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Jamie Stone's Speeches In Parliament Related to Climate

We've found 17 Parliamentary debates in which Jamie Stone has spoken about climate-related matters.

Here are the relevant sections of their speeches.

• 4 Feb 2026: Postal Services: Rural Areas

  Royal Mail is going green. We understand the necessity for that—net zero and so on—but now it is not going to take the mail up to the highlands by aeroplane. It is going to take the mail in a diesel lorry on a very long journey on the A9. Anyone who has seen 007 go up the A9 in “Skyfall” knows what a long way that is. Is it really green to use all that diesel going up the road? I do not know. I ask for that to be passed on. Can we please think again?

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• 9 Sep 2025: Hydrogen Supply Chains

  10:05

  When the grid improvements were initially proposed, and yes we of course have to do that if we are serious about getting to net zero, I wrote to the then Prime Minister and the First Minister of Scotland to ask whether the proposals matched the production of green hydrogen that we are keen to do in the north of Scotland. I may or may not have got the formula for ammonia right but, if I remember my physics correctly, the longer the distance one has to send electricity down a wire or a cable, the more energy is lost. Is it I 2 R? It is something like that; I have probably got it wrong, and the Minister probably knows it better than I do, but the point is that the longer the cable, the more resistance, and energy is lost because heat is produced and radiates off it.

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  We all want to see electric vehicles being used as much as possible, because that is part of getting to net zero. However, in a far-flung constituency such as mine, it is significant that a hydrogen-powered car has a greater range than an electricity-powered car. That backs up the argument the hon. and learned Member is making.

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• 5 Jun 2025: Battery Energy Storage Sites: Safety Regulations

  16:18

  In conclusion, we should not simply forge ahead with this sort of stuff until we know exactly what we are doing. To be helpful, I shall namecheck one person. She is a councillor in the highlands. She is not a member of my party—Members can google her later and find out of which party she is a member. She is called Helen Crawford. She has been bravely standing up saying, “I think we need to have a way of structuring this that takes the communities with us, that does not seem that we are imposing something from on high.” She is referring to batteries, grid improvements and so on. Nobody is saying that they do not believe in getting to net zero, but let us take people with us when we do it.

  I drop a little hint to the Minister and the colleagues of the hon. Member for Aberdeen North in Edinburgh that there will be a meeting of a large group of community councils on 14 June in Inverness-shire. They are reasonable people, and under Scottish law, a community council is a statutory consultee on planning matters. I would be very grateful if the Minister would take a look at what comes out of that meeting, because I think it will be helpful to both the UK Government and the Scottish Government. Let us have renewable energy, but let us get it right.

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• 29 Apr 2025: Renewable Energy Sector: Job Creation

  2. What steps he is taking to support job creation in the renewable energy sector.

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• 13 Mar 2025: Farming

  15:12

  I was brought up on a farm. I was the wee boy who shooed the cows home to the faraway field. I represent the biggest constituency in the UK. I have an awful lot of farms and crofts in my constituency. Farming is part of our way of life. It is about the food we eat. It is about the fight against climate change. It is about our heritage and, in constituencies such as mine, it is about the tourism economy. The change of Government has been difficult before. Brexit did not help—we all know that argument—and botched trade deals have not helped either.

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• 4 Feb 2025: Off-grid Communities: Energy Prices

  12:01

  Every winter, Altnaharra in my constituency is the coldest place in the UK. I can think of lots of pensioners who are faced with the invidious decision of whether to switch off and shiver or to run into debt. It occurs to me that the Department for Work and Pensions may well have a database of these people, so will His Majesty’s Government get the DWP to work with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to identify them and give a helping hand?

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• 16 Nov 2023: Business of the House

  This is not about Mid Devon. A large amount of electricity is generated from wind power in my constituency in the north of Scotland, and more will be generated in the future. It is necessary to get that electricity to where it is needed—conurbations in England and Wales—and the proposal is to take it south by means of colossal pylons. Those pylons and their proposed route are causing much concern to the communities who will be nearest to them. Constituents and people living in other parts of Scotland—this affects right hon. and hon. Members all over Scotland—have suggested to me that the electricity should be moved by means of subsea cables. This is a strategic decision for the UK for many years to come. I have written to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero requesting a meeting to discuss the matter. May I ask the right hon. Lady what advice she has for me in taking it forward?

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• 15 Nov 2023: Violence Reduction, Policing and Criminal Justice

  16:30

  Leaving those introductory remarks aside, I was surprised that the King’s Speech did not refer to global warming or climate change. As some right hon. and hon. Members know, the extreme far north of Scotland has seen some very severe weather. Wick harbour was damaged in the recent storms, and if that is not dealt with speedily it will undermine or threaten the future of the harbour. Offshore wind developments such as the Beatrice wind farm depend on Wick harbour, as does the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. In that same weather, the protective wall for the railway line leading from Inverness to Wick and Thurso in the far north fell away, and for a period of time we had no trains whatsoever. That prompts the question of whether Network Rail was inspecting the sea defences in the way that it should have been. I await answers on that.

  Besides the weather, it is hugely important that everything that the Government do—be it the Scottish Government or the national Government—has to be about addressing and preparing for climate change. I hope that much work will be done on this, and that much will be said in the future, but we have to get it going now before there is more damage and before my constituency’s infrastructure is further undermined. It is very much in the best interests of my constituents that this work be carried out as soon as possible. I shall conclude my remarks by again congratulating our young colleague, the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, on an excellent speech and I look forward to hearing his contributions in the years to come.

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• 20 Jun 2023: Heritage Sites: Sustainability

  16:39

  The current climate emergency demands that we act fast to mitigate the fatal consequences for our natural world, and one way we should do that is by making man-made environments energy-efficient. There are also concerns about the fragility of heritage sites and doubts about their long-term existence.

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  16:33

  However, as I said at the outset, the climate emergency poses a challenge to the survival of estates and calls into question their long-term existence. Despite being sustainable partners who view decarbonisation as crucial to the preservation of heritage for future generations, custodians of listed buildings face practical barriers, which I am afraid to say include current planning permission and listed building consent, both of which inhibit the pursuit of net zero targets. For example, energy performance certificates use a metric of cost, as opposed to carbon. That often encourages the installation of new fossil-fuel boilers, rather than green alternatives such as solar panels, in listed buildings.

  Furthermore, listed building consent adds delay, expertise and, indeed, hassle to the process of installing any energy-efficiency measures in listed buildings—even those with minimal impact on their historic fabric. I would suggest that the regulations are flawed and that they lead to the slow and difficult uptake of energy-efficiency measures. These houses were built to last, but the Government must allow them to adapt and change as necessary. Planning frameworks need to provide support for the implementation of sensitive energy-efficiency measures in a way that reflects the climate emergency.

  Greater investment in renewable energy in off-grid rural communities is imperative, particularly in my constituency and other rural constituencies, because it would lower renewable fuel costs and increase self-sufficiency. That way, green energy projects in the heritage sector could be integrated into their surrounding communities. Reviewed planning frameworks must ensure that buildings are repaired and adapted in energy-efficient ways, not demolished. In short, heritage protections must be maintained and prioritised in future reviews of planning policies. We must put sustainability at the forefront of our thinking.

  The point I want to make is simply this: the climate crisis is growing ever more urgent and we need to start taking tourism and heritage more seriously. We can do that by recognising this historic environment as part of the solution to achieving net zero. I suggest that tourism has for too long been treated as second rate—an afterthought to bigger, more important issues. We are talking about people’s livelihoods, the preservation of our national identity and, indeed, the very existence of our planet as somewhere we can live and work for many years to come—these are no small feats.

  That is why I join the voices that have been calling on the Government to support heritage sites that are committed to net zero targets by publishing a review of the planning and regulatory reforms that face listed buildings. The survival of our country’s heritage requires a supportive regulatory framework, and we need it as soon as is humanly possible. I look forward to hearing the contributions of other Members present, and I thank them for attending the debate.

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• 25 Apr 2023: Affordable Homes Programme

  15:10

  What can we do about it? It is ironic that we have one of the greatest sources of renewable energy, that is, land-based wind farms, in my constituency. Some of the money that the wind farms make could help the local authority—the Highland Council—a housing association or whatever to buy properties when they come on the market. An old expression we used to use has already been referred to: key worker housing. That is the key. Even if they come up for only five days a week, if we can offer a carer somewhere to live that they can afford, we will go some way to looking after the old people. As the oldest member of my party in this place, I can remember when houses were being built in the 1960s in my hometown of Tain. They were going up and it was great. There was hope that people would be housed, but the situation is very different today.

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• 19 Oct 2022: Ban on Fracking for Shale Gas Bill

  I have gone on again and again about green energy and hydrogen creation. Hydrogen is green and clean, and we must get serious about this. Does my hon. Friend agree it is vital that all Governments in the United Kingdom work together fast, and now?

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• 5 Jul 2022: Action on Climate Change and Decarbonisation

  17:56

  I thank the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) for his thoughtful contribution. Coming from the highlands in the far north of Scotland, I have seen with my own eyes what climate change is doing in my lifetime. As a child, I took a huge interest in butterflies and recorded every butterfly I ever saw. I did not kill them; I recorded what they were. Today, we have species of butterfly in the highlands that we never saw there in the 1950s and 1960s, including the speckled wood and the orange tip, which are now quite common, but we are also seeing some species disappearing, particularly moths. That is because of global warming. It is there; it is real.

  My second point is an old favourite of mine. Recently, a man called Mr Frank Roach, who is a tremendous fellow for developing the use of railways, got a very large consignment of timber moved from Sutherland to markets further south on a very large train. For global warming and net zero, moving by rail makes the most enormous sense; Godspeed the day it is all electrified. My second plea, therefore, is that, where planning consent has been granted for a new wind farm, we should look quite hard at moving parts of wind turbines by rail and not by articulated lorry, consuming vast amounts of diesel as it burns its way up and down our roads. I earnestly recommend that officials in the Government contact Mr Frank Roach and talk to him, because it is really quite extraordinary the way he is getting us all in the north of Scotland thinking about the use of the railway.

  In concluding, I want to make two small points. First, this debate is very much in keeping with what we all hear from young people in schools. To use a German word, it is the Zeitgeist—the spirit of the times. Young people are only too well aware of the urgent need to get to net zero. They know all about climate change, and I find that hugely encouraging.

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• 29 Apr 2021: Highland Bus Services: Net Zero Target

  What discussions he has had with the Scottish Government on increasing bus services in the highlands to help achieve the UK’s net zero target.

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• 12 Nov 2020: Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

  The platinum jubilee is a wonderful prospect and we know that the Queen loves Scotland. May I say, as a Scottish MP, that that love is deeply reciprocated? I suggest to the Secretary of State that one way to mark the jubilee would be to give each and every school the length and breadth of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland a small seedling tree. Irish yews could be given to schools in Northern Ireland, Scots pines in Scotland, English oaks in England and Welsh oaks—the sessile oak—in Wales. The pupils could plant and nurture these trees as a long-term project and it would teach them about the environment, our native species and what climate change and global warming is all about. It would be their contribution to helping the environment of our country.

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• 26 Feb 2020: Energy Efficiency Measures: Net Zero Buildings

  15:09

  I have been increasingly worried by something that all right hon. and hon. Members know about: the terrible thought of a pensioner deciding to switch off their heating because they simply cannot afford it. I want to put on the record my gratitude to Councillor Richard Gale, among other colleagues, who has helped to spearhead the issue that the right hon. Gentleman spoke about in East Sutherland and the wider highlands and islands. Although we generate an enormous amount of renewable energy from our onshore and offshore wind farms, in actual fact many of my constituents have heating bills they simply cannot afford.

  This is an enormous issue for me, because it is so dashed cold up in my part of the world. I wish it was not so. Who knows? Climate change may have us all growing grapes on the straths of Sutherland and Caithness in the years to come, but I doubt it.

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• 15 Jan 2020: A Green Industrial Revolution

  I have no doubt in my own mind that the landslips, the flooding and the collapse of roads is being caused by climate change: I come from the land of the mountain and the flood. Highland Council and all rural councils, not just in Scotland but all over the UK, are faced with the cost of the restoration works. Adding to the hon. Lady’s suggestion that the money is not there, does she agree that we need a dedicated income stream for the devolved institutions in the UK to pay for these repairs, because otherwise it is just going to get worse?

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• 5 Sep 2019: Science and Technology Committee

  I am not a member of the Committee, but, for the record, I would also like to extend my personal thanks to my right the right hon. Gentleman for all his kindness over the short years I have been here. I am particularly interested in his statement on offshore renewable energy, which is a success story in my constituency. What consideration did the Committee give to the development of further sites around the British Isles where this might be appropriate?

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See all Parliamentary Speeches Mentioning Climate