Election watch (9) – the Conservative manifesto

Here are my first thoughts on the Conservative Party manifesto – it’s a large document but fairly easy to read. What follows is a series of quotes from the manifesto (in order and with a reference to the section in which they appear) and then I make some remarks about it at the foot of this blog post. I’m only looking at environmental issues – obviously there is a lot more to the manifesto than the environment.

Raise standards in areas like workers’ rights, animal welfare, agriculture and the environment.

Ensure we are in full control of our fishing waters

Get Brexit Done

HS2 is a great ambition, but will now cost at least £81 billion and will not reach Leeds or Manchester until as late as 2040. We will consider the findings of the Oakervee review into costs and timings and work with leaders of the Midlands and the North to decide the optimal outcome.

We will Unleash Britain’s Potential (transport)

Environmentally friendly homes. We will support the creation of new kinds of homes that have low energy bills and which support our environmental targets and will expect all new streets to be lined with trees.

The Green Belt. We will protect and enhance the Green Belt. We will improve poor quality land, increase biodiversity and make our beautiful countryside more accessible for local community use. In order to safeguard our green spaces, we will continue to prioritise brownfield development, particularly for the regeneration of our cities and towns.

We will unleash Britain’s Potential (housing)

Once we have got Brexit done, we will free our farmers from the bureaucratic Common Agricultural Policy and move to a system based on ‘public money for public goods’.

To support this transition, we will guarantee the current annual budget to farmers in every year of the next Parliament.

In return for funding, they must farm in a way that protects and enhances our natural environment, as well as safeguarding high standards of animal welfare.

When we leave the EU, we will be able to encourage the public sector to ‘Buy British’ to support our farmers and reduce environmental costs.

We will increase the annual quota for the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme we are piloting from 2,500 to 10,000.

We will Unleash Britain’s potential (a post-Brexit deal for farming)

Upon leaving the EU, we will leave the Common Fisheries Policy, becoming an independent coastal state and taking back control of our waters.

We will maintain funding for fisheries across the UK’s nations throughout the Parliament and support the regeneration of our coastal communities.

There will be a legal commitment to fish sustainably and a legal requirement for a plan to achieve maximum sustainable yield for each stock.

We will Unleash Briatin’s potential (a post-Brexit deal for fisheries).

We will set up a new independent Office For Environmental Protection and introduce our own legal targets, including for air quality.

We will invest in nature, helping us to reach our Net Zero target with a £640 million new Nature for Climate fund. Building on our support for creating a Great Northumberland Forest, we will reach an additional 75,000 acres of trees a year by the end of the next Parliament, as well as restoring our peatland.

We welcome the Glover Review and will create new National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, as well as making our most loved landscapes greener, happier, healthier and open to all. We will make the coast to coast path across the most beautiful areas of the North a National Trail.

We will continue to lead the world in tackling plastics pollution, both in the UK and internationally, and will introduce a new levy to increase the proportion of recyclable plastics in packaging. We will introduce extended producer responsibility, so that producers pay the full costs of dealing with the waste they produce, and boost domestic recycling. We will ban the export of plastic waste to non-OECD countries, consulting with industry, NGOs and local councils on the date by which this should be achieved.

We will crack down on the waste and carelessness that destroys our natural environment and kills marine life. We will increase penalties for fly-tipping, make those on community sentences clean up their parks and streets, and introduce a deposit return scheme to incentivise people to recycle plastic and glass.

We will make no changes to the Hunting Act.

We will Unleash Britain’s Potential (stewards of our environment)

High standards of animal welfare are one of the hallmarks of a civilised society. We have a long tradition of protecting animals in this country, often many years before others follow. Under a Conservative Government, that will continue – and we will continue to support such efforts overseas.

We will introduce tougher sentences for animal cruelty.

We will crack down on the illegal smuggling of dogs and puppies.

We will bring in new laws on animal sentience.

We will end excessively long journeys for slaughter and fattening – one of the many benefits of leaving the European Union.

We will bring the ivory ban into force and extend it to cover other ivory-bearing species, and ban imports from trophy hunting of endangered animals.

We will ban keeping primates as pets.

We will bring forward cat microchipping, giving cat owners peace of mind and increasing the measures we have available to tackle cat theft.

We will Strengthen Britain in the World (Animal Welfare)

We will lead the global fight against climate change by delivering on our world-leading target of Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, as advised by the independent Committee on Climate Change. We have doubled International Climate Finance. And we will use our position hosting the UN Climate Change Summit in Glasgow in 2020 to ask our global partners to match our ambition.

We will set up new international partnerships to tackle deforestation and protect vital landscapes and wildlife corridors. We will establish a new £500 million Blue Planet Fund to help protect our oceans from plastic pollution, warming sea temperatures and overfishing, and extend the Blue Belt programme to preserve the maritime environment. We will continue to lead diplomatic efforts to protect 30 per cent of the world’s oceans by 2030.

We will Strengthen Britain in the World (Fight climate change and protect the environment)

Our world-leading offshore wind industry will reach 40GW by 2030, and we will enable new floating wind farms.

We will invest £800 million to build the first fully deployed carbon capture storage cluster by the mid-2020s.

We will invest £500 million to help energy-intensive industries move to low-carbon techniques.

We will support gas for hydrogen production and nuclear energy, including fusion, as important parts of the energy system, alongside increasing our commitment to renewables.

We placed a moratorium on fracking in England with immediate effect. Having listened to local communities, we have ruled out changes to the planning system. We will not support fracking unless the science shows categorically that it can be done safely.

We will help lower energy bills by investing £9.2 billion in the energy efficiency of homes, schools and hospitals.

We will support clean transport to ensure clean air, as well as setting strict new laws on air quality. We will consult on the earliest date by which we can phase out the sale of new conventional petrol and diesel cars.

We will Strengthen Britain in the World (Fight climate change and protect the environment)

It’s very thin on detail – and rather slim on being able to boast about recent achievement. There is very little about wildlife and the words on climate change are very vague and rather unimaginative.

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