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Edward Leigh's Speeches In Parliament Related to Climate

We've found 31 Parliamentary debates in which Edward Leigh has spoken about climate-related matters.

Here are the relevant sections of their speeches.

• 15 Sep 2026: Saudi East-West Oil Pipeline

  13:30

  The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) is a lovely man, but I just cannot follow his logic. He says that the solution is to pursue green energy, which is fair enough in the long term, and in the same breath?in the very next sentence?he asks what oil reserves we have. Surely it is not a zero sum game. It will be decades before we rely entirely on green energy. I am not asking the Minister to comment on Jackdaw and Rosebank and all that, but does he accept that we must pursue oil drilling in the North sea to become self-reliant, and to get ourselves out of this crisis?

  [Source]

• 14 Sep 2026: Speciality Steel UK

  We know that Speciality Steel has been severely impacted by high electricity costs, and we know just what that means from people in Scunthorpe, the constituency next to mine, which is a very heavy user of electricity. They are paying 50% more for their electricity than is being paid in France, for instance. However, the Government insist on phasing out the blast furnaces. Once we have electric arcs in Scunthorpe, people there will have to use twice as much electricity, paying much more. Does the Secretary of State agree that we cannot reindustrialise Britain simply through public ownership, but must reduce our energy costs? Will he take steps, over the next year or two, not to worry about green energy and all that, but just to reduce our energy costs to a level roughly equivalent to that in France?

  [Source]

• 16 Jul 2026: British Steel

  11:00

  What concerns me is the jobs of my constituents who work at Scunthorpe. That is all I am worried about; I have no ideological objection. If it is what is needed now, fair enough. As long as the blast furnaces are totally uneconomic because of high energy costs, however, it can only be a sticking plaster. I was struck by the question put to the Minister by his own Back Bencher, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer)—there is no point my demanding that we scrap green energy and all that sort of stuff—so will he take that away and do more with grants to ensure Scunthorpe’s blast furnaces are competitive on world markets?

  [Source]

• 8 Jun 2026: Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill

  I agree with a lot of what the hon. Gentleman says. We can surely agree on this point: what is really killing Scunthorpe are the insane green energy policies and the fact that we have the highest energy costs in Europe. If we had a sane energy policy, we could start to make a profit at Scunthorpe.

  [Source]

• 19 May 2026: Energy Security

  15:24

  I should have thought that we could have a compromise on this. We could have a policy that is sensible, gradually moving away from fossil fuels and gradually becoming a more green-energy economy, but we should not simply export our emissions and set arbitrary dates.

  [Source]

• 24 Mar 2026: Middle East: Economic Update

  11:37

  Is there not a sensible, middle-of-the-way approach here? We should by all means proceed with green energy—such as offshore wind, in which we lead the world, in the North sea off the Lincolnshire coast—but we should also keep an open mind about new extraction from the North sea. I was listening carefully to what she said to the shadow Chancellor. Will the Chancellor confirm today that the Energy Secretary will keep an open mind when he considers these licences, so that we can guarantee our resilience in the future?

  [Source]

• 18 Mar 2026: Topical Questions

  T3. Will the Secretary of State commend the new nuclear fusion site at West Burton, just two miles from the town of Gainsborough, which, potentially, will unleash unlimited green energy as well as hundreds of millions of pounds of investment and thousands of jobs? Will she confirm that, when it comes to science and innovation, this country is not broken, but is leading the world?

  [Source]

• 9 Mar 2026: Middle East: Economic Update

  14:32

  When we are in the middle of a war, I am not sure that it achieves much to be overtly party political. The past is where we were; we are now in the present. Just to be helpful, I agree with the Chancellor on de-escalation and on defending our interests, not pursuing regime change, but the fact is that we have the highest energy costs in Europe. We are now in a crisis and potentially a war economy. I saw the Energy Secretary sitting next to her earlier. Whatever the good intentions on net zero, will she listen to the shadow Chancellor on North sea oil, because we are in this crisis now and have to meet it with every tool in the toolbox?

  [Source]

• 11 Dec 2025: Oil Refining Sector

  I am no climate change sceptic. I am prepared to have investment in green energy—we are world leaders in offshore wind in the Humber, are we not? We are doing our bit, but the Government are taking it to new heights. All ideologues are dangerous, but fanatical ideologues are the most dangerous of all, and that is what we have in our Secretary of State. We have these ludicrous targets; I commend the editorial in The Times today calling it “targetitis”. Originally, Theresa May arbitrarily set a limit of 2040. Where did that come from? Boris Johnson, in his bumptious, casual way, not considering the evidence, unilaterally cut it down to 2030. Where did that come from? All this is massively damaging.

  [Source]

  That may be a fair point. I said at the beginning of my speech that I am not a climate change sceptic. Everybody is prepared to do their bit.

  [Source]

• 15 Oct 2025: Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill

  16:48

  I am listening very carefully to what the hon. Gentleman says and I completely support his good intentions. The problem with sustainable aviation fuel is that it is perhaps five times more expensive than what we are currently paying, and that stocks are very limited and—we have been talking about livestock feeds—even more difficult. I am completely with him on the ambition, but we must also protect consumer rights, the right to fly at a reasonable cost and the cost to the economy. As with all green energy policies, there must be a balance. I am sure he will agree with that.

  [Source]

• 10 Jul 2025: Energy Planning

  We are all in favour of green energy in Lincolnshire, and we do our bit with massive wind turbines in the North sea, but will the Committee do a more in-depth report about the sheer concentration of solar farms in Lincolnshire, with 10,000 acres around the town of Gainsborough? I know that the grid connection is important, but surely the Committee could play a useful role in saying that all parts of the country should do their bit. We cannot simply take 10,000 acres out of good agricultural production in one small part of England.

  [Source]

• 15 May 2025: Solar Farms

  14:12

  The distribution of solar farms across the country is, as has been made clear, highly uneven. Of the 650 parliamentary constituencies, 310 have more than 0.1% of land taken up by solar development, while 151 have more than 0.6% and 96 have more than 1%. The five most affected constituencies are Newark, with 8.85% of land taken up by solar farms, Sleaford and North Hykeham with 6.95%, Newport East with 5.12%, my own beloved Gainsborough with 5.08%, and Selby with 4.22%. I say to the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe that this is a debate not about solar farms or green energy but the sheer concentration of solar farms in some parts of England.

  [Source]

  14:18

  That leads me to the point of whether solar power is really an efficient way of achieving green energy. It is land-intensive, with 200 times more land needed compared with gas, and it is inefficient during winter or cloudy periods. There are doubts about the carbon footprint. There is no clear evidence that energy generation over a 15-year panel lifespan justifies the embodied energy used in panel production—and we are never given reassurances on that point.

  In conclusion, covering our countryside with solar energy installations is environmentally harmful, economically unsustainable, a threat to food security, and damaging to local agriculture and tourism. Local opposition is widespread and strong, and the harms outweigh the benefits. Seeking permission for these sites via the use of nationally significant infrastructure projects is an abuse of NSIPs and subverts local democracy. It is part of this net zero craze that provides poor global value for money. It costs the UK taxpayer billions, and the net effect is cancelled out by minuscule increases in Chinese emissions. These applications should be taken in the round and, if necessary, refused.

  [Source]

• 8 May 2025: St George’s Day and English Affairs

  14:01

  I represent an agricultural constituency. One might wonder why I am now getting on to that subject, but again there is a sense among people in agricultural constituencies that the Government do not understand their point of view. We are all in favour of green energy in Lincolnshire. We are leading on green energy with wind farms in the North sea; there is no opposition to them, but we are angry that entrepreneurs are importing solar panels from China made by slave labour and covering 10,000 acres in my constituency with no proper local planning. We are not against solar farms and we are not against the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero; we just want a sense of fairness that local communities have a say in this and there is some sense of proportion.

  [Source]

• 12 Apr 2025: Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill

  12:16

  Let us be honest: steelmaking in this country is under extreme stress. And why is that? Why are we loading the most expensive energy costs on to our own steel production? Why is Scunthorpe paying almost twice as much in energy costs as those in South Korea or in America? High energy prices make UK steel expensive to produce and uncompetitive versus that produced by our European counterparts. In 2024-25, the average price paid by UK steelmakers was £60 a kWh, compared with the German price of £50 and the French price of £43. We are making our own steel industry uncompetitive. We have to stop these green energy costs. We have to be realistic. The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has now left, but we need to get real. We can take steel into public ownership now, but if we go on loading costs on our industry, we will have to come back month after month and year after year.

  [Source]

• 24 Mar 2025: Disruption at Heathrow

  16:04

  Following that last question, can the Secretary of State give us an absolute assurance that nothing in our drive towards green energy and net zero will ever affect the sustainability and safety of our vital transport systems?

  [Source]

• 18 Mar 2025: Topical Questions

  T7. The Secretary of State and I are near neighbours. Will he take a short car journey to Gainsborough to visit the new fusion site at West Burton? It is probably the most exciting development in green energy that we have ever had in this country, creating unlimited jobs and unlimited green energy. Will he join me in Gainsborough?

  [Source]

• 12 Mar 2025: Sustainable Farming Incentive

  Will the Minister leave for a moment the hallowed cloisters of Cambridge and accept my invitation to take a rural ride through Lincolnshire, the breadbasket of England, to meet my farmers? Does he agree that sustainable farming is the key to food security, and therefore will he take up with his colleagues in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero why they are covering 15% of Lincolnshire with solar farms in addition to taking away this grant?

  [Source]

• 6 Mar 2025: North Sea Energy

  When I climb the hill behind my home in the Lincolnshire wolds, I can see, 20 miles away, a wonderful array of wind turbines in the North sea. We love it locally—we love it for our economy—but nothing in that precludes oil and gas exploration. If we in Lincolnshire are doing so much for green energy, why are we allowing the bread basket of England to be covered with solar farms? We have 10,000 acres of them around Gainsborough, and there is another application for 3,900 acres at North Clifton. Will the Minister and her boss please look at such mass applications in the round so that there is not overdevelopment in the break basket of England?

  [Source]

• 23 Jan 2025: ECO4 and Insulation Schemes

  12:54

  I refer the Minister to the last words in her statement, which were that the Government will “ensure that families have lower bills.” There will always be a problem with insulation in a country with a massively degraded and older housing stock, which underlines the vital importance of cheap energy. We have had a month with virtually no wind and no sun, and so-called green energy is producing hardly any of our energy. We are importing energy, we are stopping drilling in the North sea and we are not building gas-fired power stations. What about old people? Their heating allowance has been taken away, and we are crucifying them with ever higher bills. Meanwhile, China—its annual increment in emissions is more than our entire emissions—is going on pumping out emissions, and “Drill, baby” Trump is pumping out emissions. Why are we crucifying our old people?

  [Source]

• 6 Jan 2025: General Election

  16:54

  I will make one other point. We all believe that we must solve climate change, but we must do it in a moderate and sensible way. Many people in rural areas, such as the area I represent, are worried not only about the farmers tax but that, if they live in Gainsborough, they will see the 10,000 acres around their small town covered with solar farms. Let us have more solar farms on rooftops or on industrial warehouses, but when people see good agricultural land being taken away from them, with solar panels made by dodgy Chinese companies benefiting large landowners, that again leads to a sense of alienation. Both parties have to listen to the people; they cannot go full-steam ahead with their own policies, ignoring what many are frustrated about.

  [Source]

• 13 Nov 2023: Building an NHS Fit for the Future

  16:51

  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Steve Tuckwell) on a superb election victory and on a great speech from a real local champion. That result shows how important it is for the Government and the Mayor of London not to get ahead of public opinion on green energy. We all want more green energy but it must be economically driven and we must take the general public with us. I am afraid that the Mayor of London, certainly in outer London, has not taken the public with him. In Lincolnshire we have an aspect of green energy that affects my constituency, with 10,000 acres ringing Gainsborough to be put under solar panels. That will involve a huge loss of agricultural land, enough to feed the city of Lincoln every year. We all want solar panels as long as it is proportionate, but 10,000 acres ringing one small town in Lincolnshire is overdevelopment.

  [Source]

• 19 Jul 2023: Planning and Solar Farms

  14:59

  Everyone is in favour of renewable energy and there is no harm in having some solar farms; the problem is the sheer scale in Lincolnshire and Leicestershire. Ten thousand acres of applications ring the small town of Gainsborough, and are marked on the map in the red and black. This is ludicrous overdevelopment. To distribute, say, 1,000 acres —that is the offer—in a large rural district such as West Lindsey, covering perhaps up to 600 square miles, would be reasonable, but 10,000 acres ringing one town is just ridiculous overdevelopment.

  [Source]

  15:03

  In that brief period of the Government of my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), tried to change the definition to include 3b land. A huge mountain of well-funded lobbying money was put in immediately to frustrate the whole process. Make no mistake: this is not about the countryside and it is not about producing green energy in the right controlled way. It is about money. Some people are going to get very rich indeed.

  [Source]

• 9 Feb 2023: Independent Review of Net Zero

  13:10

  Net zero is all well and good. Of course we need to make effective use of our natural resources—everyone agrees with that. Cutting out waste from our society and using what we have in better ways has always been a sound conservative principle, so none of us can disagree with it. However, we need to approach these issues holistically, and avoid making huge errors that would set us back in other respects for the sole purpose of chasing the goal of net zero.

  This is a serious issue, and I hope that when people chase goals like net zero, they will try to think creatively. The report rightly says—on page 9, I think, and I have read it—that we must do much more to put solar panels on the rooftops of schools, factories, and logistics and distribution centres. We have millions of acres of flat-roof warehouses where they could go, but cutting the amount of land that feeds our families and communities is surely nonsensical. By all means have as many solar panels as you like and have them within scale, but the applications in a single district that I represent, West Lindsey, cover an area greater than the whole of the east midlands. Whatever anyone says, ultimately the consumer will not benefit from lower prices; the rewards will go into very few pockets indeed.

  [Source]

  13:15

  The report also refers to achieving net zero through better public transport. It talks of the importance of getting more people to use sustainable public transport rather than making individual car journeys. When I am down in London I hate using a car; I would much rather use the tube, the bus or even a Boris bike. However, it is different in rural areas such as Lincolnshire, where we have been calling for better public transport links for decades. Little has been done; indeed, the services have become worse and worse. Too often, we have fallen victim to service cuts when budgets from central Government have been reduced.

  If services for people who live in less built up areas are only two-hourly, or even once a day—or indeed, in the village where I live, non-existent—those people have to rely on cars, not just to socialise but for essential activities such as working and shopping. If the Government are serious about net zero in public transport, they must radically upgrade our rural transport links, and that includes the frequency of service. However, that is never going to happen, because it is so fantastically expensive, so I am afraid we will be reliant on cars for decades, or perhaps forever in rural areas such as Lincolnshire. By all means reduce the carbon footprint of buses—put solar panels on them if you want—but a net zero bus that arrives only once a day will not be of much use to you.

  As I said, we need to approach this issue holistically. The UK’s contribution to carbon emissions is minuscule on the global scale. I am not saying that is an argument for doing nothing, but it is a fact. If we achieve net zero, the gain for the planet can be wiped out by a tiny percentage increase in China’s or India’s huge carbon emissions. These are growing developing economies. Let us be realistic about it: they look at us telling them to cut their emissions and think we are cheating them. They both have complex relationships with the west. We are very friendly with India, but we are the former colonial power there. The rise of Hindu nationalism makes that relationship even more complicated and difficult.

  [Source]

• 28 Jun 2022: Freedom of Religion or Belief: International Conference

  10:11

  The situation in Nigeria is dire. Just this month, a Catholic church in Owo was stormed by militants, leaving 50 dead. Imagine that: 50 people killed in a church. Bureaucrats here and in other western countries try to blame the violence in Nigeria on climate change and the competition for resources. I have heard their excuses again and again—“There are different tribes; there are hunter-gatherers; there are arable farmers.”—but it simply does not wash. However much it departs from our comfortable, western, liberal mentality, the fact is that there is outright genocidal persecution of Christians by extremists in Nigeria. Members do not have to listen to me; the Catholic Bishop of Ondo, in whose diocese the attack took place, clarified that:

  “To suggest or make a connection between victims of terror and consequences of climate change is not only misleading but also exactly rubbing salt to the injuries of all who have suffered terrorism in Nigeria.”

  [Source]

• 9 Mar 2022: Large Solar Farms

  15:00

  Before my time is up, I want to refer to a very good answer that the Minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands), made to me on 22 February:

  [Source]

• 18 Nov 2020: Moorland Burning

  00:02

  Grouse moors are not the emissions problem. Farming and forestry produce far higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions per hectare than grouse moors. There is a risk to wildlife of not burning, as Lord Botham said in his article last week:

  [Source]

• 23 Apr 2019: Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion

  16:20

  Exactly; so having instituted the fastest decarbonisation of any G20 country, will the Minister remind the House what proportion of total global emissions we produce—I think it is 1%—compared with, say, China? We all know what would happen to an Extinction Rebellion demonstration in Tiananmen Square. If we want to make a real difference, what practical steps are we taking internationally to encourage China, the USA and India to take real action?

  [Source]

• 26 Feb 2016: EU Membership (Audit of Costs and Benefits) Bill

  12:02

  According to Open Europe, the top five costliest EU regulations enforced in the UK are: the UK renewable energy strategy, with a recurring cost of £4.7 billion a year; the capital requirements directive IV package, with a recurring cost of £4.6 billion a year; the working time directive, with a recurring cost of £4.2 billion a year. I appreciate that one of the cases made by the Labour party is that it rather likes the working time directive. That is a perfectly logical, good case to make, and I have no argument with them making it, but I would like to know—perhaps the Labour party, the Government and the people would like to know—whether this figure of a recurring cost of £4.2 billion a year is right.

  [Source]

  12:02

  “However, £46bn of this benefit stems from just three items, which are vastly over-stated. For example, the stated benefit of the EU’s climate targets (£20.8bn) was dependent on a global deal to reduce carbon emissions that was never struck…Open Europe estimates that up to 95% of the benefits envisaged in the impact assessment have failed to materialise.”

  [Source]

• 19 Nov 2015: Paris Climate Change Conference

  It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman). She asked me to sign her motion, and I was happy to do so. I do not know why she thought I might be interested in the Pope’s encyclical, but here I am. I hope the House will forgive me if I concentrate entirely on the encyclical, on which I have some expertise; I have absolutely no scientific expertise on other climate change subjects about which other hon. Members will want to speak. I will, if they are interested, try in a few minutes to put the encyclical in context.

  I have tried to read the whole encyclical. Like all Vatican documents it is very subtle, very profound and very long—the best part of 200 pages—but the part on climate change is relatively short. Since the papacy’s unhappy experience with Galileo, which the hon. Lady mentioned, the modern papacy tends to endorse scientific consensus, but the detailed part on climate change is quite limited. The encyclical is really a very long prose poem that concentrates on and affirms the Pope’s belief in the interdependence of man, nature and God.

  The encyclical is primarily saying that mankind is much more than mind or body; there is a deeper soul. As mankind is about the soul and its connection with a universal God and a universal nature, we must recognise that we are part of nature and respect nature. That is where the Pope comes from when discussing climate change.

  That informs the Pope’s view on climate change and the other debates that we, as politicians, are interested in. Unsurprisingly, he is always much more interested in the God-centric point of view.

  [Source]

  I am happy to accept that. I do not want to weary the House by referring to the paragraph, but the Pope does endorse action on climate change. That is a relatively small part of the encyclical and it must not be seen in the context of the political debate. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland was right to mention conferences and what is going on in Paris, but I do not think that the Pope is concentrating on that. What he is concentrating on, fundamentally, is the theme that we are part of nature. The debate around climate change relates to his profound belief that we are part of nature and connected to nature, and that we are abusing the world. Because we are abusing the world, we are abusing ourselves. I think that that is what he is trying to say, and that is what I am trying to explain to the House in my very inadequate way.

  [Source]

  “Laudato Si’” is distinctly not merely an encyclical about climate change. While the papacy has always been a patron and promoter of modern science and learning, specific scientific matters are outside its teaching authority. Rather, this is an encyclical about the fundamental crisis of humanity that is at the foundations of our modern world. Ecological aspects are a symptom of that crisis, not the root of it, and there are no simple solutions.

  “The most audacious claim in the encyclical is not the affirmation of the reality of climate change, but the insistence that to have a coherent and effective environmental philosophy requires both an anthropology and a cosmology.”

  [Source]

• 16 May 2012: Cost of Living

  14:14

  In the most recent global competitors report by the World Economic Forum, three of the four biggest problems facing UK businesses were identified as tax rates, tax regulations and inefficient Government bureaucracy. Let me set out what I believe we should have in the Government. Apparently we are going to have a reshuffle soon. What we need are Ministers—the Prime Minister has to check on their performance—who are, like a non-executive director on the board of a private company such as Tesco, obsessed not by policy but by efficiency. We have three excellent Ministers sitting on the Front Bench—the Secretary of State for Transport, the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) and the Minister of State, Department of Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns)—as well as our Whip. I am sure they are doing these sorts of things every day, but much more could be done. I hope the Whip is listening to all the kind comments I am making about the Ministers. I sincerely believe that this is one of the most important things the Government could do.

  [Source]

• 23 Nov 2011: Solar Power (Feed-in Tariff)

  17:02

  I agree with everything my right hon. Friend is saying, but surely the problem is that all the schemes that subsidise renewable energy tend to distort the market and have perverse consequences, and therefore perhaps the Duke of Edinburgh had a point over the weekend.

  [Source]

See all Parliamentary Speeches Mentioning Climate