Insight - The Power of 72

The power of 72!

Last Friday, one of our new MPs, Dr Roz Savage, who represents South Cotswolds, picked up where Caroline Lucas left off, in re-proposing the Climate and Nature Bill as a private member's bill.  What amazed me when I read the transcript of what happened in Hansard, was that so many Lib Dem MPs were on hand to stand up supporting Roz’s efforts to ensure that the UK Government:

• reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in line with the UK's international commitments under the Paris Agreement 2015
• halt and reverse the destruction of the natural world, in line with the Global Biodiversity Framework 2022.

This is the roll-call of the Lib Dem MPs speaking, ultimately in vain, as the Government had indicated it was not prepared to support the Bill, despite previous Governments’ international commitments so to do.

• John Milne  Horsham
• Sarah Dyke  Glastonbury and Somerton
• Gideon Amos  Taunton and Wellington
• Jess Brown-Fuller  Chichester
• Mike Martin  Tunbridge Wells
• Daisy Cooper  St Albans
• Vikki Slade  Mid Dorset and North Poole
• Olly Glover  Didcot and Wantage
• Edward Morello  West Dorset
• Max Wilkinson  Cheltenham
• Wera Hobhouse  Bath
• Caroline Voaden  South Devon
• Helen Maguire  Epsom and Ewell
• Freddie van Mierlo  Henley and Thame
• Luke Taylor  Sutton and Cheam
• Pippa Heylings  South Cambridgeshire
• Andrew George  St Ives
• Alison Bennett  Mid Sussex
• Rachel Gilmour  Tiverton and Minehead
• Charlotte Cane  Ely and East Cambridgeshire
• Calum Miller  Bicester and Woodstock
• Claire Young  Thornbury and Yate

I freely confess I was only aware of a few of the newly elected Lib Dem MPs, but I am so immensely proud of my political party being able to find and get elected this roster of articulate, enthusiastic and environmentally conscious people to support Lib Dem causes and ideas.

And on Sunday 26th January, Politics South East programme on BBC TV, there was yet another star in the making, our newly elected MP for Dorking and Horley, Chris Coghlan.  Watch his performance if you can.  You will be very impressed.

Stephen Hardy MBE.

Chair Bexhill and Battle Liberal Democrats