JessM
Just how heartbroken are you Zac about the environmental record of this government? Green Deal still subsidised and not yet even toddling a few baby steps on its own. ECO funding (for energy efficiency help to poorer homes) cut. Windfarm projects being scuppered.
Didn't get off to a roaring start did it with the cuts in feed-in tariff for photovoltaics. (No wonder the solar panel factory in Cardiff is going to become a film studio.)
Meanwhile the scientific predictions about more extreme weather events seem to be coming true - but you won't be surprised I'm sure.
Are you going to continue to battle on and try to change intransigent Tory hearts and minds or are you going to jump ship and join the Green Party?
I am forever trying to hold my Party to account on green issues, and I’m sure I always will, for as long as I am an MP. However I don’t take quite as dim view as you do. We set up a Green Investment Bank, as promised, as well as a Green Deal for energy efficiency, and a Renewable Heat Incentive for sustainable heat. We allocated £1billion for low emission cars, and much more. The share of the country’s renewables has nearly doubled in the past twelve months, and we have attracted £31billion of investment in renewables since the election, creating 35,000 jobs. We’ve also delivered genuine reforms to the appalling Common Fisheries Policy. All of these things can be greatly improved, but it’s a good start, and better by far than previous Governments. Our weakness has been in other areas. For instance we have been too slow to deliver the promised network of marine protected areas around our coast, our planning reforms represent a threat to green spaces, in my view, and the recent dismissive language used by some senior people in the Party in relation to green policies has been idiotic.