Barry speaks in Mexican Congress on climate change and sustainable development

Barry was invited by the UK Embassy in Mexico and the Mexican Chamber of Deputies to deliver a keynote speech on climate change and sustainable development at a conference held in the Mexican Congress building.

More information about the conference can be found here.

As part of his visit he met Martha Delgado, Undersecretary for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights, to discuss the future of UK-Mexico bilateral partnership on climate change.

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Barry attends the Disability Benefits Consortium in Parliament

Barry joined disabled people and representatives from the Disability Benefits Consortium (DBC) for a reception in Parliament.

The event was to launch the latest report from the Consortium – ‘The impact of welfare changes on disabled people’. The DBC is a national coalition of over 80 different charities and other organisations committed to working towards a fair benefits system. You can find a full list of DBC members here.

The report is a culmination of over a year’s worth of research looking in detail at the impact of the last 10 years of welfare reform on disabled people. It was a brilliant opportunity to find out more about the report and to speak to disabled people and people living with health conditions who have experience of claiming welfare benefits. 

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Barry writes in the New Statesman: “The Conservatives have shown that they are incapable of addressing the climate crisis”

Barry has written an article for the New Statesman attacking the government’s recent decision to fiddle with the UK’s climate change targets. The full piece can be read on their website here or below.

The government’s manipulation of carbon targets, and its welcome to Donald Trump, has made a mockery of its environmental boasts.

“So, Mr President, perhaps we might now discuss the issue of climate change?”

If ever there were a moment to utilise Britain’s soft power, surely this was it? We had just given the president of the United States the full pomp and ceremony of the Grenadier Guards, a state dinner with Her Majesty the Queen — even an 82-gun salute, for goodness’ sake. Surely now was the moment to press the case for the US remaining in and adhering to the Paris Accord? Or, at the very least, to ask for its endorsement of our bid to host the next major UN Climate Conference (COP26) here in the UK next year?

In fact, it was not Theresa May, but HRH Prince Charles who had the courage to broach the subject with the president, who afterwards confessed that he admired the prince’s concern but pointedly referred to their conversation on “weather change”, rather than climate change. Perhaps it was little wonder that our government seemed to leave climate emergency off the agenda when you consider that, amidst all the pageantry, they had just slipped out the news that they were fiddling the figures around carbon budgets. The UK is using the emissions reductions achieved as a result of the recession, rather than through real policy change, to enable it to meet its target for future carbon budgets.

No wonder, then, that my colleague, Rebecca Long-Bailey, used Trump’s visit to raise the climate emergency when standing in for the Leader of the Opposition at Prime Minister’s Questions. The hapless David Lidington tried to bluster but was … well, hapless. The government’s own independent climate advisers have repeatedly warned against the transfer of unearned reductions.

The reasons are simple. Our current climate targets are too loose. When the Labour government wrote the Climate Change Act, we set what we thought was a hugely ambitious aim of cutting our emissions by 80 per cent from 1990 levels by 2050. But now the science tells us that’s simply not enough. As the government are now finally pledging to do, we must cut our emissions by 100 per cent, making them “net zero” — in other words, ending the UK’s contribution to global warming entirely.

At the very point in history when the world’s climate scientists have agreed that we need to display even greater ambition, because even existing targets won’t be met by our current policies, the government has decided not to ramp up its efforts but to make those inadequate targets easier to achieve through an accounting trick. In fact, doing this will have the effect of allowing our emissions to actually increase over time — at the very moment that they should be falling as sharply as possible.

In crystal-clear and sobering language in a letter from the Committee on Climate Change this February, the government was clearly put on notice that the surplus in question was “not due to policy”, but largely due to the “lasting effects of the recession”.

In that same letter, the government’s advisers warned against carrying forward excess emissions savings from previous years to help meet future carbon budgets. They said doing so “undermines the integrity” of the Climate Change Act, that it would “not be consistent with the aims of the Paris Agreement”. That was the CCC’s “unequivocal advice”. This government has chosen to ignore it.

The climate change minister, Claire Perry, promised MPs in 2017 that it was her intention that the government would not have to use these “flexibilities” to meet our climate targets. Two years later, and despite thousands of schoolchildren taking to the streets to protest against the inadequate response to the climate emergency, this government is going back on its own word.

It also makes a complete mockery of today’s decision to set a target of reaching net-zero emissions. The UK is already off track in terms of meeting its existing carbon budgets, let alone more stringent ones. Giving themselves the permission to dump more polluting CO2 into the atmosphere slows the transition to a zero-carbon economy and will force even steeper cuts later down the line.

That will make it harder and more expensive for businesses to reach the net-zero end goal. We know the government are concerned about this. Last week it emerged that the Chancellor had privately written to the Prime Minister to express his view that net-zero would cost the government £1trn. But this claim has been widely debunked by economists. It misleadingly asserts that all these costs would fall entirely on government at the expense of investment in our public services; it doesn’t acknowledge the basic fact that the cost of climate action will be spread out over the next three decades; and, worst of all, it fails to understand the significant economic benefits and job opportunities that a Green Industrial Revolution would bring. The truth is that, in weakening our climate targets, this government risks making climate action costlier, not cheaper.

As for the timing? Well, it couldn’t be worse. The decision on whether the UK wins the bid to host COP26 is due later this month; but this latest news will hardly give the UN confidence that our government are fit to host such an all-important summit.

Theresa May has little by way of legacy. Perhaps it would have been different if she hadn’t surrounded herself with climate science deniers. Fifteen cabinet ministers serving under her during her three years in office have been implicated in climate science denial either through worryingly close ties to climate deniers or, worse, denial themselves. But here was a chance to secure genuine leadership on climate action and host the UN climate conference in the UK.

Instead, May will be remembered for the expansion of Heathrow Airport and deregulating the fracking industry, making it easier to drill a well than build a conservatory. And now, in her final days at No 10, she may well have sabotaged any hope that her successor could punch above their weight when it comes to meeting our legal obligations to stop the climate crisis. It is an act that future generations should neither forgive, nor forget.

Barry visits Nottingham as part of Labour plans to reduce energy bills by installing solar panels on nearly two million homes

On Thursday, I visited Nottingham to see Labour’s Green Industrial Revolution in practice.

Fuel poverty is one of Nottingham’s foremost challenges. For many families, energy bills can be more than 10% of their income so bringing the costs down can have a hugely positive impact on these households.

I met with Nottingham City Council who have an in-house team who install solar panels onto commercial buildings such as leisure centres, as well as homes, reducing people’s energy bills to just £300 a year. Over 4,600 council houses have had solar systems installed to date, saving tenants over £0.5 million per year on their electricity bills. In this way, I saw how solar panels are able to help tackle climate change at the same time as keeping more money in people’s wallet.

My visit coincided with an announcement of new policies from Labour to tackle climate change. Labour’s plans will fit solar panels on a million social homes and those of low-income households to tackle fuel poverty, provide them with free energy and save an average of £117 a year on their bills, which could rise to £270 for retired households.

Any unused electricity generated by the programme will be used by the national grid, which Labour will take into public ownership, raising an additional £66m per year for local authorities.

Labour will enable the installation of solar panels on an additional 750,000 homes through a programme of interest free loans, grants and changes to regulations.

Labour estimates its policy will create 16,900 jobs and save 7.1 million tonnes of CO2, equivalent to taking 4 million cars off the UK’s roads.

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My latest letter to constituents on Brexit

This is the third letter that was sent out to all constituents that have previously contacted me on the subject of Brexit. This letter was written on 07 May 2019, with the previous letters being written on 05 December 2018 & 31 January 2019. 

Dear Constituent,

For many of you this letter will be the third you have received from me on the subject of Brexit in as many months. The situation has been changing at such a dramatic speed that I thought it appropriate to wait until matters became more settled and slightly clearer before I wrote to you again. As ever, I want to re-assure you that this is the same letter I send out to all my constituents who contact me, whether supporting Leave or Remain.

You can find my previous letters to constituents on my website, as well as the speech I made in the House of Commons. (https://www.barrygardiner.com/policy/2019/01/31/barrys-letter-to-constituents-on-brexit/)

Just prior to my previous letter, you will recall that the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal suffered the largest defeat in history for any sitting Government (by 432 votes to 202, a majority of 230 votes!)

Following the first meaningful vote defeat, the Prime Minister said she would work on three changes: being more flexible, open and inclusive with Parliament; embedding protections on workers’ rights and the environment; and working to identify how to ensure no hard border in Northern Ireland in a way that has the support of Parliament and the EU.

I was encouraged by the Prime Minister’s words as she had identified three of the main reasons why her own deal was not fit for purpose. However, I soon realised that my optimism was misplaced as the Prime Minister once again ignored her own promises and reneged on all three of the changes she told the House she would make. I made it clear in my first letter that at every stage of the Brexit process, the Prime Minister has tried to exclude Parliament:

  • The Labour Party argued that the Prime Minister could not trigger Article 50 without a vote in parliament. The Supreme Court ruled we were correct.

  • The Labour Party argued that parliament had the right to see the “detailed impact assessments” the government said they had prepared. The government refused; but were eventually forced by a parliamentary procedure to publish what turned out to be very sketchy documents indeed.

  • The Labour Party argued that parliament should have the right to “a meaningful vote on the final deal “. Again, the government said no; but were forced to concede this.

  • The Labour Party argued that parliament had the right to see the financial modelling the government had prepared for the different Brexit scenarios. Again, the government said “No”; and when they were once more forced to concede it became clear that they had not even modelled the actual agreement Theresa May had concluded with the EU, but only her Chequers Proposals.

  • The Labour Party argued that parliament had the right to see the full legal opinion prepared by the Attorney General about the Prime Minister’s Agreement with the EU. The Government was later found in contempt of Parliament for denying the full legal opinion.

  • The Labour Party argued that Parliament had the right to see the legal advice regarding the Northern Ireland Backstop arrangements. Initially, the government refused but Labour finally forced the government to publish it. We learnt that not only did it confirm that the UK would be locked in the backstop in perpetuity with no unilateral ability to get out, it also established that “GB is essentially treated as a third country by NI for goods passing from GB to NI”. This went against the whole constitutional unity of the United Kingdom and would have seen different rules and regulations applying in different parts of our country.

Despite her historic defeat on the first meaningful vote in January, The Prime Minister then continually refused to shift her damaging red lines in further talks with Jeremy Corbyn.

MPs voted on the motion on 29 January 2019 where an amendment requiring the Government to replace the Northern Ireland backstop with “alternative arrangements” was passed by 318 votes to 310. The Prime Minister then went back to Brussels to try to negotiate a different backstop arrangement. The EU not unreasonably asked what she meant by “alternative arrangement” and pointed out that this new position from the UK simply meant ‘we don’t like the deal and want something else’ without specifying what that something else was. They maintained that the Withdrawal Agreement could not be re-opened but did approve two additional joint documents to clarify the nature of the backstop. Unfortunately, these additional documents did nothing to allay the fears that were highlighted in the government’s own legal advice on the backstop.

The Prime Minister’s deal is deeply flawed – it will not protect jobs, workplace rights or environmental standards, nor ensure frictionless trade for British businesses. I therefore voted again to reject the Prime Minister’s deal, as did the majority of Parliament as it was defeated by 391 votes against to 242 votes for, a majority of 149.

Following the second meaningful vote defeat, MPs approved Government motions on 13 and 14 March 2019 ruling out a No Deal exit from the EU and approving a request for an extension of Article 50, respectively. It is important to note that these votes were NOT binding on the government. However, following a subsequent request by the Prime Minister, the European Council approved an extension of Article 50 to 12 April and more recently a longer extension has been agreed to 31st October 2019. I believe that the Prime Minister’s handling of this has been appalling. Theresa May deliberately ran down the clock and in the end was forced into asking for an extension to avoid a damaging no deal by Parliament. Leaving the EU without a deal would be catastrophic and the Government cannot plunge our country into chaos because of its own failure to negotiate a good deal. Our country has been left in limbo, with businesses and workers facing deep uncertainty.

After a third attempt to get her Withdrawal Agreement through parliament failed on 29th March (344 votes against to 286 for), I am pleased that the Prime Minister reached out to the Labour Party and asked Jeremy Corbyn to help her find a way forward. We have a responsibility to find an approach that can command the confidence of Parliament and bring our country back together. What is clear is that if these talks are to be successful, the Government will have to compromise on their red lines. Labour MPs have already shown their willingness to compromise through the series of indicative votes where labour MPs voted on average for 5 of the 8 proposals (Conservatives, Lib Dems and TIG MPs voted on average for just 2 of the 8).

Our manifesto in 2017 promised to accept the referendum result but with the proviso that we could not accept a No Deal, and we could not accept a deal that would damage our economy or just in time supply chain on which so many jobs depend. That is why any alternative plan must capture the benefits of a customs union and protect workplace rights and environmental standards and keep a close regulatory alignment with the single market. Our party conference last September united members around the unanimous composite motion that said if it proved impossible to negotiate a good deal along those lines, then Labour would call for a General Election and failing that, all options would remain on the table including a second public vote. Last week our National Executive Committee met and confirmed that position unambiguously. This means that, should the current talks with the government fail to arrive at an acceptable compromise and assuming the Prime Minister refuses to go to the country in a General Election, then Labour will insist upon a public vote on Theresa May’s deal.

I know that many people are ‘sick of Brexit’ and angry about the impact it is having on jobs and businesses. I share these frustrations. As many of you will know, my personal preference is to Remain in the EU. However, I will do all I can to respect the referendum result and deliver a deal which, whilst leaving the EU, does not undermine your jobs and prospects.

Yours sincerely,

Barry Gardiner
Member of Parliament for Brent North

Free TV licences for over-75s

My Nan loved getting something for free!

Her bus pass was a total joy and her free TV licence was too. She was proud that she’d worked all her life and paid her taxes. She felt that these were her little bit of recognition.

But the BBC’s consultation on the future of TV Licences and who should pay for them recently closed in February — and soon that universal benefit for the over 75s could come to an end. I certainly believe that this is one of the best and simplest ways of helping our elders to feel rewarded and valued. Unfortunately as part of the last BBC Charter Review, the government devolved responsibility for the free TV licence, and the cost, to the BBC.

New research from the House of Commons Library shows that if free TV licences are scrapped altogether, this will cost over-75s in Brent North a total of £967,715 a year – almost £1million.

But perhaps the sneakiest proposal of all is to link the free licences with pension credit. I say “sneakiest” because so many do not take up their right to pension credit. In my Brent North constituency the cost to our oldest citizens would be £629,090 a year because more than 40 per cent of households entitled to pension credit have not claimed it.

I want to urge local families to speak to their relatives and friends who are pensioners and encourage them to claim the money that is rightfully theirs.

To check if eligible or make a claim call 0800 99 1234 or ask Citizens Advice to request a paper application on your behalf.

Barry writes in the Independent: “I’m declaring a climate emergency – but will my fellow MPs admit it?”

Barry has written a piece in the Independent today, ahead of a historic vote where Labour will ask Parliament to declare an environment and climate emergency in a bid to become the first country in the world to declare one. 

His article can be read here or below:

A sixteen-year-old Swedish schoolgirl, Greta Thunberg, gave British politicians a lesson in clarity and truth this week. Our greenhouse gas emissions are not falling fast enough to avert catastrophic climate breakdown. Our wildlife is vanishing before your eyes, with species levels nosediving towards extinction. “This ongoing irresponsible behaviour”, she scolded, “will no doubt be remembered in history as one of the greatest failures of humankind.”

She’s right. We are in the midst of a planetary crisis. But we are acting as if the scientific evidence does not matter. We talk about what is politically possible when we should only be talking of what is scientifically required. At the other end of the age spectrum, in his recent BBC documentary David Attenborough explained to millions of viewers that we are facing irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of our societies.

It is because of this immense scale of disaster we face that next Wednesday, Labour will ask parliament to announce an environmental and climate emergency.

If MPs pass Labour’s motion, we will become the first parliament in the world to have recognised this sobering truth. This would be the boldest demonstration yet of Britain’s commitment towards taking environmental breakdown and climate chaos with the seriousness and urgency that scientists have shown it needs.

And doing so would inspire countries everywhere to follow suit and recognise the scale of the problem we are dealing with. That is what happened when the Labour government was the first to legislate for emissions reductions targets in the ground-breaking Climate Change Act in 2008: it became a model for the rest of the world.

It is also fitting that the UK should take such a lead, because we were the first to usher in the era of coal power with the industrial revolution, making us one of the largest global contributors to climate change. In fact, since 1750, the UK has produced 77 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions, making us the 5th largest polluter of all time. So, the least we can do is to take responsibility for our part in creating the problem.

Government ministers say that there is no point in declaring an emergency. They say it is actions that matter. But if you do not accept that there is an emergency you will not act as if there is one.

Under Labour’s plans for a Green Industrial Revolution, ending the emergency will also make economic sense. Our existing plans to invest in new solar and wind energy, and to retrofit existing homes, will create at least 400,000 jobs across the country – with the potential for many more. We are global leaders in technologies like renewable wind power and we must not allow those workers in the old oil and gas industries to lose out when the world moves away from fossil fuels to the clean energy of the future. That is why Labour is so committed to a just transition that will move people gradually into high-quality, well-paid clean jobs.  People will only embrace the radical transformation we need it if they see it is working for them as well as for future generations.

But if we are to have a policy to achieve net zero domestically, then we must not undermine it with what we do overseas. It shows an utter lack of the coordinated thinking we need that this Tory government is currently spending 99.4% of our export finance for energy on supporting fossil fuel projects overseas.

Research published this week shows that all of the forecast $4.9 trillion of global investment in new oil and gas fields is incompatible with limiting warming to our Paris commitment of 1.5°C. The government cannot continue investing in fossil fuels overseas – a policy so egregious that even the former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has called on the UK to change course, “in the interests of the whole world”.

We only have one world. But we are consuming its resources and polluting it so badly and so fast that we are in danger of bringing about our own extinction. We must act not as politics allows but as the science demands. There is no plan B and no Planet B. Labour believes the British people have the common sense and the vision to show the world a way out of this crisis.

But as with any problem, the first step is in recognising it for what it is. That’s why Parliament must declare an environmental and climate emergency.

Barry makes his voice heard for our planet at this year’s Earth Hour

Barry has added his voice for Earth Hour, the world’s largest annual event to protect the planet, and joined a movement to safeguard nature and set it on the path to recovery.

Barry made a pledge for the environment; joining over 100 MPs who showed their support for Earth Hour in Parliament this week, ahead of the global lights out event on Saturday 30th March at 8:30pm.

MPs pledged their #VoiceForThePlanet to send the message that it is unacceptable to sit back and watch the destruction of nature, and to help inspire their constituents to make their voice heard this Earth Hour, by choosing to change something in everyday life that will help protect our planet.

Earth Hour gives a voice to people everywhere who want to raise awareness of some of the biggest environmental challenges we are facing.

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Barry celebrates the Green Heart Heroes working to create a future where the UK no longer contributes to climate change

Barry joined over 40 of his parliamentary colleagues on the 11 March in the Palace of Westminster to celebrate the efforts of those tackling climate change up and down the country, for The Climate Coalition’s Green Heart Hero Awards.

Barry gave the Overseas Inspiration Award to Christian Aid’s Breaking the Barriers programme which uses sustainable energy products and technologies across Africa and Latin America to increase rural women’s jobs and income, improve working and living conditions, promote gender equality, and strengthen women’s social status.

The awards ceremony follows on from the fifth year of the Coalition’s Show The Love campaign, which sees people from all walks of life – faith groups, sports clubs, businesses, schoolchildren – come together to Show the Love for all that they want to protect from climate change.

The Climate Coalition is made up of more than 130 organisations representing over 15 million people, ranging from aid agencies such as CAFOD and Christian Aid to groups such as the Women’s Institute, WWF, RSPB, and the National Trust.

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