This Wednesday’s episode of Politics Live (20/09/2023) was viewed with particular interest by Guildford constituency-based members of Guildford & Waverley Green Party, given that it featured both the Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer, and Angela Richardson MP.
However, Richardson made several claims during the episode which, while unfortunately not scrutinised by the presenter, we felt needed some clarification. Members have sent the below questions to her office, and will update with answers if we ever receive one!
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You claimed that the economy has grown by 60% since 2010. This will not only be news to the thousands of local people still suffering through an ongoing cost-of-living crisis, but also to the Office for National Statistics. ONS figures show an average growth since 2010 of just 1.6% per year – a long way off the purported ‘60% growth since 2010’ claim. Could you please lay out what figures this claim is based on, and what assumptions have been made that result in a percentage so different from those given by official statistics?
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Secondly, you claim that “we have cut emissions in this country since 2010 by 40%”. Could you please again clarify what data this claim are based on, and what assumptions have been made, given that reports from the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero suggest that in fact, territorial emissions have dropped by less than 30% excluding aviation, shipping and externalised emissions in for example imported products. As recommended by the government’s own Committee on Climate Change, when we include aviation, shipping and consumption-based emissions – which appear to have increased since 2010 – the UK’s real emissions cuts are a fraction of the headline figure, mainly due to the ongoing switch from expensive fossil fuels to cheap renewables which has largely been hampered, rather than supported, by successive Conservative governments.
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Thirdly, you claim that ‘most emissions come out of people's homes and buildings that aren't insulated correctly'. Government figures show the ENTIRE built environment sector – including construction, materials production, land change, transport infrastructure, and heating – account for up to 40% of the UK’s total emissions. Heating is a significant by no means the largest portion of even this 40% figure, and therefore certainly does not generate ‘most emissions’. Could you also comment on the fact that since David Cameron’s government famously ‘cut the green crap’, insulation installations have plummeted by 96% in the UK, with significantly more loft, cavity wall and solid wall insulation measures installed in 2012 alone than in all subsequent years combined? The current Great British Insulation Scheme would take over 300 years to insulate all UK homes to meet your government’s own targets on fuel poverty, even if it is not cut in the recent trashing of our net zero commitments – costing households hundreds or potentially thousands of pounds per year in higher energy bills and leaving thousands of Guildford residents in cold, damp homes, choosing between heating or eating with some suffering unnecessary ill health and even early death as a result.
Beside these three clarifications, it is unclear how your position in government and support for Rishi Sunak’s announcement remains tenable and consistent with your membership of the Conservative Environment Network, which has opposed Rishi Sunak’s plans and pointed out that many of the u-turns Sunak has made, such as delaying the transition to electric cars or allowing landlords to continue failing to insulate homes, will actually cost the public billions of pounds more. Will you be resigning your government role or your membership of the CEN in light of this contradiction? And if not, what does your membership of the CEN mean to your decision-making in parliament, given that analysis of your voting record by They Work For You shows you ‘generally vote against measures to prevent climate change’?
We hope to bring you an answer soon. It is a shame that a BBC presenter would let such claims go without even a mention, let alone a challenge to determine where these figures have come from and how they have been generated, when even a cursory look suggests they may not fully reflect an accurate picture of the economy or this government's record on climate.
