State of Climate and Nature

Adrian Ramsay Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

My hon. Friend is right: we have an army of citizen scientists and naturalists, and we are certainly looking forward to celebrating some of them tomorrow at RHS Garden Wisley for Bees’ Needs Week. We also have the pollinator count next week. However, anyone who wants to clean up their river needs a permit from the Environment Agency beforehand. as we have habitats and flood defences there. My hon. Friend is right that we should empower citizens to take action but they need to do so without there being unintended consequences.

[Adrian Ramsay (Waveney Valley) (Green)]

I welcome the statement from the Nature Minister, and thank her for recognising the crucial link between nature restoration and tackling climate breakdown. Does she recognise that whatever action is taken—we need to see far more action taken both on nature restoration and on decarbonisation—if large-scale new oilfields are granted at Rosebank or Jackdaw, for example, there could be emissions equivalent to 28 low-income countries from just one oilfield, which would undo all the good work that she and all of us in the House want to see?

[Mary Creagh]

The hon. Member knows that I am unable to comment on individual licences and that the Energy Secretary will make his decision in due course. What I would say it is that it is essential that we have a climate transition that is fair to those workers in the North sea. North sea oil and gas have been in decline for about the last 20 years, so he is right to say that, and we have to get off the fossil fuel rollercoaster to secure energy security and prices for the future.