Our Climate Conversation

“I am writing to you as one of your constituents to ask you to support urgent and decisive action from the government to fix Britain's broken energy system, and protect those who need it the most.
As you know, people all over the UK, including here in our constituency, are experiencing real hardship due to the rise in energy and food prices. It has just been reported that food price inflation is at an all-time peak of 17.5%, £837 increase on average for the year. Even with the government’s Energy Price Guarantee, millions of households are still living in fuel poverty in cold damp homes, unable to heat their homes to keep warm, and facing the same next winter. The Energy Bill Support Scheme is ending, which means that energy bills are still set to rise on 1st April by an average of £67 per month.

The only way to address this is for the government to act now to fix our broken energy system. As my MP, your voice is powerful. That’s why I’m asking you to urge the government to:

• Rapidly expand home retrofit schemes
• Support the swift deployment of home-grown renewables to speed up the transition away from fossil fuels that are subject to a volatile international market
• Provide further support to the households who need it the most.”

This email template (it could form the basis of your message to Mr Javid, too) comes from Warm this Winter coalition that is made up of leading anti-poverty and environmental organisations including Save the Children, Women’s Institutes and CPRE. And it’s exactly the same priorities for Friends of the Earth Warm Homes initiative and the combined groups that are planning a mass rally around Parliament on April 21 – 24. We know what the problems are, and we understand the policies that would enact solutions.

But the Government is not listening. There was nothing about this in the recent budget, just a tax give-away to the super-rich with the excuse of keeping hospital consultants in post (yet only 105 of them opted to retire in 2021). Furthermore, Government is poised to give go-ahead to develop the huge Rosebank oil and gas field in the North Sea. Not only would this decision do nothing for energy security and go against urgent action needed to counter global heating, but UK taxpayers would effectively cover almost all the costs of developing Rosebank by giving Equinor billions in tax breaks. As Ed Milliband, shadow climate secretary says: “Funnelling billions from the British people to foreign-owned oil and gas companies already making record profits is one of the worst deals in British history and an insult to millions facing the cost of living crisis.”