A Tory grandee has blasted Rishi Sunak binning a raft of green policies and called his approach ‘unconservative’.
As chair of the Climate Change Committee, Lord Deben was one of the Government’s most senior climate advisers.
But just three months after stepping down from his role he has slammed the Prime Minister for rowing back on key environmental policies, reports The Telegraph.
And he has also said Rishi doesn’t represent Conservative values on the topic of green issues and that his decisions have undermined the party.
He said: “The Government has failed the offshore wind industry, it has failed the motorcar industry, just like it once failed the housebuilding industry.
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“I am a Conservative because I think that free enterprise works and that you have to work with industry and the private sector to make this country richer and better so you can help the poorest.
“To run policies which actually undermine some of our biggest industries seems to me not to be conservative at all. I have been described as a rebel but I am not a Conservative rebel.”
He added: “I am a Conservative. It is now the Government that is rebelling against Conservatives.”
As well as Rishi’s latest series of announcements on net zero, he also slammed the Government for a new policy which failed to attract a single application for a new wind farm.
Environmentalist Lord Deben has had a long career with the party and was first elected to Parliament in 1970 as MP for Lewisham West when he was known as John Gummer.
He then became chairman of the Conservative Party from 1983 to 1985, appointed secretary of state for agriculture, fisheries and food in 1989 and then environment secretary in 1993.
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It was in 2010 when he was given a peerage and he was appointed chair of the Climate Change Committee two years later.
Lord Deben says U-turns – such as a delay on banning petrol and diesel cars – destroys trust in the government and what business need is “ambition, certainty, and consistency.”
It was last week when the Prime Minsiter announced the cull of several environment policies as part of his new approach to reach net zero.
The PM took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to set out five areas he wants to scrap as the Government pushes through a different strategy on net zero targets which Mr Sunak said were “unnecessary and heavy-handed”.
The green policies on the scrapheap included:
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Taxes on eating meat
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New taxes to discourage flyingSorting your rubbish into seven different bins
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Compulsory car sharing
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Expensive insulation upgrades
Other changes included:
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Delaying the ban on new cars and vans running solely on petrol and diesel from 2030 to 2035
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Weakening the plan to phase out gas boilers from 2035 so households that will struggle the most to switch to heat pumps will not have to make the switch
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Putting back the ban on boilers relying on heating oil in off-grid homes from 2026 to 2035
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Scrapping policies to force landlords to upgrade the energy efficiency of their properties.
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