Dear Editor,

Jesse Norman is standing again as MP for Hereford. I hope he will tell us when campaigning why he has failed as a minister in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to address climate change properly.

Since the last election, the record shows that he voted FOR applying the Climate Change Levy tax to renewable electricity, AGAINST setting a decarbonisation target for the UK by December 2016, and FOR the Treasury to increase VAT on the installation of energy saving materials.

His department was due to publish a revised Emissions Reduction Plan at the end of last year but it’s nowhere to be seen. The most recent pronouncement is simply, “We will publish our Emissions Reduction Plan during 2017”.

Britain was meant to cut carbon emissions by 57% by 2032 but that goal is now in jeopardy. The current forecast is an overshoot by 100 million tonnes of CO2 – the equivalent of all the greenhouse gases produced annually by industry.

Brexit is understandably important in this election, but we ought to be giving at least as much airtime to tackling climate change. The consequences of inaction on climate change far outweigh those of even a ‘bad’ Brexit.

Robert Palgrave

How Caple