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Nick Thomas-Symonds's Speeches In Parliament Related to Climate

We've found 15 Parliamentary debates in which Nick Thomas-Symonds has spoken about climate-related matters.

Here are the relevant sections of their speeches.

• 2 Sep 2026: Strengthening the Union

  We saw the practical benefits of the Union with the Minister’s swift action on military personnel coming to deal with the wildfires. Will he join me in paying tribute to the farmers and firefighters who dealt with those wildfires, and does he also agree that, as climate change makes them a more regular occurrence, we need a long-term plan to deal with them?

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• 23 Apr 2026: UK-EU Relations

  That is an absolutely absurd question. The hon. Gentleman is asking that question when his party’s position is to keep in place all the fees that we currently have to pay on exports to the EU. He also talks about the emissions trading system linkage. Without mutual exemptions from the carbon border adjustment mechanism, businesses will have to pay around £700 million in carbon taxes. The consequence of his party’s position is that they would have to pay them.

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• 17 Dec 2025: UK-EU Common Understanding Negotiations

  I pay a warm tribute to my hon. Friend for the campaigning work that she does on this issue. At the next UK-EU summit in 2026, we will seek to complete the negotiations on a food and drink agreement, which would mean less red tape and less cost for businesses; on the linkage of our emissions trading system, so that we do not have our businesses levied with carbon taxes; and on the youth experience scheme, so that we have even more opportunities for our young people. That will be a positive 2026.

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• 10 Jul 2025: Relations with the European Union

  On 19 May, we held the first ever UK-EU summit and announced a strategic partnership that will make people across the UK safer, more secure and more prosperous. We are delivering greater security via the security and defence partnership, increased safety through tackling irregular migration and organised crime, and prosperity through the removal of trade barriers, energy efficiency and a cheaper transition to net zero. That is good for bills, good for jobs and good for borders.

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• 7 Sep 2023: EU Programmes

  12:59

  Britain is blessed with many of the world’s greatest innovators: the developers of the covid vaccine and the internet, cancer specialists and green energy pioneers. We are home to those who are at the vanguard of research, yet they have been failed by this Conservative Government time and again. They have left our researchers locked out of the world’s leading scientific collaboration project, worth over £80 billion, for the past two years. It has been like keeping Lionel Messi or England’s Lucy Bronze out of the World cup.

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• 12 Dec 2022: Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill

  18:49

  On climate change in the Australia deal, the Government failed to include a specific commitment to limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees. On workers’ rights, there was a failure to include commitments to the International Labour Organisation conventions, and there was a lack of substantial concessions on geographical indicators. Unless there is a change of negotiating approach, this weakness in negotiations will have even further consequences for this country in deal after deal.

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• 14 Nov 2022: Australia and New Zealand Trade Deals

  16:41

  We also see in the Australian deal a lack of success on tackling climate change. The former COP26 President, the right hon. Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma), told the House last December that the Australia deal would reaffirm

  “both parties’ commitments to upholding our obligations under the Paris agreement, including limiting global warming to 1.5°.” —[ Official Report , 1 December 2021; Vol. 704, c. 903.]

  The current Secretary of State for International Trade, the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), was sadly not here to open the debate. When she was standing to be Conservative party leader, she branded the net zero climate target “unilateral economic disarmament”. I think it is fair to say that there are worries about her commitment to delivering the progress needed on climate change, given that she has expressed that view publicly. Not only does that view misjudge the economic imperative of action to tackle climate change, but it fails to recognise the huge opportunities that the transition to net zero could provide. The question must also be asked: how broken can a party be when dabbling with climate change denial is a way to drum up support from its members?

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  16:50

  I want to highlight the real challenge in the Committee for the Bill that the Minister referred to, which was not a Bill about giving effect to a whole range but a specific, narrow Bill on public procurement provisions. The nature of the Bill meant that, under the entirely appropriate rules of this House, finding areas of debate in Committee was very difficult. It was prohibitively narrow: climate change, workers’ rights, consultation with devolved Administrations and animal welfare were not within the scope of the Bill. The agreements were signed before they came before Parliament, so the scope for meaningful debate was fatally curtailed. There has been no scrutiny worthy of the name.

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• 6 Sep 2022: Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill

  14:30

  The Opposition will press four issues in Committee: farming and animal welfare; climate change; labour standards and workers’ rights; and, as has been raised in interventions, the role of the devolved Administrations in the process of negotiation and ratification, and the protection of geographical indicators. Let me deal first with farming and animal welfare. Labour is proud of our farmers and the high standards that they uphold, and we are confident in British produce to be popular in new markets, but we also recognise the need for a level playing field for our farmers.

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  14:38

  I turn to climate change. I realise that the Conservative party has a long-standing reliance on conservative allies from Australia, not least with the appointment of Tony Abbott to the trade board, but surely it has not signed up to some of the more extreme views that he and his colleagues hold on climate change, including that it is “probably doing good”. The current COP26 President, the right hon. Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma)—

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  14:39

  “both parties’ commitments to upholding our obligations under the Paris agreement, including limiting global warming to 1.5°.” —[ Official Report , 1 December 2021; Vol. 704, c. 903.]

  Frankly, I would have cheered as the hon. Lady did if, a few weeks later, the deal had actually contained what the right hon. Gentleman said it would. However, the explicit commitment to limit global warming to 1.5° was not in the deal, despite what had been said. What went wrong in the final couple of weeks of the negotiation? Did Ministers simply give in for the sake of getting a completed deal? It is a lesson that tariff-free access to our UK market should not be given away easily. Looking at the concessions made by the Government in those final weeks, are people not right to worry that the Government are more interested in the press release announcing the completed deal than they are in standing up for UK jobs and livelihoods? It surely cannot be right that, as across the world we debate the devastating impact of climate change, we are not capturing that fully in deals like this. Not only is it dangerous to the planet, but it fails to recognise the huge business and export potential that climate change technology, innovation and services can create. It is not only environmentally unsound, but it also makes bad business sense. I implore Ministers to speak again with the new Administration in Australia to see what more can be done to take joint action on climate change, and to put it at the front and centre of the very well established and historic relationship between the two countries. I am sure that the recent change in Government in Australia will be beneficial in enabling that to happen.

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  14:46

  Returning to climate change, we really must use future trade deals to drive forward this agenda and recognise the mutual benefit of tackling the biggest challenge of our generation.

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  I will not hold the Government to impossible standards and of course there are aspects of the deals that I welcome. In particular, the provisions to advance women’s economic empowerment across the New Zealand agreement are to be welcomed. Chapter 25 enables collaborative work between the UK and New Zealand to support women business owners, entrepreneurs and workers to access opportunities for international trade, complementing other areas, such as small and medium-sized enterprises—mentioned in an intervention—services, procurement, labour, development and digital trade. I was pleased to meet the Prime Minister of New Zealand on her recent visit, and I know that the New Zealand Government share ambitious climate goals and the need to uphold workers’ rights. However, after looking at the two deals and the differences between them, I observe that they seem to be more a consequence of the political persuasion of the Governments with whom Ministers here were negotiating, rather than a deliberate strategy on the part of Ministers.

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  A dynamic trade policy that aligns with a clear industrial strategy is vital to boosting our appalling levels of growth and averting recession, yet we find that the Australia deal does not even mention the specific target on climate change, despite that being one of the great challenges of our generation.

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• 29 Jun 2022: Steel Safeguards

  12:45

  Labour backs our steel communities up and down the country. Our steel sector is foundational for our economy; we must support it, now and as we transition to net zero. However, it is regrettable that resolution of the issue has once again gone to the eleventh hour, just as it did when the present Foreign Secretary extended the safeguards last year, and that the Secretary of State did not even attend the Select Committee this morning to face scrutiny.

  Let me also put on record that the last-minute rush to extend safeguards in no way makes up for the shortcomings in support for the steel industry from this Government, and that Labour has set out plans to secure the industry’s future for years to come by investing £3 billion in the transition to net zero over the next 10 years.

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• 26 Apr 2022: Prime Minister’s Visit to India

  Questions were also raised when the Prime Minister visited a JCB factory owned by a Conservative donor, when bulldozers are being used on properties owned by Muslim people, yet the issues of communal violence and human rights breaches were not even raised by the Prime Minister, despite his promising to do so. That is not standing up for Britain and our values on the world stage; that is a moral failure from a Prime Minister too distracted by trying to save his own job. On trade specifically, the Prime Minister spoke about a deal by October. Labour values the historic link with India and the growth of trade, but we must set the standard high, not engage in a race to the bottom. So will the Minister confirm what the Prime Minister said to Prime Minister Modi about human rights, about binding commitments on climate change, about what he expects on labour standards and trade union rights, on gender equality and on protecting our public services, and about how he will prevent the outsourcing of UK jobs to India? What will the Prime Minister do to support exporters to take advantage of trade opportunities? The Minister mentioned Scotch whisky—is the negotiating aim for the removal of tariffs altogether? Finally, what will the Prime Minister do to meaningfully involve business, trade unions and civil society in the negotiating process itself, so that they are not presented with a “take it or leave it” deal at the end of the negotiations?

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• 5 Jan 2022: UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement

  18:24

  On climate change, which the Secretary of State mentioned, the COP26 president said, on 1 December, that the deal would reaffirm

  “both parties’ commitments to upholding our obligations under the Paris agreement, including limiting global warming to 1.5°.” —[ Official Report , 1 December 2021; Vol. 704, c. 903.]

  But an explicit commitment to limiting global warming to 1.5° is not in the deal. Perhaps the Secretary of State can tell us what went wrong in those final days. Does the Secretary of State also accept that the failure to include that explicitly in this important deal damages the UK’s ability to lead on climate change on the world stage— [ Interruption. ] Ministers shout at me, but they told the House on 1 December that it would be included. What went wrong?

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• 2 Dec 2021: Trade Deals: Environmental Standards

  09:59

  The objective of the New Zealand-led international agreement on climate change, trade and sustainability is to break down global barriers to trade in green goods and services and eliminate the subsidies that are propping up fossil fuel producers. The Secretary of State announced last week that the UK would not be taking part in this crucial initiative. Can the Minister explain why?

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• 1 Feb 2021: Covid Security at UK Borders

  19:46

  That failure also extends to economic support. It is why the Government must come forward with the long-promised sector-specific support deal called for by my hon. Friend the shadow Transport Secretary, saving jobs and ensuring that there are environmental improvements as set out in this motion. Let me be clear: we need to see this support package, and the money needs to be properly targeted to meet its aims. We have seen appalling fire and rehire tactics, which should be outlawed. That practice has no place in our country and it is an insult to workers. Staff salaries should be protected with a clear commitment to workers’ rights, and let us see a commitment to cleaner fuels and other cutting-edge low or zero-emission technologies. Companies’ tax bases should be in the UK, and there should not be dividends paid until a company is commercially viable. UK-based suppliers must be the priority, and operators must comply with consumer rights regulations. The Government have known the need for this for months, about and continuing inaction is not the answer.

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• 27 Feb 2020: Welsh Affairs

  16:40

  I thank the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for her contribution, and my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for her contribution and for her work as deputy leader of Welsh Labour. Nobody could ever accuse her of not shouting loudly and proudly about Wales. My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) spoke powerfully and passionately about the need for urgent action on climate change, and I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) was able to make a contribution, particularly on steel, to which I shall return in a moment.

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• 19 Nov 2015: Paris Climate Change Conference

  7. Whether she will support proposals for a global goal on adaptation at the Paris climate conference in December 2015.

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  Many constituents have contacted me following a campaign by ActionAid about the effects of climate change in developing countries such as Bangladesh, where flooding particularly affects women and children. In Paris, will the Secretary of State support a specific, binding goal that ensures that the wealthiest countries in the world support developing countries in adapting to climate change?

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See all Parliamentary Speeches Mentioning Climate