The Conservative Environment Network (CEN) invited all four Conservative Party leadership candidates to set out their positive conservative agenda on climate change and nature loss.
We're delighted to publish James Cleverly's message to CEN’s network of parliamentarians, councillors, and grassroots supporters.
We have always understood that protecting the environment is not just a matter of policy – it is a responsibility rooted in our history, our values, and our survival. It was a Conservative Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who at Conservative conference in 1988 reminded us that we are not simply “friends of the Earth,” but its “guardians and trustees for generations to come”. Conserving is in our name and nature, so let’s champion it.
I am proud of the work we did to restrict EU trawlers from damaging our marine environment, our Blue Belt initiative around our overseas territories, and I know how much our Commonwealth allies value our environmental leadership from my time as Foreign Secretary. We must not forget what we achieved.
And I am proud that under our stewardship, the UK became a global example of how nations can reduce emissions and grow their economies simultaneously. Not degrowth as some on the left would have it, but green growth. At this crucial time in our world’s history, we must work to maintain and accelerate our progress, but we can only do that if we ensure we make a positive case for supporting our environment that appeals to the public.
Thanks to conditions created by successive Conservative governments, the UK now hosts the four biggest offshore wind farms and seven of the world’s ten largest. And yet, we don’t hear enough about it. Abundant clean electricity, so that every time you switch on a light or charge your phone, it is increasingly from renewable energy and not spewing emissions into the atmosphere. A fantastic Conservative led achievement, the technical skills of which we are now exporting to the world. And not only that, but we are now exporting clean electricity to the European continent too, via a whole series of interconnectors buried under the sea. Britain, a clean energy superpower, exporting power.
This great country led the Industrial Revolution, gave the world the electric lightbulb, the steam train, split the atom, and it was a Brit who invented the World Wide Web. We are a unique island, and although our emissions barely scratch the surface, we should absolutely use our scientific and innovative brilliance to help the world transition to clean energy. We have already used our diplomatic heft to take global net zero commitments from less than 30% of the world economy, to over 90% after COP26, including work I did as Foreign Minister with India and China. But there is still more we can do.
Nuclear power, for example, has become unnecessarily slow and prohibitively expensive. Projects crucial to our energy security, like Hinkley Point C are costing six times more to build here than comparable efforts in countries like South Korea. And despite touring the world selling the benefits of small modular reactors, we still don’t have one here. So we need to tackle these systemic issues, particularly with our planning system. And we still need better technological solutions on battery storage, zero emission planes and how we heat our homes, which I have no doubt the ingenious British private sector can provide.
But we must also hold Labour accountable for their poorly conceived policies. Ed Miliband’s decision to immediately approve several enormous solar projects, without even reading their applications, undermines the principle of local consent. Their central planning approach to energy, including the creation of the hugely expensive GB Energy, risks crowding out private investment and losing the British public along the way. It is a brand without a function, won’t lower your bills, and won’t produce any energy. Instead of giving shares to the British public, in the Thatcher tradition, they are taxing the public to socialise the risk, without distributing the benefits.
To move forward, however, we need more than opposition to the left’s ideas – we need a positive, forward-thinking plan of our own. Support for free trade and free markets, respect for individual choice, and empowering local communities should form the backbone of new conservative policies on the environment.
What Ben Houchen has done in Teesside should be the blueprint for our greener economy. Billions of private investment, thousands of new jobs created, and industries of the future attracted to Teesside by lower taxes, less red tape and a Conservative leader championing their investment.
As the Conservative Party rebuilds in opposition, we must not forget our environmental heritage and the importance of environmental action for the sake of our economy and our national security, as well as our own electoral fortunes.
Views expressed in this blog are those of the author, not necessarily those of the Conservative Environment Network. If you are a CEN supporter, councillor, or parliamentarian and would like to write for the CEN blog, please email your idea to info@cen.uk.com.
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