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Rupa Huq's Speeches In Parliament Related to Climate

We've found 23 Parliamentary debates in which Rupa Huq has spoken about climate-related matters.

Here are the relevant sections of their speeches.

• 11 Dec 2025: Fairtrade Certification

  14:07

  The indicators are good. Quarter 3 of this year spanned Fairtrade fortnight, which was the end of September to the beginning of October, and figures from the Fairtrade Foundation show that Fairtrade tea sales were up by 40%—it was a record quarter—confectionary up 20% and coffee up 15%. All the polls show that 95% of shoppers believe that businesses should take responsibility for upholding human rights throughout their supply chains. What we were all trying to say with the petition is that those who already invest in ethical sourcing should not be penalised. Introducing mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence would level the playing field so that those operating responsibility are not undercut by those cutting corners and exploiting loopholes. Such legislation would be the single most cost-effective way to enhance the UK’s reputation as a champion of net zero, too.

  We also want to continue our transition to net zero. The hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) has gone—that’s Lib Dems for you—but he mentioned the aid budget cut. It was in our manifesto that we will work towards restoring that budget, so I hope that we will be able to do that when time allows. The main asks of the petition are a UK law on human rights and environmental due diligence; encouragement of multi-stakeholder collaboration in the tea sector, progressing towards living incomes and living wages for tea growers; and honouring of our climate finance obligations and, when time allows, restoration of our aid budget.

  [Source]

• 11 Sep 2024: Democracy in Bangladesh

  19:17

  I have some questions for the Minister. As I said, there is a big job to do. Given our unique role in all this, we should offer support. Apparently, the constitution is being amended and redrafted. Could we lend expertise there? British lawyers have good form on this; we constructed the European convention on human rights. Capacity building is needed to cleanse all sorts of institutions of party people who were in the pocket of the last regime. Hendon police training college is renowned all over the world; perhaps we can rebuild the police in Bangladesh, because apparently there has been a bit of a vacuum there recently. The Stormtrooper-like Rapid Action Battalion force should be disbanded, and the death penalty should be gone. Maybe we could do something about climate finance, because countries in the global south face the brunt of climate problems, and we are in the run-up to COP29. These measures do not even have to cost anything; we could put a polluter-pays levy on some countries.

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• 16 Apr 2024: Topical Questions

  T7. Thank you, and big hugs, Mr Speaker, for the loss of your father.My constituent Joe Stean did the right thing and switched the family car to electric, but now the cost and lack of charging points have put him into fuel poverty. What are the Government doing to encourage charging options for people who do not live in detached homes? Is it true that the new Minister voted against the zero-emissions vehicle mandate?

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• 19 Mar 2024: Nagorno-Karabakh: Armenian Refugees

  14:53

  Ealing and Acton are richer for having the Navasartian centre in Northfield and the Hayashen centre in Acton, which have both done fundraising for Nagorno-Karabakh refugees, but what are our Government doing? It feels as if, in our post-Brexit world, we are desperate for trade deals. On the role of BP, I would like to ask the Minister how much oil pulls the strings of these relationships. People who did election observation in Baku said that they could smell the oil when they landed; it is all about oil. It is ironic that COP29 will be held in Baku—what an act of greenwashing. Yesterday at the all-party parliamentary group, we heard that the ground was being rendered infertile for flora and fauna by this scorched earth policy.

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• 15 May 2023: Health Inequalities: North-west London

  21:03

  Anyway, I said that I was going to conclude. I did not even get to the removal of maternity functions of Ealing Hospital in Southall, or the fact that pre-term deaths in pregnancy are experienced four times as much by black mums as by the population at large, and that poorer communities living by main roads breathe more polluted air—plus, in north-west London we have Heathrow airport, which is ever hungry to expand despite the climate crisis. I did not get on to any of that because the debate could have gone on and on, but I will say that acting on health inequalities improves lives and livelihoods, cuts costs to the NHS, to the benefit of wider society, prosperity and the economy, and it would save the Exchequer billions in lost productivity through long-term sickness.

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• 20 Jul 2022: Topical Questions

  T8. The President showed great leadership at COP26, which we all respect him for. Will he do the same again and cut back on a project that is polluting the lungs of both his and my constituents? Will he please revisit the issue of the biggest CO 2 emitter in the whole of Europe and think again about the new runway at Heathrow?

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• 18 Jul 2022: Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

  20:35

  As we have seen today, the PM who as a child wanted to be world king has become King Canute, still defiant and partying to the end, characteristically skipping Cobra meetings—if not quite fiddling while Rome burns, then partying while the country roasts. It brings to mind those suitcases being wheeled down Whitehall on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral. Meanwhile, our fellow citizens face huge challenges: climate change-induced heatwave, looming strikes, inflation, cost of living crisis, energy crisis, record NHS backlog, passports backlog, Home Office backlog, courts backlog—backlog Britain.

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• 18 May 2022: Achieving Economic Growth

  15:38

  From the content of the Queen’s Speech, we would not know that we are in the midst of a European war, that we are coming out of a global pandemic with a spluttering economy edging perilously close to recession, or that we are in a climate crisis. Instead, what do we have? Ideological hobby horses and populist posturing. We have a higher education Bill consisting of student number controls and a lifelong loan entitlement—more dumbing down than levelling up. Then there is the freedom of speech Bill roundly condemned by everyone in the higher education sector. That is what you get when you have had enough of experts. There is a Bill to curb Insulate Britain, but nothing that would actually help to insulate Britain’s homes. With high streets increasingly boarded up and turning into cash deserts, it is shameful that food bank usage is rocketing but that in Acton banks are an extinct species. TSB has now gone in Ealing, which is going the same way.

  a bunch of ill-considered, ill-timed, unnecessary and nakedly political measures: flogging off that great Thatcher legacy, Channel 4; waging a trade war with the EU; joining Russia—only Russia has done this before—in quitting the ECHR; and regulating street naming. I have knocked on loads of doors over the years every day in the run-up to elections, and no normal person on the doorstep wants any of that. Yet there is nothing to tackle the climate crisis, or to cut energy bills, or to make people more secure at work, or to turn around our struggling economy—none of the stuff that people desperately need.

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• 3 Nov 2021: Engagements

  12:02

  The Prime Minister has been busy preaching urgency this week at COP26, and I hope that he has caught up with his sleep. When he sits down with his grandchildren one day and they ask, “What did you do in that week of COP26?”, will he be able to outline one action that was in his gift that had an immediate impact? Will he be consistent with what he has always said and done and take on the biggest emitter of CO 2 in the whole of Europe, which greedily and voraciously wants more? Will he ditch his predecessor’s damaging, daft, pre-levelling up, pre-Zoom and pre-90%-drop-in-demand proposal and have a fresh vote in this House to kill off the third runway at Heathrow?

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• 13 May 2021: A Brighter Future for the Next Generation

  There is no renters’ rights legislation here and no new cladding protections: so much for no one losing their home to covid—another discarded assurance from a Prime Minister “never knowingly undersold”. We all remember him lying down in front of the bulldozers to stop Heathrow expansion, but there is nothing here to combat climate change. It is the most important issue of our generation and everyone’s generation, and is particularly championed by the young, as we have seen with Greta Thunberg and the school strikers—although all schools have been away for the last year.

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• 27 Apr 2021: Air Pollution: London

  17:30

  How do we reverse the UK’s long-standing, illegally high air pollution? First, we should stop Heathrow expansion. It is incompatible with the UK’s net zero targets. Why add to what is already Europe’s biggest CO 2 emitter, which is doing enormous damage to my constituency and to that of my near neighbour the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) through air and noise pollution? We know that in the new normal we will do things differently, and Zoom works for business meetings, so why not save those air flights for sparingly used leisure travel? The expansion of Charles de Gaulle airport in France has been stopped; we should do the same.

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• 4 Nov 2020: Covid-19: Emergency Transport and Travel Measures in London Boroughs

  I completely agree that we have a climate emergency, we have our net zero obligations and we have an obesity crisis, but doing this without a consultation has just got people’s backs up. It sometimes feels that these things have been formulated, not by anyone who cycles or understands local traffic flows, but just in order to satisfy the criteria for a budget when there is money available and time is running out.

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• 12 Mar 2020: Airport Expansion: Paris Climate Change Agreement

  7. Whether he plans to take into account the Paris climate change agreement in future decisions on airport expansion.

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• 5 Feb 2020: Transport

  16:26

  I want to give my hon. Friend a London example. We have the 70 and 94 buses in Acton and Chiswick, and on Friday they became electric, despite the massive cuts to the Transport for London support grant that this Government have placed on our London Mayor. Many people in London are worried that our capital will be punished for voting Labour. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need more joined-up thinking and more funding if we are to decarbonise transport?

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• 28 Jan 2020: Local Services: London Suburbs

  16:02

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Hosie. This debate on services in our suburbs is in many ways an SOS, because the voice of the suburbs—the bits at the edges of our cities, rather than those at the centre, or the periphery before the shire counties kick in—has been silenced in current debates about under-investment and fair funding. Instead, considerations of heartlands and the red wall have predominated. I will pose the Minister some questions, and will chiefly address London. However, arguments about suburban neglect by successive Governments apply everywhere outside of the Westminster bubble, in Ealing, Acton and Chiswick, as well as Solihull in Birmingham or Didsbury in Manchester. Those places are all dealing with demographic and economic change, the climate emergency and the housing crisis, among many other issues.

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  16:06

  Connectivity is a key suburban characteristic. Not only do all roads lead to Ealing, Acton and Chiswick, through the arterial network, but we seem to have every major infrastructure project there, bringing boon as well as bane. The Old Oak super-development opportunity area will, in time, provide 24,000 dwellings and an interchange that will be second only to King’s Cross. HS2 has already compulsorily purchased the neighbouring back gardens of people who live there, who feel that that company acts with no humanity at all. They will basically be living in a building site 24/7 for at least the next decade, and with the ever-increasing price tag of that project, many people are wondering whether it is worth it and whether they will live to see its benefits. The same is true for Crossrail, as well as Heathrow expansion—which, if we are sticking to our climate change targets and accepting that we are in a climate emergency, seems completely nuts, given that Heathrow is the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in Europe.

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• 2 May 2019: Topical Questions

  10:32

  Yesterday’s judicial review on Heathrow was concerned only with the legality of the decision, not the merits of airport expansion. Given that this House has overwhelmingly affirmed that we face a climate emergency, surely a swift and easy way of meeting our obligations would be to cancel the third runway at Heathrow. Not only will it pollute my constituents’ lungs, but it is costing us the earth—literally.

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• 8 Jan 2019: Renewable Energy

  10. What steps he is taking to support new renewable energy technologies.

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• 24 Jul 2018: Summer Adjournment

  16:09

  Will the Minister tell us what will happen to Altenergy of Chiswick, London, W4? The company wants policy clarity and fair treatment for rooftop solar, which is a popular type of renewable energy. It is cheap and obviously green; it is the most popular thing in the global renewables market. It dominates the market globally, but in this country, our Government seem to be dangerously in hock to the nuclear industry, which is getting all the subsidy. Altenergy is very worried. It used to have large offices, but it has now relocated to a shed belonging to the chief executive officer, Rajiv Bhatia. It has massively downsized. It used to employ 50 people, but it now employs just a handful. Can the Minister give me any assurances about what will happen when the feed-in tariff goes next year? The company wants to know about net metering, which would provide some certainty. There is no indication that the export tariff will be maintained after 1 April. May we have some assurances on that? Quinn McGovern from Elan Global Renewables of Acton, W3, is in a similar predicament. Several of these companies are wondering whether they might be about to go to the wall.

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• 12 Jul 2018: Topical Questions

  10:06

  The Secretary of State scored a major coup in being the first to interview President-elect Trump. As the Secretary of State has since become a born-again green and the President will touch down on these shores today, will the Secretary of State use all his famous skills of tact and persuasion, as well as that pre-existing special relationship, to impress on the President that climate change is an existential threat to our planet and to persuade him to reverse his disastrous decision to pull out of the Paris climate change accords?

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• 7 Jun 2018: Airports National Policy Statement

  15:32

  The Foreign Secretary promised to lie down in front of the bulldozers. I cannot see that happening, but even if they do not do that, the Government surely should stand up for our constituents’ health. Air pollution is already appallingly high in our city, and the NPS fails to show how a third runway and all the emissions it will bring will improve that. As it is, 9,000 Londoners a year die prematurely from our toxic air. How is an extra runway going to help that? The current Mayor of London is acting on the issue. He has brought forward things such as the ultra-low emission zone, which the previous Mayor dragged his feet on a bit. All that will be undone, so will the Minister tell us exactly how our climate change obligations will be satisfied following this decision?

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• 7 Nov 2017: Family Planning Clinics: Public Order Legislation

  16:35

  “Decisions on future police funding will be based on evidence, not assertion. Thx to all CCs and PCCs who have helped us update evidence.”

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• 17 Nov 2016: Criminal Finances Bill (Fourth sitting)

  14:57

  The Minister is absolutely correct that the Government’s action plan of April 2016 identified this as a crucial area in need of examination. Terrorism is the threat of our modern age, along with climate change, so we go along with the clause.

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• 25 Feb 2016: European Affairs

  16:02

  At the time of the last referendum, when I was three, the chief association with Europe was economic: it was the European Economic Community. There is a picture of Mrs Thatcher in a patchwork dress made of European flags. Then in the ’80s, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) described, the idea of social Europe took root and attitudes changed on the left. The idea of Europe as a capitalist club was dissolved. On all those and many other fronts—the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) mentioned climate change, which knows no borders—it is vital for us to stay in Europe, because the case to act with our European partners is compelling.

  Leaving behind our biggest trading partner would put jobs and growth at risk, as Members have said. The mere mention of the date of the referendum caused turmoil in the markets, which should be viewed as a precursor of things to come if the result goes the way of leaving. When I meet Europhobes on doorsteps and ask them which directive is interfering with their lives, they are always at a loss to say anything. It is not the European working time directive; it is not worker protection via maternity or paternity leave; it is not EU competition agreements, which have brought down airline ticket prices and roaming charges. It is by working together with our European partners that we can catch criminals, through mechanisms such as the European arrest warrant. Like climate change, criminals do not operate within national borders.

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See all Parliamentary Speeches Mentioning Climate