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Melanie Onn's Speeches In Parliament Related to Climate

We've found 19 Parliamentary debates in which Melanie Onn has spoken about climate-related matters.

Here are the relevant sections of their speeches.

• 1 Sep 2026: Climate Change: National Security

  11. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of international action on climate change on national security.

  [Source]

• 3 Mar 2026: Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill

  15:34

  I am pleased to support the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill and the Lords amendments. The Bill is about backing a world-class aviation sector and supporting its growth in a way that meets our decarbonisation responsibilities. The fact that SAF could contribute to the 65% reduction in emissions needed by aviation to meet net zero by 2050 is a useful reminder that technological development can ensure a future for higher carbon emitters while improving our environment. That is policy in action, and it will reduce disruption to consumers—something that we also have to bear in mind.

  SAF matters not just for its decarbonisation credentials, but for its clear potential to support job creation and economic growth. As my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) said, it will bring into existence a circular economy, including flooding alleviation and the development of feedstocks. That would perhaps alleviate some of the concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) about the source of feedstocks.

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• 1 Jul 2025: Topical Questions

  12:40

  Will the Chancellor please provide an update on the invaluable Viking CCS project in the Humber?

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• 14 May 2025: Engagements

  Q13.   Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes is the renewable energy capital of England, delivering home-grown, secure energy and boosting local skills. More than 12,000 people are employed in a clean energy job in Greater Lincolnshire, but those jobs are now under threat from Reform’s new mayor, who has declared war on renewables, putting livelihoods at risk. What steps will the Prime Minister take to protect jobs by supporting the supply chain and delivery of renewable projects?

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• 6 Mar 2025: North Sea Energy

  Conservative-led North East Lincolnshire council has embraced the green industries that are helping to reshape our identity in Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, and it is playing a critical role in decarbonising our energy estuary. Does the Minister agree that the Opposition’s new anti-renewables position undermines the ambition of young people in my constituency, who are excited by this sector? They are keen to work with these companies, which do good, pay well, provide training and benefit the community.

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• 6 Feb 2025: Crown Estate Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

  (a) the United Kingdom’s net zero targets;

  This amendment would require the Crown Estate Commissioners, in reviewing the impact of their activities on the achievement of sustainable development, to have specific regard to the United Kingdom’s net zero targets, regional economic growth, and resilience in respect of managing uncertainty, risk and national security interests.

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  12:04

  It does not seem to me unreasonable that consider- ation should be given, as part of the Crown Estate’s considerations, to the UK’s net zero targets, as is expected of other organisations. Net zero is one of Government’s key missions, so to have some sympathy and some similarity in the way that organisations are expected to conduct themselves in relation to their overall objectives seems straightforward.

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• 7 Jan 2025: Crown Estate Bill [Lords]

  16:33

  Having worked with the Crown Estate in a previous role before returning to this place, I must say that I have had a slightly different experience from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid and South Pembrokeshire (Henry Tufnell). I know that in recent years the Crown Estate has sought to expand the areas of work in which it actively engages, and has provided immense support for the renewables sector. We should bear in mind that there has been a collective understanding—not just within our Government—that for energy security purposes we must, as a minimum, look at renewable energy sources to supplement our other energy sources as we progress, and as we view the global economics and the changing impact of the energy industry and the way in which others are maximising this change to encourage wealth into their countries.

  The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), who is my co-chair on the all-party parliamentary group on fisheries, rightly raised the issues and concerns that the fishing communities will have. However, in Committee in the Lords, there was a conversation about the regional wealth funds that the Bill will create. It seems to me that there is a prize opportunity for support and training for the fishing industry, to make it work alongside the renewables sector and to look at the opportunities that will come from the decarbonisation happening in that sector when it comes to offshore vessels and flexibility of service, so that a fishing vessel is not just a fishing vessel. Can it be used for multiple purposes? Can it be used for surveys? It can, because fishing vessels are already being used for surveys. There is an opportunity for the Bill to support those other industries, and we should not lose sight of that.

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• 8 Oct 2019: Government Plan for Net Zero Emissions

  A net zero target is right, but we must be aware in our battle to tackle the climate emergency that time is fleeting. The greenhouse element of carbon dioxide is not a tap we can turn off. Approximately a fifth of the carbon dioxide emitted in the past year will remain in the atmosphere for thousands of years. The damage we cause now will not go away if we decide to start acting responsibly in, say, 31 years’ time; it will become a feature of human life for millennia. The cumulative nature of climate change means that the more radical we are now, the less radical future generations will have to be to stop even more catastrophic change and fix the damage we have already caused.

  The climate emergency has climbed up the agenda over the past months, but it is far from a new issue. The previous synthesis report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change came out more than five years ago, and the Government have had plenty of time to digest its findings and implement the drastic policies that we need to tackle climate change. Sadly, however, that is not what we have seen.

  Action on climate change is not just necessary to protect our future; it can also provide future-proofed and sustainable jobs for many of our communities. We have seen glimpses of that prosperity already through the wonderful work of companies such as Ørsted in Great Grimsby. I was pleased to open its new £14 million east coast hub, and it also works with local schools and colleges to train the next generation of workers to be ready for a green economy. However, we seem to have a Prime Minister and Government who are genetically opposed to taking sensible decisions to protect the planet, and if we are to avoid even more catastrophic damage to our planet, we need a drastic change in governance.

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• 12 Jun 2019: Net Zero Emissions Target

  14:04

  What are the Government doing to support bioenergy and carbon capture and storage technology to enable the energy estuary of the Humber to become the UK’s first net zero industrial cluster?

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• 23 Apr 2019: Waste Water Treatment Works: Odour Nuisance

  13:13

  I do not know whether others enjoyed the Easter weekend, but it was the hottest on record, and last year’s was the previous hottest Easter on record—there seems to be a pattern. A number of the people currently in Parliament Square would tell us time and again that we are likely to experience a pattern of increasingly lengthy dry spells. The whole of London has been brought to a standstill over the last two weeks by climate change protestors, which tells us that there is a steady increase in temperature. That means that there will be increasingly lengthy and hot dry spells. If that is the case, the problem will only get worse, and local residents will continue to suffer if Anglian Water does not take action.

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• 1 Nov 2016: National College for Wind Energy

  16:44

  The Prime Minister sent an awful signal to the energy industry when in one of her very first acts she scrapped the Department for Energy and Climate Change. She now has to show the industry that she is serious about giving it the attention that such an important sector of our economy requires. The day after my application for this debate was granted, my office received a call from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. It wanted to know whether it or the Department for Education needed to send a Minister to respond today. That suggests that there has been absolutely no communication between the two Departments on this subject for four months, and that is incredibly disappointing. I say to the Minister here today that when he goes back to his office, he should pick up the phone to his colleagues in the BEIS and get to work on delivering what was promised.

  RenewableUK, the trade body for renewable energy, has highlighted some of the challenges specific to offshore work in training employees. Personnel need to receive training in real working environments, and it has to be done safely; such conditions are difficult to replicate. That accounts for the need for advanced skills training in the construction and operation of turbines offshore. It takes four years of training to become a wind turbine technician.

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  16:53

  The report argues that not only are apprenticeships and further education courses needed to provide opportunities for young people to access the renewable energy industry, but we need institutions such as the national college in order to give workers in the oil and gas industries the skills to transfer over, as high-polluting industries are gradually replaced by those in the green economy. I do not think that the issues that made the college necessary two years ago have altered that much in the past two years. I would argue that the only major changes we have seen since 2014 make it more important that the college is developed.

  I have said it before, but it is true: offshore wind has brought a renewal of hope to Grimsby. It is playing an important role in redefining what my town offers not just to our own people, but to the rest of the country. We are already the renewable energy capital of England and being home to the national college for wind energy would be vital for the same reason. It would also give more local people the opportunity for a proper career, with high-skilled work—something that until recently young people felt they would have to go to the big cities to find.

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• 24 Mar 2016: Business of the House

  11:03

  May we also have a statement on the country’s energy security? EDF Energy, the company behind the Hinkley project, told the Energy and Climate Change Committee yesterday that the decision on the nuclear site’s future has been delayed until May, and rests in the hands of the French Government. If the Hinkley project does not go ahead, there will be serious questions about whether the Government can keep the lights on and meet our climate change commitments. Will the Energy Secretary come to the House and make a statement on what she is doing to ensure that this crucial project goes ahead, and what is her plan B if Point C does not proceed?

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• 3 Mar 2016: Point of Order

  11:03

  On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance as to whether I need to ask a Minister to correct the record and, if so, how I go about it. Yesterday, I attended the Committee on the draft Renewables Obligation Closure Etc. (Amendment) Order 2016, with which I am sure you are familiar. I spoke in the Committee, mentioning thousands of job losses in the solar industry. In her response, the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) said that I was making inaccurate comments and that the losses were not as I had described. I wanted to check that, so I have gone back and seen that the Government’s own impact assessment says that “between 9,700 and 18,700” jobs will be lost in the solar industry as a result of cuts to feed-in tariffs. The Solar Trade Association said in December that it knows of 1,800 redundancies since the general election and of three companies that have folded. To me, that seems as though I have my facts correct, yet I was rebuked for issuing incorrect information. I wonder how I can go about setting the record straight.

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• 2 Mar 2016: Draft Renewables Obligation Closure etc. (Amendment) Order 2016

  15:03

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Gillan. Great Grimsby produces a higher proportion of our electricity from renewable sources than any other town or city in the country, making my constituency the renewable capital of England—although mistakenly called a city, for some reason. That is partly as a result of the efforts of the solar industry. We have 10 companies working on solar installation in the town, and perhaps because hundreds of people in the town work on the offshore wind farms, the industry has raised people’s awareness of renewable energy more widely. Solar was, until recently, a growing sector in the town.

  My constituency really needs more of the jobs that these organisations are able to offer. For years we have consistently had one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, but the growth in the renewable energy industry from solar and other sources is giving people in the town renewed hope for their employment prospects and those of their children. As I mentioned to the Minister this morning, I recently hosted the renewable energy skills fair. Over 130 people attended, and they are keen to move into the sector, but the Government’s change in policy for the solar industry, particularly since May 2015, has led to the loss of thousands of jobs nationally, with many more at risk of going in the near future. This has been done at a time when the sector really is on the cusp of becoming economically competitive; so many more thousands of jobs could be created if the Government took a different approach.

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• 9 Feb 2016: Humber Energy Estuary

  I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. It is wonderful to see so much investment in our area. DONG Energy alone is spending some £1 billion a year on offshore wind in the Humber region. Does he agree that we have to ensure that young people in the local area have the opportunity to learn the skills of the trade and get the jobs that the renewables industry has to offer, and does he support the renewable energy skills fair that I am hosting in Grimsby on 25 February to help local young people get into the industry?

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  On that point about the energy capital, Grimsby has recently been named the renewable energy capital of England. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Humber is the obvious location for a national college for wind energy, and will he join me in calling on the Government to grant the Humber local enterprise partnership’s bid for the college?

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• 17 Sep 2015: Topical Questions

  10:32

  David Attenborough, a former Cabinet Secretary and the Secretary of State’s predecessor have proposed a 10-year investment plan to make renewable energy cheaper than coal. The plan would see big increases in research and development, with the same spirit and ambition as the Apollo space missions of the 1960s. Will the Secretary of State do all she can to get this proposal on the agenda for this December’s climate change talks in Paris, or is she brave enough to disagree with Sir David Attenborough?

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• 7 Jul 2015: Coastal Flood Risk

  09:00

  What initially seemed like exceptional weather is quickly becoming the norm. According to the Met Office, four of the five wettest years in the UK since records began in 1910 have occurred in the 21st century. According to the Committee on Climate Change, sea levels around the UK coastline are now an average of 16 cm higher than they were at the end of the 19th century. It would be wrong to attribute each and every extreme weather incident to climate change, but it is clear that the climate is changing, and flooding is one of the main ways we are feeling the effects. History will repeat itself. We will see similar or even higher levels of rainfall and tidal surges, so are we doing enough to prepare?

  Last week, the Committee on Climate Change reported on the progress being made under the national adaptation programme. The report is the first of its type and is required under the Climate Change Act 2008. The message in it is clear: the Government need to be taking much more urgent action to prepare for the inevitable impacts of climate change.

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  09:34

  One of the least controversial parts of the report by the Committee on Climate Change reads:

  “Investment in flood and coastal defence assets will need to steadily increase in the future to counter the impacts of climate change.”

  That was the consensus reached among all political parties following the devastation of the 2007 floods. Yet on coming into office in 2010, the previous Government abandoned that consensus and cut £100 million of funding from flood protection. Such short-sighted thinking is exactly the opposite of what is needed to protect against the effects of climate change.

  The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has set out in detail its plans for capital investment in flood protection over the next six years, including the Grimsby docks flood defence scheme, which will protect more than 12,000 properties. Nevertheless, now that we are past the election, I urge the Government to support Labour’s call for an independent commission to set out flood defence spending in a much longer-term context. The Committee on Climate Change has said that the best-case scenario, on an assumption of 2° C of warming, would lead to at least an extra 45,000 properties being in the highest flooding risk category by the middle of the century. We know the future consequences of rising temperatures and sea levels. There should be parity between the length of time over which our adaptation strategy and our mitigation strategy are set out.

  As well as calling for greater investment in building and properly maintaining defences, the Committee on Climate Change said in its report that local authorities need to do more to manage the risk of surface water flooding by heavy rainfall. Following the floods in Grimsby last summer, North East Lincolnshire Council’s cabinet member for the environment, Dave Watson, is working with Anglian Water, along with his colleagues, to identify where flooding has resulted from Anglian’s infrastructure. They have recommended a change in maintenance practices or sewer upgrades to reduce the risk of flooding. But should not water companies be maintaining their systems in that way anyway? They are, after all, private monopolies. Is it not time the Government ensured that the companies do a bit more for the public they serve? They could start by ensuring that water companies provide better maintained drainage systems that can cope with heavy rainfall.

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• 30 Jun 2015: Low-skilled Jobs

  Thanks to Labour’s groundbreaking commitment to tackling climate change, investment in wind energy in Grimsby has created much needed high-skilled jobs in our local economy. With 25% of our young people not in education, employment or training, support for that industry is essential for my constituents’ future, but the Government have now announced the removal of subsidies for onshore wind. What effect does the Minister expect that to have on investor confidence in the offshore wind sector?

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• 1 Jun 2015: Britain in the World

  18:04

  The issue of wind, or more specifically wind energy and renewable energy, is where the future lies for our town. While UKIP sought to look back and return to the days of a port filled with deep-sea trawlers, with the town’s young men taking their lives in their hands with each three-week voyage to sea, local businesses, the council and individuals have turned to look outwards and to the future. Our future clearly lies in the prospects of a strong renewable energy sector, in partnership with our European neighbours. There is now an opportunity to draw more businesses to an additional port and to the port complex along the south bank, and that brings with it the hope of 4,000 new jobs.

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See all Parliamentary Speeches Mentioning Climate