General Election 2024 | Candidate responses

Q1 How will you and your party act decisively to tackle the crises in climate and nature?

I am proud that we have set into law some of the most ambitious 2035 climate targets of any major economy. We are also making good progress on these targets as the UK is the first major economy to halve its emissions – having cut them by around 53 per cent between 1990 and 2023, while also growing the economy by around 80 per cent.

In fact, in 2023, renewable electricity generation accounted for 47.3 per cent of our total electricity generation, a five-fold increase since 2010. I welcome that the UK met and is compliant with our 2020 domestic and international reduction commitments. We have implemented a world leading framework to clean up our air and water, halt the decline in nature and cut waste.

This Conservative Government passed the landmark Environment Act which committed to world leading measures to protect the UK’s nature. This includes the legally binding targets of creating or restoring more than 500,00 hectares of wildlife-rich habitat and increasing our tree cover to 16.5 per cent, backed by our £675 million nature for climate fund. To date, 15 million trees have been planted under this government, more tree than in any other decade.

Other measures include a target to install 600,000 heat pumps every year by 2028, £1 billion funding to make our schools, hospitals and homes more energy efficient, investing in zero-emission transport and £20 million to develop clean maritime technology. The plan also includes a pledge to end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2035.

Q2 How are you and your party going to incentivise farmers to create sustainable businesses that produce healthy food, mitigate climate change and deliver nature recovery, and how will you ensure that the 50% of farms indicated by Defra meet current regulations and are effectively monitored and compliant?

Having spoken regularly with local farmers across Furness, their concern for the health, welfare and legacy of our land is very clear. Their commitment is also to developing existing, home grown produce to enhance food security.

The Conservative Government announced in its Plan for Water that it would provide £34 million of funding through the Slurry Infrastructure Grant for new and expanded covered slurry stores in the highest priority areas of England, for example protected nature sites in unfavourable condition.

Further, the plan addresses each of the multiple pressures and sources of pollution on water bodies. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has set new legally binding targets to reduce pollution from farming, wastewater, and abandoned metal mines. In addition, the launch of the Water Restoration Fund, deriving from water company profits, will channel money from water company environmental fines and penalties into projects that improve the water environment, including on farms.

The Sustainable Farming Incentive, Countryside Stewardship (CS) and Landscape Recovery schemes will provide farmers with funding support for regenerative measures that reduce water pollution and improve biodiversity. CS funding is improving farm infrastructure, such as roofing for manure stores to keep dirty water and effluent separate from rainwater and prevent contamination.

Additionally, the Local Nature Recovery scheme will pay farmers for locally targeted actions which make space for nature in the farmed landscape and countryside such as creating wildlife habitat, planting trees or restoring peat and wetland areas. The Landscape Recovery scheme will support more radical changes to land-use change and habitat restoration such as establishing new nature reserves, restoring floodplains, or creating woodland and wetlands. These schemes are designed to bring up to 60% of England’s agricultural soil under sustainable management by 2030 and restore up to 300,000 hectares of wildlife habitat by 2042. 

The Conservative Government has ensured that farms are meeting current regulations with over 4,000 Defra inspections taking place in 2022-23. This represents an increase from just 600 inspections in 2012-13, highlighting the governments strong commitment to protecting our land and resources.

Q3 How will you stop the development of, or significantly reduce the environmental impact of the proposed holiday park adjacent to the internationally significant nature reserve at Sandscale Haws, which will result in irreparable harm to nature?

Tourism is a key part of our economy in Barrow & Furness; however, tourism must be sustainable and beneficial to the local area. I see little evidence that the development at Sandscale Haws would achieve either of those aims.

If we allow this natural environment to degrade, it will be lost forever. The developer’s plans do not address the challenge that this development would bring if approved and are reckless in that regard.

I have therefore already taken the step of submitting an objection to the proposals.

Q1 How will you and your party act decisively to tackle the crises in climate and nature?

It is dangerous and reckless to extract more fossil fuels in an accelerating climate emergency. Green MPs will push the next government to stop all new fossil fuel extraction projects in the United Kingdom and to cancel recently issued fossil fuel licences, such as for Rosebank. We will also end all subsidies to the oil and gas industries.

The UK’s current climate targets do not reflect the urgency of the climate crisis or what is required by global justice. We would push the government to transition to a zero-carbon society as soon as possible, and more than a decade ahead of 2050.

Elected Greens would push for significant investment in a green economic transformation, alongside the private sector. This programme to include:
• An average of £40bn per year over the course of the next parliament, including £7bn annually on climate adaptation.
• A carbon tax to make polluters pay and provide money to invest in the green transition.
• Bringing privatised utilities back into public hands.
• Taxing multi-millionaires and billionaires to fund our public services.

Green MPs will aim to restore the health of soil and the purity of our water and protect pollinators like bees and other species that life depends on.

The experiment of water privatisation has been an unmitigated disaster, with routine discharges of filth into our water courses while the shareholders of water companies cream off profits from our ever-rising bills. Water is a public good which we would choose to return to public ownership, a move that would also enable the restoration of habitats and biodiversity.

Elected Greens will transform and reconnect us with nature by:
• Introducing a new Rights of Nature Act giving legal personhood to nature.
• Set aside 30% of our land and seas by 2030 in which nature will receive the highest priority and protection.
• Taking the water companies back into public ownership.

Q2 How are you and your party going to incentivise farmers to create sustainable businesses that produce healthy food, mitigate climate change and deliver nature recovery, and how will you ensure that the 50% of farms indicated by Defra meet current regulations and are effectively monitored and compliant?

Green MPs would aim to achieve a secure supply of food produced on these islands and a thriving rural economy built upon farming. And we can do this whilst bringing nature back to life, delivering healthy food, providing employment and support to hard-pressed farmers and growers.

Elected Greens will choose to do things differently. We will work with farmers and other stakeholders, to transform our food and farming system so it produces healthy, nutritious food at fair prices for consumers and with fair wages for growers. We will also aim to increase the amount of food that is grown and traded in the UK and as locally as possible.

Elected Greens will:
• Almost triple support to farmers over the next 5-year parliament to support the transition to nature-friendly farming.
• Conserve and improve the health of the
soil and the wider environment, which in turn would lead to cleaner rivers.
• Offer sustainable employment, decent livelihoods, career opportunities, good working conditions and ongoing training to those involved in growing food.
• Better educate the population about food and health and build links between farms, schools and the wider community.
• Encourage a move to mixed farming along with a reduction in meat and dairy production and implement new horticulture support for fruit and vegetable production.
• Link farm payments to a reduction in the use of pesticides and other agro-chemicals.
• End unfair trade deals.

Q3 How will you stop the development of, or significantly reduce the environmental impact of the proposed holiday park adjacent to the internationally significant nature reserve at Sandscale Haws, which will result in irreparable harm to nature?

I have already personally sent objections to the two Roanhead developments Westmorland and Furness Council, I am also in the process of building up a new Barrow Green Party group hub which will be geared towards practical activism and the 'Save Roanhead'  would be an immediate live focus for local members to work on. 

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Q1 How will you and your party act decisively to tackle the crises in climate and nature?

Greenpeace has scored all manifestos and concluded that the Liberal Democrats' policies for the environment at 32/40 are 50% better than Labour’s (21/40) and over 6x better than the Conservative’s (5/40). We have detailed policies for addressing nature recovery and a just transition to net zero. This includes prohibiting new oil and gas licences and investing in retrofitting existing housing stock with insulation and solar plus a requirement for all new houses to be net zero.

Q2 How are you and your party going to incentivise farmers to create sustainable businesses that produce healthy food, mitigate climate change and deliver nature recovery, and how will you ensure that the 50% of farms indicated by Defra meet current regulations and are effectively monitored and compliant?

The LibDems have committed an additional 40%, or £1bn per year, for the Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme budget. Labour has made no financial commitment to ELM. This could be a disaster for the urgent need to secure viable farming businesses that deliver for food and nature. Nature under the Conservative government has declined, and they have botched the rolling out of ELM. All farms should meet current standards and this is why the increase in budget is essential to allow a transition for farming businesses and better funding for Natural England and the Environment Agency. We are also committed to funding free advice to all farms to support a fair transition. Additionally we will tighten up the Groceries Adjudicator’s powers so farmers are paid a fairer price for their produce.

My professional career has been dedicated for 25 years to encouraging farmers enter stewardship schemes that deliver for food, nature and climate. I have assisted over 70,000 ha of common land enter stewardship schemes. The failure of the last government to deliver on post Brexit agriculture and environment policies was a large driver for me running for Parliament. We all deserve better.

Q3 What will you and your party do to tackle inland water pollution from sewage, agricultural run-off and vehicles?

An issue close to my heart. In 2023, with two friends, I swam the 80 mile length of the River Eden to draw attention to the dumping of untreated sewage. We now have over 25 citizen scientists monitoring the water quality monthly.

The Liberal Democrats will require all water companies to become public benefit corporations so putting people and the planet before shareholder profits. We will outlaw bonuses for companies dumping sewage and replace Ofwat with a regulator that enforces and delivers high standards for sewage treatment.

With regard agricultural run-off we have a three-pronged approach. Firstly we will ensure farmers have better access to capital grants for the necessary infrastructure to manage nutrients. Secondly, we propose once the new ELM schemes are open to all to introduce farming standards to ensure a level playing field for all. Finally, we propose to tighten up trade deals and standards for imported produce so we are not off-shoring environmental damage and undercutting UK farmers with imports of cheaper sub-standard food.

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Our overall emphasis is upon rural communities, and supporting small and family farms using less intensive production and regenerative practices. We also wish to encourage the local sourcing of agricultural products and to provide guaranteed markets, and pricing, for farmers’ produce. This is an approach to farming which will be more in keeping with nature than the current model.

We also wish to ensure that our countryside and natural environment are not disfigured by the erection of solar farms: the only farms in the countryside should be those that produce food. Such installations should be confined to industrial, commercial and domestic premises, or to brownfield sites.

Our approach to farming and the environment is pragmatic, positive and complementary. We do not subscribe to what we consider to be climate catastrophism, for this is having an immensely negative impact upon the mental health of many young people in particular. The precipitate rush to Net Zero will serve only to plunge more people into poverty, diminish personal freedoms, and worsen diets through a thoroughly unjustified attack upon our livestock sector. We need to face the challenges of the future with clear and open eyes, and neither cower in fear of what might come to pass, nor mistakenly subscribe to the hubristic belief that the climate may be readily controlled through the mere throwing of a policy switch here or there. A warming planet also brings benefits: there will be less deaths from cold, which is a greater killer than heat by far; growing seasons will be extended; and the great expanses of northern Eurasia and Canada, hitherto too cold for agriculture, may be opened up to production.

There has been insufficient analysis of the environmental degradation which will result from the massive increase in mining necessary to extract the metals required by the ‘Green transition’, and neither have I seen any satisfactory answers to what is to be done with the vast quantities of toxic waste that will be generated by redundant electric car batteries, or where to put decommissioned wind turbines after only twenty or so years of service. In seeking to solve one environmental problem, we may inadvertently be spawning half a dozen others. We must therefore proceed rationally, and not hurtle towards adopting far from perfect solutions simply because embracing them provides us with the comforting illusion that we are doing ‘the right thing’. Indeed, given that the majority of these devices are manufactured in China using fossil fuels, and then shipped halfway around the world by ships burning oil, we may be worsening our environmental situation rather than improving it.

The likely Labour government will devastate Cumbria’s livestock sector and the rural economy, whereas the Tories, if they had a chance of winning, would be indifferent to our agriculture and gladly see it go to the wall in the name of free trade. I wish to preserve that which is good in our local environment, and to improve some of the practices of our farmers in an effort to enhance soil quality and biodiversity, but I perceive the imposition of Net Zero to be not only myopic, but in essence both anti-democratic, and anti-human.

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Q1. How will you and your party act decisively to tackle the crises in climate and nature?

It’s important to identify what exactly the crises are. So the first thing is to assess what is happening, then find out why, then take action to stop it.

Frankly, I don’t trust the politicians currently in power, I don’t know how anyone does. They have proved over and over to be dishonest and untrustworthy, so with them gone we might finally get to the truth.

The Heritage Party is about protecting our heritage. Britain’s beautiful landscape and nature IS our heritage – the more natural, green areas that we have, the more chance we have of better restoring nature.

We will stop mass immigration which is putting huge pressure on housing and causing new homes to be built on green belt.

We will build appropriate housing where needed, but these homes would need to match the local area and local needs.

We propose an overhaul of our education system and introduce nature and heritage lessons for young children. These will replace the inappropriate lessons about sex and gender, which the main parties have introduced and support, but which the Heritage Party strongly opposes. We believe children who grow up to love nature will become adults who want to protect it.

We will ban Neonicotinoids and other chemicals which are known to harm pollinators

We will investigate areas of modern technology, including LED lights, 5G and 6G broadband, for their effects on humans and the natural world, none of which has been properly studied. It is known, for example, that LED lights damage the navigational skills of insects, but much more needs to be examined.

We would start a nationwide programme of heavy metals testing and treat accordingly.

We would immediately ban all weather modification programmes.

Q2. How are you and your party going to incentivise farmers to create sustainable businesses that produce healthy food, mitigate climate change and deliver nature recovery, and how will you ensure that the 50% of farms indicated by Defra meet current regulations and are effectively monitored and compliant?

I am calling for an open, honest debate about the climate and exactly what needs to be done and why. What exactly does net zero look like and is it necessary. The climate science is far from settled.

The Heritage Party will put a stop to the process of turning grazing land into woodland or renewable energy farms. We need all our grazing land if we are to be self-sufficient in meat and animal products.

We absolutely must return to natural, regenerative farming methods. We will incentivise diverse, mixed farming, with crop rotation that regenerates the soil, leading to less reliance on pesticides and herbicides. The most damaging chemicals will be banned, as outlined above.

We will implement a national programme of hedge building and ‘nature strips’ which create wild pathways for wildlife and link patches of nature.

This will be implemented through the farm subsidy system which will be targeted to support food production and good stewardship of the land and animals.

We will stop the production and import of lab-grown meat, insect products, to prevent contamination of our food supply.

We will also repeal the Precision (Gene) Editing Bill 2022 and ban the inscription of mRNA technology into our food supply.

Q3. What will you and your party do to ensure we protect and restore our rivers, lakes and sea, and especially in relation to Lake Windermere?

Both I and the Heritage Party are incredibly concerned about the state of our lakes and rivers.

Initially we would focus on holding corporations like United Utilities to account for the polluting of rivers with sewage, and for failing to do much to stop it.

We would fine these corporations with amounts that actually hit profits. And we would see fines, penalties and punishments for the men and women directly responsible.

I would like to see a complete overhaul of the Environment Agency so that it becomes an effective means of protecting the environment.

We would push to return to more natural farming methods, encouraging diverse, mixed farming which benefits the landscape, encourages and creates hedges and natural land strips, with the use of fewer chemicals, and including initiatives such as reed beds, all of which should help create cleaner waterways.

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Q1 How will you and your party act decisively to tackle the crises in climate and nature?

A Labour government will deliver for nature, taking action to meet our Environment Act targets, and will work in partnership with civil society, communities and business to restore and protect our natural world. As part of our plans to improve responsible access to nature, Labour will create nine new National River Walks, one in each region of England, and establish three new National Forests in England, whilst planting millions of trees and creating new woodlands. Labour will expand nature-rich habitats such as wetlands, peat bogs and forests so families can explore and wildlife can thrive, including on public land.

I'm particularly proud that one of our missions for government is to make Britain a clean energy superpower by switching on Great British Energy. If we elect a Labour government on 4th July, we will invest in renewable power: doubling onshore wind, tripling solar power and quadrupling offshore wind. We have committed to no new oil, gas and coal licenses and we will ban fracking permanently. This is decisive action to make up for years of inaction in transitioning our energy system and getting dirty fossil fuels out of the grid.

Q2 How are you and your party going to incentivise farmers to create sustainable businesses that produce healthy food, mitigate climate change and deliver nature recovery, and how will you ensure that the 50% of farms indicated by Defra meet current regulations and are effectively monitored and compliant?

If Labour is elected, we will simplify and improve the Environmental Land Management Scheme to achieve benefits for the environment, nature and food security. We will develop a national land use framework to balance the competing priorities on land and support regenerative agriculture. 

Q3 What will you and your party do to ensure we protect and restore our rivers, lakes and sea, and especially in relation to Lake Windermere?

A Labour government will put the water companies under special measures to clean up our water. We will give the water regulator powers to block the payment of any bonuses until water bosses have cleaned up their filth. Water bosses who oversee repeated law-breaking will face criminal charges. We will issue severe and automatic fines that water companies can’t afford to ignore for illegal sewage discharges. Under Labour, we will shift the incentives so that polluting doesn't pay.

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Q1. How will you and your party act decisively to tackle the crises in climate and nature?

Climate and Nature recovery run as a thread through the whole of our manifesto in energy, housing, transport, farming, health and economy.

In energy terms we will issue no new coal, oil or gas licences and we will cancel recently granted ones. We have a target of wind (including onshore wind) to produce 70% of electricity by 2030, with a minimum threshold of community ownership in all new sustainable infrastructure.

 We will push for proper regulation of biofuels to stop greenwashing, and habitat destruction, for example in Canada, and given that nuclear is a distraction from renewable energy investment, and is too slow to be developed and too expensive, there will be no new nuclear power stations. That is without mentioning the radioactive waste that has already been produced and for which we have no solution, the fact that existing power stations are increasingly at risk from sea-level rise and storm surges and are a potential target when we are at war.

In housing terms, we will require all new build housing to maximise the use of insulation, solar panels, heat pumps or equivalent and to have a cradle to grave carbon calculation of their impact. We will ensure that all new build will be accessible by public transport and cycle.

For existing buildings, we will invest £29bn over 5 years to insulate homes to EPC grade B and

£4bn over 5 years to insulate public buildings (schools and hospitals). We will also provide £9bn over 5 years for the upgrading of heating systems to low/no carbon alternatives such as heat pumps.

For transport we will invest £19bn over 5 years to improve public transport, footpaths and cycleways. As franchises expire, we will bring back railways into public ownership and give local authorities both funding and control over bus services. We will bring forward the date for the banning of the sale of new petrol/diesel driven cars to 2027, and of all non-electric cars by 2035, ensuring a sound financial scrappage scheme for existing petrol/diesel cars.

We will introduce a Climate and Nature Act to ensure a joined-up approach based on the latest science. We will also ensure increased funding for Natural England and the Environment Agency so that advice to business and regulation of them can be strengthened.

Q2. How are you and your party going to incentivise farmers to create sustainable businesses that produce healthy food, mitigate climate change and deliver nature recovery, and how will you ensure that the 50% of farms indicated by Defra meet current regulations and are effectively monitored and compliant?

We will triple the amount of money given to the transition to nature friendly farming, to lower stock density and buffer zones at riverbanks. We will also encourage the links between local farmers and their communities by increasing investment in Community Supported Agriculture. We will move to ensure food security by rebuilding local food networks, expanding horticulture and reducing the power of big food producers and retailers.

As mentioned above we will increase funding for regulation by giving an extra £1.5bn to DEFRA for NE and the EA. This would include funding for monitoring soil health (as they do in Scotland). This coupled with measures mentioned above would end the run-off into rivers of chemical pollution from fertilisers and pesticides and animal wastes.

Q3. What will you and your party do to create green jobs, especially for younger people?

The changes that we want to see outlined above will all create jobs. In retrofitting insulation and upgrading heating systems, in building the homes fit for the future and the footways and cycle paths, good, active jobs for skilled and semi-skilled workers. Wildlife friendly farming employs more people but the costs are offset by savings in chemical inputs. Public transport and the transition to renewable energy all create jobs. We will invest in training our young people (and retraining those whose jobs are likely to disappear) to be ready to take advantage of the opportunities the transition to a low-carbon economy will offer.

Above all, we do recognise the need for a just transition, and have been arguing for several years now for a Green New Deal.

14 years of Conservative Government has been disastrous for Britain's wildlife and nature. I am glad to point you towards a number of measures included in Labour's manifesto that will improve animal welfare and our natural environment: 

• Ban trail hunting  
• Phase out the use of dogs, minipigs and rabbits in product testings
• Ban the import of body parts from slaughtered endangered animals
• End the illegal smuggling of dogs, puppies and kittens
• End illegal puppy farming by criminal gangs who profit from animal cruelty
• Ban the sale of animals with cropped ears
• Ban the importation of dogs and cats with fashion-based mutilations
• Ban the use of snare traps
• Ban the importation of heavily pregnant cats and dogs

Restoring nature will also be a priority for a Labour Government. Labour will establish three new National Forests in England, whilst planting millions of trees and creating new woodlands. Labour will expand nature-rich habitats such as wetlands, peat bogs and forests so families can explore and wildlife can thrive, including on public land.

Q1 How will you and your party act decisively to tackle the crises in climate and nature?

Liberal Democrats have tracts of dynamic policies on the climate emergency and I don’t want to simply recount the manifesto here and, if I did, it would be a long answer! But the big markers are that Lib Dems have several policies which aim to significantly reduce the amount of heat and pollution going into the atmosphere, the ground and our waters.

We are committed to Net Zero by 2045; and to reduce UK emissions by at least 68% from 1990 levels by 2030.

We are known as the political champions of stopping sewage into our waters: water companies will become public benefit companies, bosses bonuses will be restricted, and a much stronger regulator created. Lib Dems would also reduce agricultural run-off by stopping the importation of cheap foreign fertiliser, and we would work carefully with farmers to turn to a more natural form of farming.

Mentioning natural ways, our ‘doubling nature’ policy will involve doubling the size of the Protected Area Network, doubling the most important wildlife habitats, and the abundance of species, and woodland cover by 2030. At least 60 million trees a year will be planted too.

A Clean Air Act will be passed, enforced by a new Air Quality Agency.

In order to protect our environment and enforce environmental laws, Lib Dems will strengthen the Office for Environmental Protection, and better fund the Environment Agency and Natural England.

The amount of accessible green space needs to be increased so that all our citizens can share in its benefits, and responsibility. Therefore, we shall protect up to a million acres, complete the coastal path, look at a ‘right to roam’ for waterways, and bring in National Nature Parks.

Businesses and developers will be held accountable by rules and strategy, such as, a Land and Sea Use Framework to balance competing demands on land and water. Our new economy must be a nature-positive economy with a war on plastic central to it.

Importantly, tying nature and climate together, nature-based solutions must be a key part of our climate change strategy – restoring peatlands is an excellent example. I’m reminded of this each time I walk the likes of the Solway Mosses.

Q2 How are you and your party going to incentivise farmers to create sustainable businesses that produce healthy food, mitigate climate change and deliver nature recovery, and how will you ensure that the 50% of farms indicated by Defra meet current regulations and are effectively monitored and compliant?

I answer this question as an ex-farmer of sheep (Soays, UK’s oldest indigenous breed), and as someone who is currently talking with farmers about the struggles they are facing.

I’m going to bring more of me into this and I can also bring together all three of your questions.

I have a scheme which will take wool – at a fair price – from local farmers and have it treated by a process developed by the University of Bangor. The treated wool will become the finest and most natural home insulation material.

Green and ethical local businesses will be set up as companies which fit the wool insulation to homes (I’m in discussion with Lakes College to develop sustainable careers).

Once up and running successfully, the project will be replicated across the UK.

In a little more than a shearing stroke, my scheme will encapsulate much that is in all three questions and especially answers the problems of viability that tenant hill farmers face. Our farmers must not have to deal with the dilemma helping nature and climate versus profitability and survival.

Going to policy, Lib Dems will deliver a National Food Strategy. This will ensure food security, tackle rising food prices, end food poverty and improve health and nutrition. Personally, I believe we need to inject some re-education of food pricing into the public. Staples, such as milk, are priced too low, hurting farmers and not showing the real value of important foods.

ELMS needs an extra £1 billion a year to work properly. We also need to look at other funding options to make for a smarter transition towards better farming practices. I believe farmers deserve more financial support coupled with much more advice and steering from people that do not charge them large amounts of money to navigate through new systems. Let’s get this in place before we start to get tough with enforcement. It’s a cliché perhaps but farmers are well placed to be custodians of many of our landscapes but they need to be fully equipped for this role.

Q3 What will you and your party do to create green jobs, especially for younger people?

We must find some international agreement on sharing global resources, and the allocation of jobs and production linked to this, whilst keeping focus on climate and nature objectives.

Whilst I’m realistic that we are not going to find world co-operation in a hurry, blocks or clusters of nations could start to channel need and availability, whilst mitigating damage.

Lib Dems are famously internationalists and in favour of working much more closely with the EU, but perhaps we should be empowering the United Nations to broker a resources sharing that centres on climate and nature. It can be argued that there is a certain amount of this but I’m arguing for something much stronger.

Closer to home, the bodies for climate and nature protection in the UK largely exist. Such as the Wildlife Trust and National Trust (I didn’t want to make an extensive list, so apologies to all the others) have been around for some time and continually hone their objectives. You guys need more support and possibly more assured income. Government and Local Government must get a shared vision for the position of nature in the UK. This will give more certainty to you existing agencies and more assurance to bring in investment from business.

Add to this a re-prioritising of Further Education and young people, in particular, will see exciting new career paths develop.

Lib Dems offer a handy £10,000 Skills Wallet which facilitates new learning and thus new careers, for all ages. The scheme can be particularly helpful for those wanting to move away from less environmentally friendly jobs and on to truly sustainable careers.

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