Rebecca Long Bailey MP, Labour’s Shadow
Business Secretary, standing in today for Jeremy Corbyn at Prime
Ministers Questions (PMQs), has highlighted climate change denial at the
top of the Tory party and fears that the next Prime Minister will be
unwilling to tackle the climate emergency

New research from Labour reveals that 15 of Theresa May’s current and
former cabinet ministers are implicated in climate change denial,
including Tory leadership favourites Boris Johnson and Environment
Secretary Michael Gove.

On Tory leadership candidates, analysis found that:

• Boris Johnson, Andrea Leadsom and Michael Gove have previously denied climate science.
• Dominic Raab, Matt Hancock and Esther McVey were linked to individuals or organisations promoting climate change denial.

Boris Johnson has referred to global warming as a “primitive fear”
that is “without foundation”. As Education Secretary, Michael Gove
opposed teaching climate science in school, with his spokesperson
dismissing climate science as “a particular political or ideological
point of view”.

On serving and former cabinet members, analysis also found:

• Three current cabinet ministers have previously denied the
scientific consensus on climate change: Environment Secretary Michael
Gove; International Trade Secretary Liam Fox; and Transport Secretary
Chris Grayling.
• Three other cabinet ministers have close financial or professional
links with organisations and individuals promoting climate change
denial: Health Secretary Matt Hancock; Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Liz Truss; and May herself.
• Four of May’s former cabinet ministers have denied climate science:
former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson; former Brexit Secretary David
Davis; Leader of the Commons Andrea Leadsom; and former Defence
Secretary Chris Grayling.
• Five other former cabinet ministers were linked to individuals or
organisations promoting climate change denial: former International
Development Secretary Priti Patel; former Conservative chairman Patrick
McLoughlin; former Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey; and former
Brexit secretaries David Davis and Dominic Raab.

In recent months the government has been subject to mounting
criticism for ignoring the science on climate change. Last year leading
climate scientist James Hansen accused government energy policy of
“aping Trump”, while this March the High Court ruled government fracking
policies unlawful for failing to take into account scientific evidence.

Rising public pressure forced the government into a humiliating
U-turn last month when it belatedly accepted a Labour motion to declare a
climate and environment emergency. But this analysis will raise fresh
fears about the scale of climate change denial in the Conservative Party
and whether it is capable of taking the necessary action to tackle the
climate crisis.

Rebecca Long Bailey MP, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary, speaking at PMQs, said:

“How much authority does the government really have on climate change?

“Three current ministers ‘have denied’ the scientific consensus on climate change.

“And several of those standing in the Tory leadership contest, have
close links with organisations and individuals ‘promoting’ climate
change.”

Ahead of the G20 Finance Ministers meeting this
weekend, Labour announces plans for an Overseas Loan Transparency Act
which will establish a new compulsory register of overseas loans.

The new Act will require all lenders from the UK to disclose loans to foreign governments.

Labour are is taking this action to put an end to exploitative secret
loans to avert a new debt crisis for countries in the Global South.

Labour will take a stand against the injustice of countries having to
divert money away from public services to repay unfair international
debts at the same time as bearing the burden of a global climate crisis
they did not create.

Countries such as Mozambique are already struggling under crippling
debt burdens after London-based banks were able to issue secretive loans
worth $2 billion without the knowledge of Mozambique’s parliament.
Subsequent debt burdens have triggered an economic crisis in the country
leading to rising inflation, higher food prices and increased rural
poverty.

Dan Carden MP, Labour’s Acting Shadow International Development Secretary, said:

“Tackling the growing debt crisis faced by countries in the Global
South is a matter of global justice and is central to our work tackling
the root causes of poverty and inequality and supporting people on
frontlines of the fight against poverty.

“Growing debt burdens often far outweigh any aid or charity given and
can present one of the greatest threats to poverty alleviation as money
that should be spent on public services is re-directed to debt
repayment.

“It’s been fourteen years since Labour led the way in securing the
cancellation of 130 billion dollars of debt for low-income countries at
the 2005 G7 Finance Ministers meeting. And today we are once again
taking action to avoid a new global debt crisis.”

John McDonnell MP, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, said:

“We have to play our part in ending the scandal of secret loans to foreign governments.

“It’s time for the UK to take responsibility for upholding standards of probity and transparency.

“A Labour government will bring foreign policy in line with economic
policy – putting justice, solidarity and fair dealing at the heart of
everything we do.”

Andrew Gwynne MP, Labour’s Shadow Communities and Local Government Secretary, responding
to the news that Northants Council has been strongly criticised by two
serious case reviews into the murders of toddlers, said:

“My thoughts are with the family of the two children involved in this tragic case. Losing a child is an awful trauma.

“A decade after the tragic death of Baby P and vulnerable young
people are still being failed, a situation made worse by years of
Government cuts to the services that are there to prevent these
tragedies from happening.

“There have been repeated failures in children’s services in
Northamptonshire since 2013 and there is now no question: Council Leader
Matt Golby has to go. He failed when he was in charge of children’s
services, and he’s failed since taking over the Council. The people of
Northants need to be reassured that vulnerable children in the county
will be protected. And the County Council must immediately restore the
funding that it has cut from children’s services.”

Ends

Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, responding to the workforce plan, said:

“Labour welcomes any proposals that, as we have called for, genuinely
improve staff wellbeing but overall this report is thin gruel ducking
the big challenges of how to solve an escalating staffing crisis because
Tory ministers have refused to back up the plan with the cash that is
so desperately needed.

“As Dido Harding’s report hints at, scrapping the bursary, cuts to
career development budgets, pay restraint and ongoing austerity means
the NHS is left struggling with 100,000 staff shortages including 40,000
nurses and 10,000 doctors. The consequence is patient safety at risk
and poorer standards of care.

“Expected recommendations to recruit 5,000 nurses a year internationally have mysteriously vanished from the final draft.

“Without immediate determined action, backed up by investment, the NHS workforce crisis will only get worse.

“Ministers should have today announced they were restoring the
bursary, reversing cuts to training budgets, and legislating for safe
staffing on wards. Instead, we have a government in meltdown and a
Health Secretary jockeying for a prominent role in the next Tory
Cabinet. Only Labour will properly deal with the workforce problems our
NHS face.”

Jeremy Corbyn MP, Leader of the Labour Party, speaking ahead of meetings with the Irish President and Prime Minister and other political leaders in Dublin, said:

“Throughout this summer, our politics will be paralysed and our
country’s future put on hold while the Conservatives are locked in
internal conflict over their leadership. Jobs and investment will be put
at risk in Leave and Remain areas alike.

“The Tory leadership contest will most likely end with a small number
of wildly unrepresentative rightwing Conservative activists foisting a
No Deal zealot on the country.

“The next Tory leader will be yet another unelected Prime Minister,
without the support of the public and with no mandate for whatever form
of Brexit he or she supports.

“Since the 2016 referendum, Labour has backed an alternative plan for
Brexit that would work for the whole country, protecting jobs and
living standards. Brexit has not happened because of the sheer
incompetence and infighting of the Conservative Party.

“Labour will work with anyone across party boundaries and do whatever
is necessary to stop a disastrous No Deal outcome, which would open the
way for a frenzy of deregulation and a race to the bottom in jobs,
rights and protections.

“But faced with the threat of No Deal and a Prime Minister with no
mandate, the only way out of the Brexit crisis ripping our country apart
is now to go back to the people. Let the people decide the country’s
future, either in a general election or through a public vote on any
deal agreed by parliament.

“For Labour any outcome has to work for our whole country, not just one side of this deliberately inflamed divide.”