Caroline Lucas: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. In terms of trust, he will know that the Government have set up a new consultation to determine what public consent is. Does he agree that it is a monstrous waste of time and money to try to determine something that does not exist? There is no local consent for this; plenty of Government Members do not actually want it. If the...
Caroline Lucas: Will the Home Secretary give way?
Caroline Lucas: Frankly, there is so much wrong with the Bill that it is difficult to know where to start. It basically needs a line striking through the vast majority of it, and I am therefore pleased to support the amendments tabled by the hon. Members for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) and for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker) seeking to do exactly that. Peaceful protest is a fundamental right...
Caroline Lucas: I thank the right hon. Member for her powerful contribution with which I entirely agree. I was just explaining about the combined effect of new clauses 7 and 8. New clause 7, crucially, allows the Government to propose that the Secretary of State be allowed themselves to apply for an injunction despite not being affected or being a party in the normal sense. Added to that is the effect of new...
Caroline Lucas: Do I agree? Yes, I do. The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. As someone who took part in some recreations of that trespass on Kinder Scout earlier this year, I could not agree with him more about the importance of people taking that action. It is also important to note that while existing and expansive civil injunctions are being used with growing and alarming frequency to...
Caroline Lucas: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Caroline Lucas: In the bonfire of Government policy that has just taken place, the Chancellor was not very specific about what would happen to the Prime Minister’s investment zones policy. Personally, I was hoping that it would be incinerated as well, not least because it is designed to undermine environmental regulation, to avoid fair taxation and to bypass local democracy. In the past, he has said that...
Caroline Lucas: We have just seen the back of one Tory Prime Minister for trampling over standards in public life, only for him to be replaced by another who in just 40 days has herself failed to meet at least three of the Nolan principles. I would love to ask the Prime Minister herself about this, but given that she is not here, I shall ask that Leader of the House: is it leadership to sack your Chancellor...
Caroline Lucas: This Budget amounts to an environment wrecker’s charter and it is a statement of missed opportunities. For example, a report just this week shows that a major programme of insulating homes in Britain and installing heat pumps could benefit the economy by £7 billion a year, create 140,000 jobs by 2030, get our fuel bills down and get climate emissions down too. Tucked away on page 14 of the...
Caroline Lucas: Evidence of the physical and mental health benefits of greater access to the countryside is overwhelming, yet we have a legal right to roam on only 8% of English land and 3% of rivers. Could we have a debate in Government time on the need to expand the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 to cover rivers, woods and green belt, and will the Government support my private Member’s Bill—the...
Caroline Lucas: I must say that I am fascinated that the Secretary of State thinks that he knows more about the geology of the UK than the geologist who founded Cuadrilla, who said quite clearly that the UK is unsuited to widespread fracking. My question comes back to the issue of consent. The Prime Minister said that fracking will go ahead only in places where there is support from the local community. That...
Caroline Lucas: The Secretary of State’s announcements may have finally put a temporary brake on further terrifying price hikes, but they leave huge questions unanswered, including: what is the Government’s exit strategy? We need a proper solution to get us out of this crisis, by reducing our dependence on gas and upgrading buildings for the long term. Just yesterday, more than 100 top businesses wrote...
Caroline Lucas: It is a privilege to speak on behalf of the Green party of England and Wales and pay tribute to Queen Elizabeth II. Above all else, she was a mother, a grandmother and a great-grandmother. I know I speak for the people of Brighton, Pavilion when I offer my sincerest condolences, in particular to her immediate family and to her loved ones. They have lost someone very dear to them on a deeply...
Caroline Lucas: I echo the best wishes to Her Majesty. The new Prime Minister takes up her role at a moment when the country is facing a series of multiple crises of staggering proportions, including a likely recession and, let us not forget, the accelerating climate emergency, which, in the words of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, means that there is “a brief and rapidly closing window to...
Caroline Lucas: I completely accept the hon. Lady’s point about our being a competitive financial centre, but does she agree that there is a real opportunity to be a competitive green financial centre? As that opportunity is time-limited—other countries are moving faster than we are—does she agree that a secondary objective in respect of climate and nature will be essential to ensure that we regulate...
Caroline Lucas: The Bill contains a new statutory objective on competitiveness and growth, which ranks those elements above the UK’s legally binding nature and climate targets. Given that a thriving economy depends on a thriving environment, will the Minister look at this again and consider introducing a climate-and-nature-specific statutory objective as well, so that there are two statutory objectives...
Caroline Lucas: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way so promptly. I appreciate that it is a bit unusual to intervene so soon, but I wonder if she accepts that the process by which we are having this debate utterly undermines this House. It is deeply undemocratic that there has not been any way for us to have a full vote on the objectives of each future trade deal or access the negotiating...
Caroline Lucas: The Secretary of State is very generous in giving way. On that point, does she not recognise that the bottom line is that if we are rightly asking farmers to lead the way on more sustainable farming methods, yet at the same time allowing imports to come in that will undercut them—because they are not having to meet the same standards and are therefore cheaper—we are essentially handing...
Caroline Lucas: (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on sewage outflows into our beautiful waterways and on our beaches.
Caroline Lucas: I thank the Secretary of State for his response, but I am utterly staggered by his complacency. Following the news over the summer that raw sewage was being pumped into our waterways and along our beautiful beaches, I have received so many messages from constituents who are horrified that water companies are polluting in such a revolting way. Does the Secretary of State recognise that, after...
