State of Climate and Nature
Debate between Mary Creagh and Josh Fenton-Glynn(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Mary Creagh
My hon. Friend lives in a particularly beautiful part of the world that has a lot to commend it. We need to take a whole-city approach to the issue. We need to look at our roads. We need to reduce the urban heat island effect, with more tree planting and soft planting, and moving away from the grey concrete. We need more planting that will hold water out of our drains and keep it on our streets. We need to reduce the concreting over of front gardens, which has done so much to contribute towards flooding problems.
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
I represent a constituency at the frontline of the climate and nature emergency. Flood risks are part of our daily life. Moors for the Future has demonstrated that restoring peatland can slow waterflow on hills; water passing over restored peat goes 670 times slower than it does over degraded peat. Moors for the Future is working on projects with the Highways Agency to stop roads flooding. That is a win-win initiative that helps nature and infrastructure. Will the Government continue to support healthy peatland across the country?
Mary Creagh
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the subject of peatlands and their role in hydrological protection. He raises the same point as the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) did about Calderdale, but from a completely different direction. We know that peatlands have this important role to play. They are this country’s Amazon rainforest, and we are doing everything we can to protect them for the future.