Lib Dems: Govt squandering progress on climate change

Responding to the Climate Change Committee’s 2019 Progress Report to Parliament – detailing how the UK Government is “lagging far behind, what is needed” to meet the old climate change targets, let alone the new net-zero emissions target for 2050 – Liberal Democrat Climate Change Spokesperson Wera Hobhouse said:

This report shows that this Conservative Government is all talk and no action when it comes to climate change. They’re off-track, but instead of reversing their most damaging decisions such as effectively banning on-shore wind, slashing subsidies to solar power and scrapping the zero-carbon homes standard they instead continue to do more damage by permitting new fossil fuels like fracking. Meanwhile, the two Conservative leadership contenders are taking money from climate change deniers.

Liberal Democrats demand better. The UK should be leading the world on climate change, instead this Government is squandering the progress we’ve already made. Liberal Democrats would place climate change at the heart of Government, instead of paying it lip service as the Conservatives do.

Eurotunnel settlement is another multi-million pound Tory mistake

Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran, who sits on the Public Accounts Committee, has slammed the Department for Transport for its £33 million settlement with Eurotunnel and warned of more mistakes under this Conservative Government.

The comments come in response to the publication of the Committee of Public Accounts report ‘Eurotunnel and the UK border: out-of-court settlement with Eurotunnel’.

Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran said:

The Department for Transport’s out-of-court settlement with Eurotunnel is a £33 million lesson in rushed and risky procurement work, as well as poor stakeholder management.

Taxpayers deserve better, and the fact that Whitehall departments are still waiting for clear planning instructions for the new October Brexit deadline is very concerning.

We need to see that Ministers have learned their lesson, but it looks likely that they will once again rush to re-procure ferry capacity in time. Unless we stop Brexit, the lack of direction from government to departments on how to prepare for Brexit scenarios will only lead to more multi-million pound mistakes.