Does the Conservative Party care about the environment? All main parties broadly define themselves as pro-planet these days, so the description is perhaps hard to qualify. Within the party — as in any e-coli strewn beach — there are pockets of resistance, such as the “Net Zero Scrutiny Group”, a group of 20 MPs who are now blaming green policies for the cost-of-living crisis. On the whole, though, the Tories are happy to present themselves as essentially green. This dates perhaps to 2006, when David Cameron replaced the Conservative branding, a lit torch, with an oak tree. There was Boris Johnson’s rewilding project (now watered down). There is the Net Zero pledge.
But perhaps what the party says it will do is less revealing than who it appoints to do it. Let’s remind ourselves of the past few environment secretaries: Liz Truss, who made cuts to countryside protections; Andrea Leadsom, who on her appointment asked officials whether climate change really existed; George Eustice, who had received funding from a climate-sceptic think-tank, and Thérèse Coffey, who once voted in favour of selling off the nation’s public forests.
