am proposing is not radical or new—far from it. It was what was initially proposed in the former Conservative Government’s 2019 consultation, “A new deal for renting”, to ensure that security of tenure for tenants would not be undermined once fixed-term tenancies come to an end. However, when legislation was eventually brought forward, that Government watered down the protected period to just six months. The current Minister, then a shadow Minister, rightly supported a two-year protected period with regards to grounds 1 and 1A in the Renters (Reform) Bill Committee. As well understanding its history, it is important to reflect on the fact that a longer protected period has the potential to drive professionalism in the sector.”
House of Commons29 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To give one example among many from my constituents, after months of searching with no luck, a constituent and her partner had to settle for a grim place with an “unshakeable smell of damp” that made almost everything she owned “fuzzy with mould”. Competition for properties in the private rented sector is fierce. Tenants often have little time in which to find a new home and little power to influence the terms of their tenancy agreements. They often sign 12 or six-month contracts under the current regime simply because that is the only option available to them, not because they actively prefer to be protected for only one year. Many tenants would prefer long-term security in their home. The proposed two-year protected period in amendment 42, coupled with rolling tenancies, would allow tenants a combination of flexibility and security.”
House of Commons29 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is clear from the evidence gathered by the Renters’ Reform Coalition that the vast majority of tenants want security and the power to decide when to move on. They do not want the anxiety, discomfort and expense of being forced to move by a distorted, malfunctioning market. Unwanted, unexpected home moves are stressful and costly. Generation Rent estimated in its evidence that an unwanted move costs a typical two-adult renting household more than £2,000. Almost half of renters have no savings at all. Moving frequently or a short period of time after the previous move impacts tenants’ financial resilience. For many, those costs are prohibitive and will push them into homelessness, not least because finding somewhere new can often prove impossible or mean accepting dangerous, substandard accommodation.”
House of Commons29 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Amendments 42 and 43 are part of an effort to urgently change the renting culture and our ideas about what is acceptable when a property is rented out as someone’s home. I hope the Minister will look at them, not least because a central aim of the Bill is about addressing the deep unfairness of private tenant insecurity. That unfairness is a massive problem in my constituency of Bristol Central, where a huge 47% of households are in the private rented sector. It affects many people. To give just two examples, a constituent I spoke to had to move six times in six years, and another constituent literally received her notice as she was moving her possessions into her new flat. That is unacceptable. Security is vital to allow renters to put down roots in their community and plan for the future.”
House of Commons29 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“For children who are in privately rented homes—the Minister pointed out that they make up an increasing proportion of private renters—this insecurity takes a wider toll. Each school move at a non-standard time of year reduces expected GCSE grades by 0.5. Shelter has found that 13% of tenants with children in their household said that their last house move was stressful or upsetting for their child. The Committee will no doubt be aware that constant moving is a major problem for private renters. Research by Shelter in 2022 found that a quarter of all private renters had lived in three or more privately rented homes in the previous five years—three different homes in five years.”
House of Commons29 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Bill rightly seeks to address the fact that tenants do not have security in their homes. Amendments 42 and 43 would amend schedule 1 to lengthen the proposed period of protection against eviction under grounds 1 and 1A from one year to two years. This would be just one measure to start to address insecurity of tenure. It is worth recalling that the King’s Speech background briefing notes explain that one of the primary aims of the Bill is to increase tenant security and stability. Private renting does not have to be insecure. The median length of tenancy in the UK is just under three years, while the average in Germany is 11 years. Insecurity erodes renters’ sense of belonging, and constant moving has a heavy financial cost.”
House of Commons29 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If they are not able to do that for a long enough time for the tenant not to be subjected to undue costs and effects on their health, stability, education and so on, maybe the landlord needs to look into short-term lets, rather than creating a situation where somebody believes they are making a permanent home. Say that person was going abroad for a year and a half, and the limit is two years—they might have to find somewhere else to live for a few months before moving back in. Yes, that would be an inconvenience, but we have to weigh that against the huge inconvenience for tenants who have their only home constantly disrupted and moved around. I ask the Minister to look at this again, and to think about the edge cases, as well as where the greatest inconvenience and injustice really lies between the landlord and the tenant.”
House of Commons29 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister for his response. I, too, have spent a lot of time reflecting on the potential effects of the amendment, including thinking about potential edge cases, exactly as he described. Imagine someone who became an unintentional landlord, perhaps because after buying their home, they got seconded to another country for work for a year or two. While I recognise that it might be inconvenient for a landlord to have a two-year limit, it is also inconvenient for a tenant to have instability of tenure. If someone is, for example, seconded to work abroad for a year or two, with a fixed date of return to be back in their own property, they have to consider their responsibility to provide stable housing for their tenants.”
House of Commons29 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We welcome the end of “No DSS, no benefits”, but we are worried about that coming in in other ways, such as someone not having rich enough friends to back them up. We would like to see that being addressed.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Tom MacInnes: We will not go back to the bit about rent rises, but we will talk about some other aspects. The thing that concerns us is asking for enormous amounts of rent up front, so what we want is to have that limited to a month’s rent up front. There are also other issues around guarantors and asking for guarantors, in the next stage along the process. We think that has discriminatory consequences against people who actually can afford it, but cannot point to the evidence of it—people who could afford the rent but do not have anyone in their social circle, if you like, who could back them up for a year or whatever. We would like the instances of relying on guarantors to be reduced. If the issue of perceived affordability changes, the choice for those groups grows; we are looking for that kind of support.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q When I met your Citizens Advice colleagues in my constituency, they said, “We can give all the advice that you like, but ultimately, the problem is that money out is more than money in.” I have that ringing in my ears, and that inspires this question. We all know that rents have been increasing out of proportion to incomes over the last few years, creating this growing gap where one or, at this rate, two generations of people risk never being able to afford to get out of the private rented sector. I am really worried about that, especially as that group ages. Do you think the Bill does enough to address the issue of affordability of rents and the long-term and growing problem of those generations of people, moving into old age, permanently trapped in the private rented sector?”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This is my first time on a Public Bill Committee, Sir Christopher, so I might make a mistake with process. May I briefly point Jerome at the answers provided in written evidence and in earlier verbal evidence, which I felt answered the question already? In terms of, “Surely, won’t all tenants do it?”, I think we heard a clear answer that, for the vast majority of the population, anything to do with courts is a terrifying and bureaucratically faffy process that they will not want to engage with. On “Won’t landlords just max it out”—”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Anna Evans: I think what we have concluded from all of the evidence is that the rent control has to be very carefully designed to avoid unintended consequences. It is above my pay grade to say what that design might be, but there could be a range of ways in which landlords try to get around rent control. We have seen examples of offers from tenants—I understand that your Bill will avoid wars between tenants, in terms of rent levels, but because of demand-supply imbalance, tenants do offer landlords higher rents to get properties. Evidence across different states shows that rent control efficacy is variable, so it has to be very carefully designed.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q Since you are an expert on the Scottish system, I will make use of your expertise; I want to ask more about rent controls. In my understanding, when the Scottish Government initially brought in rent controls in tenancy, that was because that was all they had the power to do at the time—they brought it in using existing legislation, initially during the cost of living crisis triggered by the pandemic—and ultimately, that they might do something different. You mentioned the Bill going through at the moment. In your view, is there an inherent problem with rent controls, or could the problems that you described be remedied by having some kind of controls between, as well as within, tenancies?”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Landlords are not necessarily going to worry in the moment about a rent repayment order that a tenant may or may not put in for, which would take ages to go through a court—landlords sometimes do not even pay them anyway—whereas, if you can withhold the rent, that will speed along the process of sorting out mouldy and unsafe homes. So that is the mechanism we would think of. There are lots of considerations as to how it could work. If you consult on bringing Awaab’s law into the private rented sector, that will be a good place to think about the best mechanism to do it. I think your second question was about rent hikes—rent rises.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“But if someone is living with serious disrepair—things like the damp and mould laid out in Awaab’s law, which we are pleased to see moving over to the private rented sector—we think there could be a mechanism whereby, if it is not fixed within the timescale set out by Awaab’s law, they could withhold their rent and pay it to a third party, which could then give the landlord another timescale within which to solve it. If they did not solve it, the tenant would get the rent paid back. If they did, the landlord would get the rent. That would be an immediate incentive to do the work and stop leaving people in the dangerous conditions we see all the time.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Anny Cullum: On withholding rent for serious disrepair, there are much-improved schemes and action within the Bill around the decent homes standard and improving standards for tenants, but a lot of the action set out to be taken if tenants are experiencing disrepair is retroactive or down the line. We know that councils can take a long time to act and that lots of tenants will not pursue things like rent repayment orders because they just do not have the time and energy.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q I want to ask about one of the things in your submission, so this may help you to expand on it. I thought your proposal on the right to withhold rent for serious disrepair is interesting: it sounds quite radical on the surface, but in any other sector, if one party was breaching a contract and failing to deliver a service, it would be quite normal to withhold payments. Can you expand at all on how that would work in practice or how you envisage it working? What are Acorn’s views on the proposed regime for managing unaffordable rent hikes, and is it enough?”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Many happy returns to the Leader of the House. This week, questions have been raised about whether Lord Walney is to be sacked as the Government’s anti-extremism adviser, amid concerns about his independence. I understand that a formal complaint will be lodged next week about paid roles that he held advising lobbyists for clients including fossil fuel and arms companies at the same time as he advised the Government that some peaceful climate protesters and anti-war protesters should be considered extremists. May we have a debate on whether we need to revisit the rules around when a Government adviser is formally described as independent, especially when the Government have said that they want to raise standards?”
House of Commons10 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Rents in advance should be capped to one month—as a Labour Member suggested—to stop discrimination against people on low incomes. But rents are too high in the first place. To illustrate this point, if a 21-year-old living in Bristol rents a single room today at the average rate, they will have put £80,000 into their landlord’s bank account by the time they reach their 30th birthday. We need a system of rent controls, carefully introduced with local flexibility, aimed at bringing rents down relative to incomes, alongside a suite of policies to address the housing crisis, including a major increase in social housing and real support for community-led housing.”
House of Commons9 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On security of tenure, the extension of notice periods to four months for landlord sale and moving in is progress, but we must have clear evidence thresholds for those grounds of no-fault eviction and measures to ensure that the 12-month “no re-letting” period is not broken. We also need an automatic right of non-payment of rent in the final two months to compensate a tenant for the disruption of being forced to move home. The proposal to outlaw bidding wars is okay as far as it goes, but it is not likely to be effective in tackling rising rents. Landlords could still hike rents to kick people out, so we really need a cap on rent increases within tenancies, set at the lowest of either average wage growth or inflation.”
House of Commons9 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The average rent in Bristol Central has hit nearly £1,800 a month, which is more than in several London boroughs, and a huge 47% of households in the constituency are in the private rented sector—that is 18,000 households. As the Secretary of State herself said, good landlords who are already acting fairly have nothing to fear from this Bill, but the rogue ones—like the landlord of my constituent who made countless reports of damp mould and leaks for months with no resolution until the ceiling fell in—need to be held to account. I really recognise the many good parts of the Bill, but I hope the Government will go further on three key issues: security of tenure, rent affordability and energy efficiency.”
House of Commons9 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I congratulate the new Members who have made their maiden speeches on the interesting and important points raised. I should declare that I am a member of Acorn Community Union, which campaigns on renters’ rights. Indeed, I have personally campaigned on renters’ rights for a long time now. This welcome Bill is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to recognise the rights of the 11 million people living in the private rented sector to have a safe, decent and secure home. In the words of activist Kwajo Tweneboa, we are facing “the biggest housing crisis since the Second World War”. We have a generation who will never be able to earn enough to have a mortgage and cannot even afford their rents now.”
House of Commons9 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We must properly fund our local councils, which will enforce these new rights. Councils that are on the brink of bankruptcy after 14 years of swingeing cuts will obviously struggle to deliver this part of the policy. We need a shift in how we think about renting. In policy and practice, we should move away from viewing housing as an asset—as an investment for the wealthy— and towards prioritising and valuing the right to a stable home. Almost every point of improvement that I have suggested today has been raised by members and ex-members of the Labour party, so I hope that the Secretary of State and the Minister will give them very serious consideration. This is such a welcome and important Bill. I hope it can be made even better to become truly transformative. My Green colleagues and I will be voting for the Renters’ Rights Bill tonight.”
House of Commons9 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry) makes a good point about guarantors, and I would also like to see that issue addressed in this Bill. Citizens Advice reports that almost half of private renters are living in homes plagued with cold, damp or mould. Winter fuel bills are due to go up by 10%, and the winter fuel allowance is being cut for millions of pensioners. It is good to hear that the Government’s regulations will apply to social housing as well as private housing, but that commitment needs to be explicitly enshrined in this Bill, and let us get going on energy efficiency—there is no time for delay. There was a consultation on energy efficiency in the private rented sector in 2020, so let us not do another; let us just get on with it.”
House of Commons9 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister for her response. Unfortunately, the unjust transitions we are seeing in Grangemouth and Port Talbot are a damning indictment of the lack of a proactive approach to a just transition over the last few years. Tomorrow at the Treasury, over 50 major unions and climate groups will be calling for a new approach to the energy transition where, instead of just de-risking private profit, there is a governmental ringfenced funding package for North sea oil and gas workers, including help with skills and job creation. Will the Secretary of State or Ministers please meet the Chancellor of the Exchequer to ensure that those ringfenced funds are secure, so that we can stop betting on the industry to do the right thing?”
House of Commons8 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is much more the UK could be doing, from tackling tax abuse and evasion by the extremely wealthy and corporations, removing subsidies for fossil fuels and looking at undertaxed sectors such as aviation, where the “polluter pays” principle is simply not being upheld. Justice requires that the nations most responsible for the climate crisis step up. That is our cue.”
House of Commons10 September 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Indeed, in February, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact found that under the previous Government the Foreign Office reclassified around £1.7 billion of existing UK aid as international climate finance. The UK has one of the largest gaps between its fair share and the climate finance it has delivered. We are letting the world down—it is right there in black and white—so will the Government ensure that UK negotiators show up to COP29 with a mandate to champion an ambitious new climate finance goal, and will they unlock the necessary public finance in addition to private finance?”
House of Commons10 September 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This is a crucial opportunity for richer countries to contribute their fair share, following years of broken promises and failure to deliver the $100 billion on time. At this COP, we must ensure that past mistakes are not repeated. That means agreeing a new goal that is not just a political deal but a real number, based on the needs of people in the global south and of vulnerable populations on the frontline of climate impacts. A black-box headline figure without clarity on how it will be delivered will not do. We must ensure that the goal results in funds that are genuinely new and additional, not double-counted from existing aid budgets—a reprehensible practice that has played a huge role in allowing the climate finance gap to widen over the past decade.”
House of Commons10 September 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If presented with that opportunity, will the Government make the right choice, reject the field and mark the end of the road for climate-wrecking oil and gas projects in UK waters? Only then can we begin to rebuild our credibility on the global stage and reasonably look other countries in the eye at the negotiating table as we ask them to keep their own oil and gas reserves in the ground. As a country with broad shoulders and historic responsibility for accelerating climate chaos, the UK not only has a duty to deliver the transition away from fossil fuels here at home, but must play a leading role in supporting those countries that are least responsible for, but worst impacted by, climate breakdown. Baku’s big test, therefore, will be the delivery of the new collective quantified goal on climate finance.”
House of Commons10 September 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The emissions created just by extracting the oil from Rosebank would see the UK’s oil and gas industry blow past its emissions reduction target. Aside from being a climate crime, the new field would go against what is needed to strengthen the UK’s energy security—lower bills and a just transition. I welcome the Government doing the sensible thing and deciding not to defend in court the previous Government’s approval of new oil drilling at Rosebank, which makes it even more likely that the legal challenge against the field will be successful. If Equinor then seeks approval for the field again, the Government will have the opportunity to make a fresh start and a fresh decision on Rosebank.”
House of Commons10 September 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To do what is necessary for both the climate and the UK’s credibility in international fora, the Government must move quickly to lock in their no new licensing position, and take the urgent next step of stopping development consents for all new oil and gas fields. That must be done alongside bringing forward a coherent plan to transition oil and gas workers into the clean energy jobs of the future, so that we can show other countries that that transition can and will be done in a fair and just way. Let us take the example of Rosebank. Bringing that oilfield online would be catastrophic for our climate and our international reputation. Burning the oil and gas from that huge field would produce over 200 million tonnes of CO 2 —more than the 28 lowest-income countries combined produce in a year.”
House of Commons10 September 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“With the COP29 summit being hosted in a country with plans to increase its fossil fuel production by a third over the next decade, there is an urgent need for other big polluters, such as the UK, to show better leadership. Unless the promise made in Dubai is seen as a clear instruction to quit fossil fuels, last year’s hard-won consensus is destined to fall apart. Rhetoric must be met with action. In that context, the Government’s intention to consult on ending licences for the exploration of new oil and gas fields is a welcome relief from the previous Government’s dangerous obsession with maxing out fossil fuels. It marks a small step towards ending years of climate hypocrisy, which have undermined our position in international negotiations. However, it is only the bare minimum of ambition.”
House of Commons10 September 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Historic progress was made at COP28, when the UK joined nearly 200 countries in agreeing to transition away from fossil fuels, marking a major breakthrough for international climate action. One year on, COP29 has the vital task of locking in momentum towards that promise. Yet despite the science and the consensus reached in Dubai, Governments around the world plan to produce 110% more fossil fuels in 2030 than is consistent with just a 50% chance of limiting warming to the Paris agreement goal of 1.5°. About half of all planned oil and gas developments between now and 2050 will be sanctioned by five wealthy Governments who position themselves as climate leaders, one of which is the UK.”
House of Commons10 September 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗