Jackdaw Gasfield

Cat Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Wyre) (Lab)]

In an earlier answer, the Minister talked about the fact that the summer we have just experienced has been the hottest on record, but we fear that it may look cold in comparison with what is to come in the future. As a response, a lot of my constituents are becoming very engaged with issues of the environment. I have held several MP eco-forums, and attendance at them is going up week by week. My next forum is in the next two weeks, and I can predict a question that will be put to me, so I hope that the Minister can help me by giving me the answer on the Floor of the House. What does today’s decision mean for the UK’s leadership on the global stage when it comes to tackling climate change?

[Michael Shanks]

I will say two things. First, we are absolutely clear that tackling the climate crisis is an absolute priority for the Government. It is vital for our national security, our energy security and our children’s futures, and we need to do even more. This decision is about the transition period, in which we will need oil and gas to build into where we go next, but that is not the whole story. The absolute clear direction from this Government is that in order to tackle the climate crisis, we have to break the link with fossil fuels so that we are not importing from other countries and driving up climate problems for future generations to deal with, but have home-grown, clean energy here in the UK. We are already making enormous progress on that. People should rightly feel that the Government have to do more, but one of the really important things to recognise is that we are making progress in climate action. We always need to do more, but people should not feel that there is absolutely no route out for us. If we can work together and build some more consensus, we can tackle climate change.