Miliband says heat waves have led to 10,000 excess deaths in England over past four years
Miliband says extreme weather is already having an impact.
The impacts of extreme weather and nature loss aren’t simply a future threat to our country. They are already here and having impacts on our way of life.
We know heavy rainfall made last year’s harvest the second worst in at least four decades, costing farmers hundreds of millions of pounds.
More than half our best agricultural land, and over 6 million properties in England, are already at risk of flooding, according to the Environment Agency.
According to the UK Health Security Agency, there were more than 10,000 excess deaths, 10,000 people losing their lives, during English heat waves between 2020 and 2024.
And as we know recently, rising temperatures place pressures on every aspect of our national life. We have seen this again over the last few days, with incidents of wildfires from Surrey to Scotland, disruption due to trains overheating and hosepipe bans announced in Yorkshire, Kent and Sussex.
The climate crisis is also a massive threat to our economy. The OBR fiscal risks report published last week says the damage caused by climate impacts in a near three Celsius world is forecast to cut our GDP by 8% by the early 2070s, which will be roughly £200bn pounds based on current GDP.
Key events
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Work starts on building electric arc furnace at Tata Steel’s factory in Port Talbot
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Miliband says Tory energy policy shows they are ‘anti-science, anti-jobs, anti-energy security, anti-future’
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Miliband says climate policy shows that UK can ‘make a difference’, as he accuses critics of ‘talking country down’
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Miliband says young people have reasons to worry about future of climate, but action is possible
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Miliband says heat waves have led to 10,000 excess deaths in England over past four years
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Britain ‘one of most nature depleted countries in world’, Miliband says
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Miliband says UK ‘getting hotter and wetter, with more extreme events’
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Ed Miliband to make statement to MPs on state of climate
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No 10 hints heat pumps that provide air conditioning could qualify for boiler upgrade subsidies
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Streeting says BMA’s tactics ‘shockingly irresponsible’ because resident doctors being urged not to tell trusts if they’re striking
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No 10 ducks questions about whether PM would have favoured Trump being able to address parliament during state visit
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Wes Streeting questioned by Commons health committee about 10-year NHS plan
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No 10 declines to comment on ‘internal guidance’ gagging officials, but claims ‘principles’ that apply remain unchanged
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Reeves says Labour’s manifesto commitments ruling out major tax rises ‘absolutely stand’
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No 10 plays down hints income tax thresholds could be frozen in budget
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No 10 confirms Starmer to meet Trump when US president visits Scotland later this month
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Stop Trump Coalition announces planned demonstration against US president when state visit starts
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Experts urge No 10 to cancel gag on civil servants speaking at public events, saying it will have ‘chilling effect’ on debate
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Streeting says he’s ‘really pleased’ BMA has agreed to meet him as he hopes to avert strike by hospital doctors
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Farage calls for recall of parliament so Trump can address MPs and peers during state visit
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Proposed law creating mandatory duty to report child sex abuse could have ‘little or no impact’, MPs and peers say
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Legacy Act halted investigations into 202 Troubles-related killings of British soldiers
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‘Profound concern’ as scientists say extreme heat ‘now the norm’ in UK
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Mutualistion to be considered as ownership model for Post Office under review launched by ministers
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Genocide prevention could become legal priority for UK government
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Bank of England could cut rates faster if jobs market slows, governor says
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Treasury minister Darren Jones says ‘headline’ rate of income tax won’t go up, in hint thresholds might be frozen in budget
Helena Horton, a Guardian environment correspondent, suggests Ed Miliband has rather understated the extent of environmentalist opposition to the government’s planning bill.
Ed Miliband tells parliament “some people don’t agree” with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. Those “people” include pretty much every nature group in the country
The Green Alliance, a pro-green thinktank, has welcomed Miliband’s statement. Shaun Spiers, its executive director, said:
With extreme weather becoming the norm in the UK, it’s good to see Ed Miliband and Steve Reed commit to act on climate change and biodiversity loss together and with urgency. We’re a nation of nature lovers and everyone can see and feel the impact of climate change. Voters want to see the cross party consensus behind ambitious environmental policies restored. They want to see our government do more, and do it more effectively, and addressing these two issues together is a good start.
Back in the Commons, Sammy Wilson (DUP) claimed Ed Miliband was losing the argument with cabinet colleagues, who were losing faith in net zero policies. And consumers were withdrawing support from these policies, he said. He said Miliband may be trying to take the lead; but people were not following.
Miliband said he had been arguing with Wilson for this for about 20 years, and Wilson was wrong to dismiss this as scaremongering. He said people could see the impact of global warming with their own eyes.
Work starts on building electric arc furnace at Tata Steel’s factory in Port Talbot
Bethan McKernan
Bethan McKernan is the Guardian’s Wales correspondent.
Work has begun on the new electric arc furnace at Tata Steel in Port Talbot after a £500m UK government grant which ministers say will secure 5,000 jobs in the steel-making south Wales town.
At a groundbreaking ceremony at the site on this afternoon, Labour also launched its steel strategy, which it says will deliver up to £2.5bn of investment to rebuild the steel industry nationwide.
Indian-owned Tata Steel’s last blast furnace was shut down in September 2024, putting almost 3,000 people out of work. Many in Wales felt Port Talbot had been let down after a UK government decision in April to to step in to save the Scunthorpe steelworks in Lincolnshire from a similar fate. Government ministers have repeatedly argued that the two plants were facing different futures.
The new £1.25bn furnace at Port Talbot will process scrap steel, rather than make virgin steel, and is expected to cut the site’s carbon emissions by 90%. It is due to come online by the end of 2027.
Wales’s first minister, Eluned Morgan, the Welsh secretary, Jo Stevens, the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, and Tata Group chair Natarajan Chandrasekaran were in attendance on Monday.
Reynolds described the beginning of construction as “great news for Welsh steelmaking”, which would give “certainty to local communities and thousands of local jobs for years to come”.
The steelworkers’ union, Community, called the groundbreaking ceremony “bittersweet.”
The Guardian reported last month that Donald Trump had threatened to leave Port Talbot out of a tariff deal because Tata has been importing steel since closing down its blast furnaces. Stevens said on Monday that the UK government is still in talks with the US administration over the issue.
Zero Hour, a group campaigning for a climate and nature bill with environmental targets much tougher than the ones already in place, said Ed Miliband should be going further. Amy McDonnell, the group’s co-director, said:
As he delivers the first of his long-promised statements on climate and nature today, the energy secretary is right to praise grassroots campaigners for their efforts to highlight the existential threat of the climate and nature crisis.
Miliband does, however, need to do more than berate his opponents. Even now, his own colleagues are intent – through the planning and infrastructure bill and airport expansion – on ripping up environmental and climate protections in pursuit of ruthless economic growth at all costs.
Adrian Ramsay, the co-leader of the Green party, welcomed Miliband’s statement, including what he said about the need for cross-party consensus. He said the need for the UK to show “resilience” should not be a political football. He said protecting Britain from climate change should become a sixth government mission .
Seamus Logan (SNP) said he agreed with what Miliband said about the climate and nature emergency. But he criticised Labour for abandoning the plan it had in opposition to spend £28bn a year on the green transition.
Roz Savage, the spokesperson, said she please by the news this might become an annual statement.
But she said Ed Miliband had “missed a trick” because his department had not consulted enough with stakeholders.
If stakeholders had been involved, he might have acknowledged calls from the wildlife trusts and the RSPB to remove the threat to nature protection in the planning and infrastructure bill, or the Nature Friendly Farming Network’s concern over the suspension of the sustainable farming incentive.
She said the government should back Lib Dem calls for an annual climate and nature bill.
Miliband says Tory energy policy shows they are ‘anti-science, anti-jobs, anti-energy security, anti-future’
Andrew Bowie, a shadow energy minster, responded for the Conseratives – not Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary.
He said it was “ridiculous” for Miliband to suggest in his Guardian interview that opponents of net zero were unpatriotic. He went on
We need to bring back a sense of rationality, of proportion to this debate, because … language like this is alienating more and more people from the important cause of ensuring that the planet we pass on to our children.
Bowie suggested Miliband was not telling the truth about the impact of net zero policies.
Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, intervened, to object, saying MPs should not accuse each other of being dishonest. Bowie withdrew that suggestion.
But he said it was “shameful” of Miliband to use the Met Office report as cover to attack the opposition.
Labour’s climate policies would make Britain poorer, he said.
In response, Miliband said:
We’re in a situation now where the shadow secretary of state goes into hiding when there’s a statement about the climate crisis, because it’s just too embarrassing to try and articulate the opposition’s position.
And look at the central chasm. At the heart of [Bowie’s] response is that he and his colleagues have taken the decision to abandon 20 years of bipartisanship when it comes to climate.
One of the great strides forward was Theresa May’s net zero by 2050 – now he’s trashing it and saying it was a disaster.
Miliband said Bowie was wrong to claim net zero policies would have a net cost. “All the evidence is delaying action costs more, not less,” he said.
He said it was not clear if the Tories have any net zero target at all now.
And he said Bowie was wrong to claim, as he did in a recent interview, that the net zero target was not based on science.
The point is net zero was a target that Theresa May adopted, driven by the science.
So what are they [the Conservatives]? They are anti-science. They are anti-jobs. They are anti-energy security, and they are anti-future generations.
He said he agreed with May, who described opponents of her net zero policies when she was PM as “ideologues at the political extremes” or “populists who offer only easy answers to complex questions”.
Miliband said he could not have put it better himself.
Miliband said the driving ahead with plans to achieve net zero by 2050.
But the government was also working on protecting the environment from the damage caused by rising temperatures, he said.
He confirmed the government was consulting on expanding the boile upgrade scheme to cover heat pumps that can offer cooling as well as warming. (See 3.24pm.)
He ended by saying the Commons was at its best when MPs worked together on this issue.
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