Climate and Nature Bill

Simon Hoare Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 24th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare]

As I was saying—[Laughter.] I was tempted to scare the House by saying, “Having concluded my opening remarks,” but I think I had better not.

If I may, I will address directly the Minister on the Treasury Bench, the hon. Member for Coventry East (Mary Creagh). I want to do so sincerely, because I like and admire her enormously, and I hope she knows that. She will know that a vast number of her colleagues on the Benches behind her and elsewhere support the general thrust of the Bill and are looking for a generous response from the Government, both to avoid having to divide the House and, more importantly, to make progress on these issues, which I know full well she holds close to her heart. I say to her—not in the spirit of any sort of ransom or blackmail—that how the Government respond to this debate will, in many ways, shape and sculpt how those of us who support the Bill respond in kind.

I will bring my remarks to a conclusion. Some have said that those who support the Bill are dangerous, Stalinistic, anti-farming land grabbers. I opened my speech by saying that I wanted to speak specifically to my fellow Conservatives, both in this place and across the country, where the siren voices of simplistic populism call to us and try to drag us on to the rocks that we would be well advised to avoid. Let me close with the words of a dangerous left-wing activist:

“It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways…We must use science to cast a light ahead”.

The same dangerous leftie said:

“But the threat to our world comes not only from tyrants and their tanks”—

appropriate, given the statement we have just had—

“It can be more insidious though less visible. The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations…We must remember our duty to Nature before it is too late.”

Which radical Stalinist am I quoting? From which Guardian-writing journalist am I purloining phrases? Well, it is that dangerous leftie herself: Margaret Thatcher. The first quote is from her United Nations speech in 1989; her views, and the views of my party, are formed by science and the facts, with her basic university training at Somerville College, Oxford. The second quote was from the second world climate conference, after she had left office in 1990. I say to Conservatives today that we would still be well advised to heed her caution, her advice and her words.