Labour should counter “absolutely unacceptable” and “ignorant” Conservative attacks on its climate policies by offering a cross-party consensus on climate action, to bring forward measures this parliament to meet net zero, the outgoing chair of the Climate Change Committee has urged.
Lord Deben, a former Tory environment secretary and minister under Margaret Thatcher and John Major, strongly criticised Grant Shapps and Suella Braverman, cabinet ministers who have led vitriolic attacks on Labour as “the political wing of Just Stop Oil”. He called on the government instead to heed the message of climate protesters.
“The government doesn’t seem to understand what it has done,” he said of ministers’ attacks. “That’s a much worse position [than hypocrisy]. We still get things like the absolutely unacceptable statement by Suella Braverman attacking the Labour party and talking about their very proper decision about not further expanding exploitation and extraction from the North Sea, and branding it as being outrageous and disgraceful.”
Deben, who was known as John Gummer before he was made a peer in 2010, continued: “It is ignorant to say that. It is ignorant, not least, of their official advisers who have proposed exactly that [an end to new North Sea licences], and it has to be taken seriously. You may disagree with it, but it has to be taken seriously and not used as a kind of cheap political barb.”
Grant Shapps, the energy and net zero secretary, has also posted a series of videos on social media calling Labour the “political wing of Just Stop Oil” and ridiculing Keir Starmer’s stance on climate policy. Deben said these attacks were also “unacceptable”.
“I don’t think it is helpful to use the issues of climate change for party political purposes,” he said in an interview with the Guardian. “As chairman of the Climate Change Committee, I have stamped down every time that people tried to do that. I’ve been particularly tough with the Tories when they’ve tried to do that, because it’s just not acceptable.”
Deben left his position as chair of the CCC, the statutory committee that advises the government on the impact of its climate policies, earlier this month after a nine-month extension to his 10-year term. His successor is expected to be appointed in November, after an interim period in which Prof Piers Forster, a prominent climate scientist, will act as chair.
Deben called on Labour to provide more detail on its policies, and to react to Tory attacks by extending an offer of a cross-party consensus on climate issues. He suggested this could be based on a report published earlier this year by Chris Skidmore, a Tory former energy minister.
Skidmore, at the behest of Liz Truss while she was prime minister, compiled a report with 130 recommendations for ministers to put the UK on track to achieve net zero, but only a handful of his proposals have been taken up by the government.
“If I were leader of the Labour party at this moment, I know exactly what I’d do,” said Deben. “I would say to the current government: ‘Here is Mr Skidmore’s report, he is a Conservative ex-minister, he was asked to do this report to show how best to deliver net zero by Lis Truss. Now we will accept, if you put it forward, we will do the following basic things [acting on the report’s recommendations]. We will do that. We won’t oppose it. You put them forward, we’ll back it.’”
Such an offer would force the government to react, Deben said. “It seems to me that you then start shifting the whole debate,” he said. “The more that you can do cross-party things the better – the more that you celebrate the fact that Britain has this unusual circumstance that all major political parties are united in their desire to go for net zero.”
Challenging the government to a cross-party slate of actions could also help to put the UK back on track to reach net zero. The CCC has warned of major failures from the current government, saying the UK is lagging well behind its targets and needs to act immediately or face much higher costs for reaching net zero in future. “We can’t lose the 18 months between now and a general election,” Deben said.
Deben, one of the country’s most influential politicians on the climate, also criticised Labour for a lack of clarity over its policies. He said there were elements and key supporters of the Labour party, including trade unions, that objected to climate policy.
“They haven’t been precise enough, they haven’t used their position to make the government understand why these things have not been right,” he said. “[From Labour] it’s almost always been generalities, which is why I was very pleased when they did make that absolute commitment on North Sea oil. We do [need to see more precise commitments].”
Deben also expressed some sympathy with climate protesters, though he condemned some of their actions. “I’m very strongly against things which upset people’s lives and are dangerous. That’s entirely wrong. But I don’t mind when people are trying to bring home to the nation that this is an urgent existential threat,” he said.
For that reason, the response from Braverman and other ministers had been inadequate, he said. “I’ve been a supporter of having tough measures to keep the peace. But you’re only genuinely allowed to do that if you’ve also taken onboard that the reason people are doing what they’re doing is a serious reason. I want to hear ministers being much more sympathetic about the fact that there are many, many young people who know that in their lifetimes, their lives will be impossible unless we act.”
Braverman had also failed to take onboard the link between the climate crisis and migration, he added. “If you have temperatures of 50C in places like Niger, people will move. They won’t move to get a better life, they’ll move because there’s no other way of living. We’re already seeing it,” he said. “People have got to come to terms with what happens if you don’t act.”
Deben dismissed the idea that the Tories were waging a culture war, however. “I don’t think it’s just my party – I think it’s a real issue about the kind of decisions we have to make,” he said. “When the Labour party announced its decision [to halt new oil and gas licences in the North Sea] it was immediately attacked by two of its biggest funders, Unite and the GMB.”
He added: “There are those who don’t really take onboard the urgency of climate change, and they are in all political parties.”