The comments made by Greg Hands, the Energy and Climate Change Minister, on 20 December 2021.
Developing greener fuels like biomass is key to helping the UK slash carbon emissions and drive down costs for consumers.
This £26 million government investment will support innovators across the UK, boosting jobs and investment, and help ensure we have the homegrown supply we need to support our plans to build back greener and tackle climate change.
The comments made by Jim McMahon, the Shadow Environment Secretary, on 18 December 2021.
The nature emergency demands action.
Peatlands have suffered degradation for decades not just from being dug up to supply horticulture, but also by being drained and burned. Healthy peatlands – often called ‘Britain’s rainforests’ – support rich biodiversity, trap many times the carbon stored by forests, and help slow and prevent downstream flooding.
But the Conservative Government have delayed and limited action, they have committed to protecting only 40% of England’s blanket bogs from rotational burning.
On horticultural peat, gardening experts, conservationists and scientists have said the Government’s goal of a voluntary phaseout by 2020 was an ‘abject failure’, with the amount of peat sold actually rising as people turned to gardening in lockdown. That they are only just consulting on a ban lays bare their lack of commitment.
In contrast to the Conservatives’ delay and empty promises, Labour has pledged a net zero and nature test for every policy, investing £28 billion of capital a year to 2030 to meet the challenge of the climate and nature emergency head on, create certainty for business and provide leadership to seize the opportunities for the UK.
The comments made by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, on 13 December 2021.
The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. In London, we need to take bold action to ensure that we not only halt the decline of biodiversity in our natural environment but pave the way for growth and change. That’s why I’ve announced my new Rewilding Fund, which will help restore the capital’s precious wildlife sites, improve biodiversity and ensure all Londoners have a thriving web of nature on their doorstep. And as part of our Green New Deal, we’re supporting young Londoners to gain the skills required for jobs that help secure a future for London’s natural environment.
I am proud to have helped London to be recognised as the world’s first National Park City in 2019, and this funding shows my commitment to protecting that status and doing all I can to protect London’s amazing network of green spaces, rivers and natural habitats.
The statement made by Christine Middlemiss, the Chief Veterinary Officer, on 10 December 2021.
This animal tested positive for bovine tuberculosis on two separate occasions using highly specific tests. Due to the complexity of the disease, further testing has not enabled us to use Whole Genome Sequencing to try to understand how the animal became infected in the first place.
Our sympathies remain with all those with animals affected by this terrible disease which devastates farmers’ livelihoods. It is important to remember that infected animals can spread the disease to both animals and people before displaying clinical signs, which is why we take action quickly to limit the risk of the disease spreading. We are grateful for the cooperation of livestock farmers to allow this to happen.
The comments made by George Eustice, the Environment Secretary, on 10 December 2021.
More animal species are now threatened with extinction than ever before in human history and we are appalled at the thought of hunters bringing back trophies and placing more pressure on some of our most iconic and endangered animals.
This would be one of the toughest bans in the world, and goes beyond our manifesto commitment, meaning we will be leading the way in protecting endangered animals and helping to strengthen and support long-term conservation.
The comments made by Greg Hands, the Energy and Climate Change Minister, on 7 December 2021.
This £116 million government investment will support businesses across the nation to turn their green ideas into reality, and to develop ground-breaking projects that save energy, slash utility bills and tackle pollution.
British businesses and entrepreneurs are already leading the world with innovative solutions to tackling climate change. This is not only good for the planet, but will bring new jobs and investment across the UK.
The comments made by Ed Miliband, the Shadow Climate Change and Net Zero Secretary, in the House of Commons on 6 December 2021.
Communities in the North have been badly let down, not just by the power networks but by central government in its crisis response and its oversight of the system.
Last Wednesday in the House of Commons Kwasi Kwarteng said the overwhelming majority of those still without power would have it restored by Friday. Yet this has not happened.
People are being left in the most appalling circumstances but there has been an absence of government leadership. Communities in the North with their power cut off are being treated like second-class citizens.
After storms in 2013, power companies and the government said lessons would be learned. But clearly not enough was done to do that, and now working people and businesses are paying the cost for the Government’s failures.
Instead of a cosy government-led process, overseen by BEIS, we now need a proper, independent inquiry into the performance and failures of power companies, regulator and Government to make sure our country and communities are never left this vulnerable again.
The comments made by Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, on 6 December 2021.
These designs could define the future of aerospace and aviation. By working with industry, we are showing that truly carbon-free flight could be possible with hydrogen a front-runner to replace conventional fossil fuels.
Fuelling planes sustainably will enable the public to travel as we do now, but in a way that doesn’t damage the planet. It will not only help us to end our contribution to climate change, but also represents a huge industrial opportunity for the UK.
The comments made by Grant Shapps, the Secretary of State for Transport, on 6 December 2021.
As we build back greener, it’s crucial that we place sustainability at the heart of the aviation industry’s recovery from COVID-19.
This pioneering design for a liquid hydrogen powered aircraft, led by a British organisation, brings us one step closer to a future where people can continue to travel and connect but without the carbon footprint.
I will continue to work closely with the Jet Zero Council to support the UK’s world-leading research in this sector, which will create green jobs, help us meet our ambitious net zero targets and lead the global transition to net zero aviation.
The statement made by George Eustice, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in the House of Commons on 2 December 2021.
We are almost one year into the agricultural transition. Farming in England is moving away from the arbitrary land-based subsidies and top-down bureaucracy that epitomised the EU era, towards schemes that recognise the work that farmers do as stewards of our natural environment. Our reforms will support productive and profitable farming and food production alongside environmental, climate and animal welfare outcomes.
Since January, we have increased the money going to countryside stewardship and seen a 40% increase in applications compared with the previous years, launched the farming in protected landscapes scheme, consulted on a voluntary exit scheme, launched the farming investment fund to boost farm profitability and started a pilot of our new sustainable farming incentive.
I would like to update the House on the progress that we have made, working with English farmers to co-design our new systems and support the choices that they make for their own holdings. By the end of the transition, we expect spending to be evenly split across farm-level, locally tailored, and landscape-scale investment.
Sustainable farming incentive
The sustainable farming incentive will fund sustainable farming activities alongside food production, and it will eventually be open to all farmers. It will open in 2022 with the first payments being made before the end of the year. Today I am publishing more detail on how it will operate in 2022 and how the offer will be expanded from 2023 to 2025.
Local nature recovery
Local nature recovery is the improved and more ambitious successor to the existing countryside stewardship scheme. Its focus will be on making space for nature in the farmed landscape and the wider countryside. As with countryside stewardship, it will comprise a menu of options. The options will be broader and more ambitious, focusing on biodiversity, climate, water quality and other co-benefits alongside food production. It will fairly pay farmers for using perhaps less productive areas of their farms for those purposes. We will support collaboration between farmers such as in the way that cluster farms currently operate.
Landscape recovery
Landscape recovery will create at least 20,000 hectares of wilder landscapes, habitats, rewetted peat and afforestation at a landscape scale, and we are ambitious in going even further in harnessing our landscapes for the natural environment. This option will reward landowners or managers who want to take a more radical and large-scale approach to producing environmental and climate outcomes on their land. Industry engagement has confirmed that there is demand for this scheme, and we will launch the application process—and further details of this and the local nature recovery scheme— in the new year.
While we roll out our new schemes, we are encouraging farmers to enter into countryside stewardship. Today I am also confirming that we will be updating countryside stewardship payment rates from January 2022, which will be published in the new year. We will help farmers in countryside stewardship and other schemes make the transition to our new schemes from 2024 onwards.
We are also investing in animal health and welfare. The animal health and welfare pathway will drive continual improvement in farm animal health and welfare across our national flocks and herds.
I also want to set out the high-level environmental priorities for our programme: climate change mitigation and adaptation; species abundance; water quality; and soil health. Farmers and land managers are central to delivering these priorities, to reach our commitments in the net zero strategy and the statutory targets that will be set under the Environment Act 2021, including to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030.
We will set out high-level priorities and design incentives for actions that will contribute to them. Within this overall framework, it will be for farmers to choose how they want to get involved, whether that is by sparing small areas of unproductive land, changing to a more regenerative approach, or pursuing more radical land use change.
We will pay farmers for the actions that they take in these areas, and activities that provide co-benefits in other areas, such as building the resilience of the environment to climate change, improving air quality, natural flood management and coastal erosion risk mitigation. We will also continue to pay for heritage, access and engagement through our existing schemes and we will consider how to maintain investment in these areas as part of future schemes.