Top green Conservative Chris Skidmore is to embark on a net zero tour to show that “normal people are getting on with” decarbonisation, and urge the new prime minister to ignore the “Westminster bubble” that is pouring scorn on the climate target.
Skidmore, a former energy minister, will on Thursday visit green schemes across north-west England, including a home insulation demonstration in Salford and a peat restoration project in Oldham.
He told the Guardian: “Environment and net zero should be bigger than party politics but I wanted to get out of Westminster to show that net zero is not a cost – it’s a benefit.
“If you leave Westminster you see people are getting on with it - the mayoral authorities, the councils, are really prioritising net zero as they see it as a vehicle for economic growth. I wanted to show this in the regions so we don’t see it as a Westminster bubble policy concept, it’s real life.”
Sources in the Conservative party did not think Truss’s tenure was off to an auspicious start on climate after she appointed Jacob Rees Mogg, who has been sceptical about climate measures in the past, business secretary. Rees-Mogg said at an event hosted by free-market thinktank the Centre of Policy Studies the government’s policy to reach net zero by 2050 “is going to be a huge regulatory cost” that the UK needed to “face up to”.
The MP, Skidmore said, was invited to his net zero tour. The Guardian has asked Rees-Mogg if he plans to attend.
“All party members are welcome to attend, whether it’s the Beis [Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy] minister; I’d be happy to invite Jacob Rees-Mogg, and I’d be happy to invite [shadow secretary of state for climate change and net zero] Ed Miliband too,” said Skidmore.
He will also be meeting representatives of Bolton Football Club, which rejected a request by the failed MP and Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage to hold a rally against the net zero target.
“Nigel Farage tried to do a rally against net zero at Bolton Football Club but they turned him down as they are committed to net zero. I am visiting that club – industry isn’t listening to the tiny vocal minority in Westminster that is claiming that net zero is costing money, which is just wrong,” Skidmore explained.
Alongside the launch of the tour, parliamentarians from all of the UK’s major parties have urged in a letter to the incoming prime minister to back net zero, expand renewables, invest in insulation, and attend the UN biodiversity summit (COP15) later this year.
Following the launch in the north-west of England, the tour will visit Yorkshire and Humber, the north-east, Scotland, the West and east Midlands, the south-west, Wales and Northern Ireland, London and the south-east, as well as East Anglia.
Despite some disquiet about Truss’s background on environment and climate – she is understood to support fracking, and as environment secretary she oversaw cuts to the regulator – Skidmore said he was optimistic about her premiership.
“Liz has said she wants to double down on net zero, she’s been very clear she wants to commit herself to the 2019 manifesto that had net zero as a commitment on page one,” he declared, adding: “Liz has spoken about how net zero should be made more ‘enterprise friendly’ but this is showing that the country isn’t just waiting for the government to get on with the job, industry is already getting on with it. As Boris Johnson has said, net zero is bigger than any personality.”
