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 Tom Tugendhat's message to CEN’s network of parliamentarians, councillors, and grassroots supporters.
Nothing fills me with more patriotic pride than Britain’s green and pleasant lands. From the Staffordshire Moors, to the White Cliffs of Dover, to the ‘Garden of England’ in my constituency in Kent - Britain is as beautiful as it is diverse.
As Conservatives, we have an inherent duty to protect the world around us for future generations. As Thatcher said "no generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy - with a full repairing lease".
My mission is clear - the happiness and prosperity of the British people. This means taking the threats to our environment seriously and that is what I will do as Leader of the Conservative Party.
The first job of any leader needs to be to ensure the security of the British people. But, we are too dependent on foreign oil and gas, which allows our enemies and hostile actors, like Putin, to force energy prices up and hold our country to ransom.
Our food security is also at risk. With increased flooding, wetter winters and scorching summers, farmers are struggling to cope with extreme weather events. They rightly need support to protect not only their own land, but - as custodians of our countryside - the environment and the communities around them.
But, perhaps most importantly, protecting our environment can bring prosperity to all regions. We should encourage innovation and investment into new technologies such as wind turbines and nuclear power which will protect our environment, boost economic growth and ensure our security.
Fortunately, successive conservative governments have acted on their conservative principles to protect our nation's security and boost economic opportunity to all.
My dear friend Jerome Mayhew and the Conservative Environment Network have championed a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which will stop China flooding our country with carbon-intense products on the cheap which undermine our industries efforts to decarbonise.
By channelling private finance, successive Conservative governments built the five largest offshore wind farms in the world and boosted renewable grid capacity from 7% in 2010 to over 50% in 2024, moving people away from dictator controlled oil and gas.
We also carried-forward free-market values to implement free-ports across the country. This has helped transform areas like Teesside, with green jobs and investment flowing in through the £300 million wind turbine factory and extra £4 billion worth of contracts have been agreed, creating more high-skilled, high-wage jobs.
Harnessing our Brexit freedoms, we reformed farming finances by introducing the Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMs). We now reward and support farmers who look to improve their land's resilience and restore nature, helping protect our nation's food security and farmers livelihoods.
Despite all we’ve accomplished to strengthen our nation’s security and increase opportunity for all through environmental leadership, we’ve not celebrated our achievements. We’ve forgotten to champion the conservative principles passed down through the generations. Our Party is respected globally for growing the economy while safeguarding the environment - but this is just the beginning. There is much more to be done, and only conservatives can deliver on this promise.
And that is more important than ever, because our country’s greatest threat is this Labour government, which is set to undermine all of our achievements.
Labour’s statist interventions won’t deliver for the British people - this government will only give them more of the same. GB Energy will crowd out private investment and add layers of needless bureaucracy. Their plan to slash the landmark ELMs scheme will leave our farmers and environment exposed. And they lack any real plan to restore and protect our nation’s beautiful countryside.
We must stand up to Labour and champion conservative environmentalism. This will allow us to truly serve the British people, lead with conservative principles our nation craves and act on these values to drive forward national security, economic growth and protect our beautiful countryside.
With me as Leader of the Conservative Party, this is exactly what you’ll get.
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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